Updated: December 02, 2006

Robby the Robot appeared in two episodes of Lost in Space:

"The War of the Robots," Episode 20; Original Airdate 9 February 1966 (Production Number 8521) and "Condemned of Space," Episode 60; Original Airdate 6 September 1967 (Production number 1501).

Created in 1955 for MGM’s science fiction film Forbidden Planet (1956), Robby the Robot stands 7 feet 2 inches tall. Robby was designed by Robert Kinoshita, based on concepts from MGM's art-directors A. Arnold Buddy Gillespie and Arthur Longrun, and from writer Irving Block. MGM publicity material alleged that Robby cost over $125,000 to build. The job of creating the Robot’s plastic body and parts fell upon MGM’s special effects crew headed by Jack Gaylord. On his team were Andy Thatcher, Rudy Spangler, Eddie Fisher and Cliff Grant. The mechanical effects were honed by Glen Robinson while electricians Jack McMasters, Bob MacDonald and Max Gebinger installed the wiring and motors.

Inside the robot was a technician who operated the arms and legs. The first person to be Robby's operator was 5’6 tall technician Eddie Fisher who later revealed in an interview with film magazine Cinefantastique: The close confinement and lack of air was almost overpowering. It was hard work and one could endure it for only short intervals. One of the drawbacks of Robby was that you could not go up or down stairs or any incline. You had to be on a level surface because you could not raise the feet of the robot more than ¼ from the floor. This gave Robby a distinctive, sliding-like mechanical motion in his walk. I had to carry 70 pounds of weight on my back, consisting mostly of Robby's head dome, plus the weight of the batteries on my belt. This made Robby somewhat top-heavy, and being inside amounted to a balancing act. If you bent over too far, the robot would go crashing to the floor, taking you with it!

Robby’s second film appearance was in MGM’s children’s matinee feature The Invisible Boy (1957). In a 1998 interview, Richard Eyer, Robby’s juvenile co-star in the film recalled his memories of working with Robby: I know there was a man inside of it (Frank Carpenter), but a battery pack was used in far away camera angles, but the power was limited in time. The purpose of the battery pack was to keep the sensors, feelers, and the antennas turning on the Robot along with the lights which blinked on and off. Now, the man inside of Robby actually made the Robot walk, but whenever possible, they would hook a cable into the Robot for some above ground shots which, of course, were out of camera range. But we would have to be aware of this cable and not trip.

There was a man assigned to feeding the cable properly so it would not get hung up on anything around the set, but at least twice this man was either asleep or day-dreaming, and the cable did get hung up and the poor guy inside the Robot had no way of knowing it had been snagged and went crashing down forward onto the floor. I’m sure it must have been a jarring experience for him! He would pick himself up off the floor saying a number of choice words my young ears were not supposed to be hearing!