Web Page No 2704
18th July 2020
1st Picture. Robby the Robot
2nd Picture. Poster for The Forbidden Planet
3rd Picture. From Lost in Space
4th Picture. From Lost in Space
Robby
the Robot
Robby the Robot first
appeared in the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. He made a number of subsequent
appearances in science fiction movies and television programs, usually without
specific reference to the original film character.
The name
"Robbie" (spelled with an "ie") had appeared in science
fiction before Forbidden Planet. In a magazine adventure The Fantastic Island
(1935).
In The Forbidden Planet the
story centres on a crew of space explorers from Earth who land their starship,
the C57-D, on the planet Altair IV, ruled by the mysterious Dr. Morbius. Robby
is a mechanical servant that Morbius has designed, built using knowledge
gleaned from his study of the Krell, a long-extinct race of highly intelligent
beings that once populated Altair IV. The film’s plot is loosely based on
Shakespeare’s play The Tempest with the planet Altair standing in for
Shakespeare’s remote island and Dr. Morbius for Prospero.
Robby has artificial
intelligence, but has a distinct personality that at times exhibits a dry wit.
He is instructed by Morbius to be helpful to the Earthmen. One of the rules was
against harming or killing humans; this becomes an important near the
conclusion of the film when Robby refuses to kill the Id monster, recognizing
the invisible creature to be an alter ego of Dr. Morbius. Hollywood purposely
depicted Robby in the film’s advertising posters as a terrifying creature
carrying a seductively posed unconscious maiden but no such scene was ever in
the film.
Robby was designed by
members of the MGM art department and constructed by the studio's prop
department. The robot's design and finish represented a radical advance on the
conventional "walking oil-can" depictions of robots in earlier films.
However, this did not come cheap: As with every aspect of the production of
Forbidden Planet, MGM spared no expense on Robby's design and construction. At
a reported cost of US$125,000 (equivalent to at least $US1.1 million today and
was one of the most expensive single film props ever created up to that time.
The Robby suit was
constructed using metal, plastic, rubber, glass, and Plexiglas. The plastic
parts were a pioneering example of the use of the new technology of
vacuum-forming heated plastic over wooden moulds. The finished suit stands just
over 7-foot tall and was fabricated in three detachable sections: the legs and
lower torso, the barrel-like chest section (which included the arms), and the
highly detailed 'head'. The tall plexiglass dome that covered the head housed
the mechanisms representing Robby's brain. Conical protuberances attached to
each side of the head carried two small forward-facing blinking lights (his
eyes) and two rotating chromed rings, one mounted vertically and the other
horizontally, which represent Robby's audio detectors (his ears). The bottom
front section of the head is a grille consisting of parallel rows of blue neon
tubes, which light up with Robby's voice. This neon grille also enabled the
operator to both see out and to breathe.
Robby's barrel-shaped
torso featured a front panel fitted with a rectangular flap (into which samples
of any substance could be inserted for Robby to analyse and replicate);
underneath the slot were two rotating discs fitted with small flashing lights
and below that a row of five buttons that moved in and out. Robby's stubby arms
were connected to his body with plastic ball-joints that fitted into matching
sockets in the torso. The arms could also be extended and this section was
covered with a concertina-type rubber sheath. Robby's three-fingered hands were
also made of rubber. The bottom section of the suit hinged at the top of the
legs, allowing Robby to both bend forward and swing each leg backward and
forward slightly enabling him to walk with relative ease (albeit with rather
small and stiff steps).
One of the suit's few
drawbacks was that the many intricate moving parts in the headpiece made a
considerable amount of noise when Robby was powered up. During shooting,
Robby's voice was performed off camera by an uncredited actor who spoke lines
into a microphone that was fed into a voice-actuated circuit connected by a
cable run into Robby's foot and then up through a leg and to the neon tubes in
Robby's head; this device synchronized the flashing of the neon tubes to the
dialogue.
The robot quickly became
a science fiction icon and was reused or recreated in multiple TV shows and
made appearances in other films and TV shows these included episodes of The
Thin Man, Columbo, The Addams Family, and Lost in Space.
