Forbidden Planet Pin-up FRAMED # 1 Sherlock Robby the Robot Detective

Description

Robby the Robot is a 7-foot (2.1 m) tall fictional robot originally created in the mid-1950s by MGM’s prop department.1 The initial design was sketched by Arnold “Buddy” Gillespie, refined by production illustrator Mentor Huebner, and then turned into reality under the direction of mechanical designer Robert Kinoshita. The robot quickly became a science fiction icon in the decades that followed. The plot of Forbidden Planet has been compared to William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest (1610), with the planet Altair IV standing in for Shakespeare’s remote island. In this context Robby has been equated to the enslaved spirit Ariel in the play. The first known use of the name “Robbie the Robot” was for a mechanical likeness of Doc Savage used to confuse foes in his pulp magazine adventure The Fantastic Island (1935). That was followed five years later by the Isaac Asimov short story “Robbie” (1940) about a first-generation robot designed to care for children. As Dr. Morbius demonstrates in Forbidden Planet, Robby had been programmed to obey Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. This plot point becomes important near the end of the film when Robby refuses to kill the “Id monster” because the robot recognizes that the invisible creature is an alter ego/extension of Dr. Morbius; the Laws of Robotics were adapted from Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot (1950). In Forbidden Planet, Robby exhibited artificial intelligence, but with a distinct personality that showed a (possibly unintentional) dry wit, presumably programmed by Dr. Morbius. He was instructed by Morbius to be helpful to the Earth starship crew; he synthesized and transported to their landing site almost 10 tons of “isotope 217” a lighter-weight though effective replacement for the requested lead shielding needed by its crew. While the film’s poster depicts a fierce character abducting a maiden, no such scene was actually in the film; Robby only carried one person, crewman Dr. Ostro when he was mortally wounded by his own actions with the Krell’s “plastic educator”. Robby’s speaking “mouth” was a monochromatic blue light organ, synchronized to his synthetic voice, its band of curved tubes located directly below his transparent conical “face” dome. The “Robby” robot prop in Forbidden Planet was also used in The Invisible Boy (1957). It made several further appearances in other movies and TV shows over the next few decades, including episodes of The Thin Man and The Addams Family. While Robby’s appearance was generally consistent, there were notable exceptions, such as Twilight Zone episode “Uncle Simon” (1962), where he was given a slightly more human “face”. At other times, Robby usually retained the working gears inside his transparent dome, although the details of his “brain” and chest panel were sometimes altered; in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Robby’s head dome was used as part of a regeneration machine. Robby made few film appearances after the 1970s, but there is a cameo appearance in Gremlins (1984), where he can be seen standing in the background and speaking some of his trademark lines, Robby also appeared in the Mork & Mindy second season episode “Dr. Morkenstein”. Robby portrayed a robot named Chuck, whom Mork befriended while working as a security guard in the science museum where Chuck was on display. Chuck was voiced by Roddy McDowall. In 2004 Robby the Robot was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame.

Frame is shrinkwrapped until time of purchase. Ships boxed with packing peanuts.

THE PERFECT GIFT!