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Robby the Robot returns!
November 13, 2006
Wanna be the proud owner of your very own Robby the Robot? Or find out everything there is to known about the venerable nuts-and-bolts star of the Fifties sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet? Then give Fred Barton a call. That’s what Warner did when they began work on the 50th Anniversary DVD release of Forbidden Planet (Street: Nov. 14). Contracted as a technical and historical advisor for the disc’s extensive supplemental package, Barton is probably the planet’s foremost authority on the film and it’s animatronic star, Robby the Robot.
Barton love affair with robots (and Robby, in particular) began at the age of four when he watched a TV broadcast of
Forbidden Planet. His passion became his livelihood a decade or so later when he created his own Robby the Robot replica, which was displayed publicly at a
Star Trek convention in L.A. It was too long after Robby’s L.A. “return” that Barton was commissioned to restore the original Robby, which was originally created in the MGM prop shop some 20 years earlier at a cost of over $125, 000. Several years after Barton’s restoration, Robby was sold to a private collector. But Robby’s astounding rebirth was the s
park behind the formation of Fred Barton Productions (http://www.the-robotman.com)
which, in addition to producing original video entertainment, also designs and building robots, led by, not surprisingly, Robby!
Barton’s company is the exclusive manufacturer and licensee of the life-sized Robby the Robot, a replica of which carries a price tag of anywhere between $15,000 and $30,000. The high-end model has a computerized electronic chassis and delivers all the bells, whistles, blinking lights and turning gizmos that were seen on the original Robby in Forbidden Planet. Actors Tim Allen and Nicolas Cage are known to each have their own Robby.
Other tin men in Barton’s personal robot collection include computerized replicas of Robot Model B9 from the classic series Lost in Space, Gort from the seminal sci-fi entry The Day the Earth Stood Still, Maria from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Droids R2D2 and C3PO from the Star Wars series.
Posted by Laurence Lerman on November 13, 2006 | Comments (1)