Robby made few
appearances after the 1970s, but he did make a cameo appearance in Gremlins
(1984); he can be seen standing in the background and speaking some of his
trademark lines. He was also featured in a 2006 commercial.
Robby the Robot was
inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2004.
In 1971, the original
1956 Robby was sold to Jim Brucker and put on display at his Movie World/Cars
of the Stars Museum, near Disneyland, where it was often vandalized by
visitors. Robot historian Fred Barton was commissioned to restore Robby while
the robot was still on display at the museum. He used original duplicate
replacement parts made for the Forbidden Planet by MGM's prop department. It
was, however, in a desperate condition once again several years later. The
museum closed in 1980, and Robby, along with his vehicle, original MGM spare
parts, and shipping containers were sold to William Malone who noted that Robby
had once again fallen into a state of disrepair.
Having built the first
ever replica of Robby in 1973, he was able to carefully restore the robot prop
to its original condition using additional spare parts which the original
builders had stocked in Robby's stage cases some 25 years earlier. The original
Robby the Robot remained in Malone's collection for many years until finally
being sold by Bonhams Auctioneers in New York on November 21, 2017, for
US$5,375,000. It became the most expensive hero film prop ever sold at auction.
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Maureen Writes:
I am so glad that I lived in the
past, it has made me what I am today and I don’t think it is necessarily all
bad. We were the 1950’s pioneers and like the 1850’s pioneers in America, we
hitched our wagons and struck out into a new world of Post War Britain. You
must admit, the last 70 odd years have been quite an adventure.
My first adventure was beating the
odds - You say, in the 50’s it would be “exceptionally rare for a
premature baby to survive” I know I was only 4 weeks premature but I
survived. I also survived being female much to the disgust of my paternal
Grandmother (to her I was a sh’tt’’g arsed maiden, therefore of no use on a
farm)
I played with my Bakelite dolls tea
service but had more fun with my brothers Bako building set with base board,
rods and bricks that slipped down between the rods. I loved building houses. I
had great fun with his meccano set. He also had a farmyard and a train set
which I played with as mush as he did and we had our own dinky toys, coaches,
cars and tractors.
We didn’t have Television until after
ITV came into being [1955] but we did love our radio which still impacts on
every day life; “Left hand down a bit” from the Navy Lark. The
Knightsbridge March by Eric Coates always reminds me of Saturday nights
programme of “In town tonight” I still envisage the London traffic
driving round the statue of Eros and through the busy London Theatre Land.
Equal opportunities, well they are
still not equal, but one has to make them happen. I remember Brian Wragg
at school, made his parents Silver Wedding Anniversary cake in the cookery
class rooms with the backing of Miss Tuffin albeit at evening classes. He
fully iced the cake and decorated it with very fine trellis work in 6 layers
deep. Of all the wedding and anniversary cakes I have made I have never been
able to achieve 6 layers.
I also remember the hospitals from
the view of a child. In 1951 I was in St Mary’s Children’s ward, after a bout
of Measles I had a secondary infection which no one seemed to know what it was.
To my indignation I was snatched from my loving mothers arms and placed in a
cot. My Mother was banished to visiting Wednesday afternoons and Sunday
afternoons only, from my cot I could see the corridors on the ground
floor and wait to see my mother come and go. In hind sight it was
probably a good job they put me in a cot as I am sure I would have gone AWOL
and probably walked home to Drayton. Always the rebel!
News and Views:
On this day 18th July 1960-1965
On 18/07/1960 the number
one single was Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones and the number one album was South
Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office
smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on
the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 18/07/1961 the number
one single was Runaway - Del Shannon and the number one album was South Pacific
Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all
channels) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound
of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to
becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 18/07/1962 the number
one single was I Can't Stop Loving You - Ray Charles and the number one album
was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street
(Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's
money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions.
On 18/07/1963 the number
one single was I Like It - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album
was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street
(Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's
money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's
Division 1 champions.
On 18/07/1964 the number
one single was House of the Rising Sun - Animals and the number one album was
Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Labour Party
Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove.
A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to
becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 18/07/1965 the number
one single was Crying in the Chapel - Elvis Presley and the number one album
was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street
(Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's
money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the
Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was First Mariner
4 photos of Mars received.
