Robby was the brainchild of, and designed by industrial designer, Japanese-American engineer Robert Kinoshita. It was built in mid-1955 by the MGM prop department, at a reported cost of $125,000, to 'star' in the epic science fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956) and its B-movie followup The Invisible Boy (1957) a year later. Robby the Robot has...
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Culver City, California, USA
Height
6' 11" (2.11 m)
Profession
Actor
Star Sign
Cancer
#
Fact
1
Built in 1955 for $125000.00 (1,126,773.05 in Febuary 2016) dollars.
2
Robby's exact twin from TV and Movie fame is owned by HighTechScience.org in Florida, USA. They own the world's largest robot collection which is loaned to museums across the United States.
3
He speaks 188 languages.
4
He made a personal appearance at the opening of 'This is Tomorrow' at London's Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1956. The event is sometimes regarded as the first launch of 'Pop Art'.
Robby was designed by Robert Kinoshita, and built in mid-1955 by the MGM prop department, at a reported cost of $125,000.00.
7
Robby stands at a height of 7' 6" tall, weighs about 300 lbs., and was originally operated by an MGM special effects technician named 'Glen Robinson' who subsequently worked on MGM's Logan's Run (1976).
8
Robby's voice was provided by talented actor and announcer Marvin Miller.
9
Robby is now owned by the top Forbidden Planet collector in the world, film director Bill Malone.
10
The Barton brothers completed their full-size replica of Robby in the spring of 1975, and celebrated by booking him at as many Star Trek and sci-fi conventions as they could. Robby was a big hit, a major media star once again, even though the clone made all the personal appearances while the original MGM robot stood gathering dust in an Orange County movie museum.
11
Today, Robby the Robot is a superstar of science fiction, appearing first in Forbidden Planet (1956). Some would say he is the perfect realization of Isaac Asimov's famous "Three Laws of Robotics", which Asimov first promulgated in his 1950 story collection, I, Robot.
$1.7 Million
