Our First Robots

[Guest]

While cleaning out my moms house I stumbled on two pics of me and my first Robot, back in 1967 I think it was, Rudy was a Christmas present. One of the reasons I had so much to go through at Moms was she saved everything, even Rudys orig box was there. If you remember a few years ago when I joined I was on a mission to fix the broken Rudy, I picked up 2 Rudys on EBay and one had a factory repaired battery box, I got lucky. I'll post the pics, I have a box of spare parts if anyone has a Rudy that needs parts pm me.

[kennetzel]

My first robot was a silver Attacking Martian, which I still have. He's clunky, and beat to snot, but he still works with a little nudging and still sits proudly in my collection. I have since gotten two more, one which works poorly, and one that works pretty well. That one is a medallion version. My second robot was a Remco Lost in Space Robot...and it started from there.

[Ultrarobotman]

While cleaning out my moms house I stumbled on two pics of me and my first Robot, back in 1967 I think it was, Rudy was a Christmas present. One of the reasons I had so much to go through at Moms was she saved everything, even Rudys orig box was there. If you remember a few years ago when I joined I was on a mission to fix the broken Rudy, I picked up 2 Rudys on EBay and one had a factory repaired battery box, I got lucky. I'll post the pics, I have a box of spare parts if anyone has a Rudy that needs parts pm me.

That is a great story.Very fortunate your mom saved all that stuff.I imagine when you went through everything and found those treasures that you were taken right back in time and had the butterflies in the stomach feeling,like a great adrenaline rush.You might consider keeping those spare parts for yourself to keep him going.These are the things I like to read the best on this site!

[WJN]

My first robots were the Marx Electric Robot & Son in silver & maroon, a set of two, complete with both sons, amazing since they were Goodwill finds. I then got a Mr. Mercury, 1st version, and a Jupiter Robot (yes, the incredibly rare, high dollar one) both purchased at Western Auto. My brother got a Cragstan Mr. Robot, red, that he didn't like, so I traded him something for it. When we moved from Wisconsin to Arizona, my parents made us leave our toys behind at the old house, so I lost all of them. And yes, I have been back to hunt for them, without luck.

[Ultrarobotman]

All these stories are great! I never get tired of telling my tale and probably never will. My first robot was the Horikawa Super Astronaut.Late 60's or early 70's.Picture shown was 1971(I'm 4yrs old here)- my first astronaut was probably 1970 at about 3 yrs old.(I had 2 or 3 astronauts at that time period)My mom still laughs when she tells of my very first experience with the wonder from Japan.She laughs today because I cried and shook back then when He fired those blazing guns. Obviously, it made an everlasting impression on me! As you can see in the photo, we made up and were best buddies ever since-

[robothut]

Alps TV robot "the first version" was my first robot and a silver Radical robot "chief robot man" was my second, then came Mr mercury the gold version.

[Morbius]

Planet Robot rubber hand black windup.

[Morbius]

He's to the right, by the yellow tractor Xmas 1960. Remember that morning very well, still have that Jack and Jill casting that's on windowsill. Would have preferred to have kept the robot, replaced him about 10 years ago!

[Keith Palmer]

Alps Television Spaceman (battery-op), July 1967. Birthday gift (age 7) from Uncle Paul and Aunt Mimi. I still have it, box and all. I did not add my second piece for another 23 years.

[Lunik]

As my "first robot" I have to think of the one, that I did not get at that time. It left a deep impression and probably ignited my much later burning passion:

I had to select which I was going to get for Xmas: either a Dux Astroman or a red Distler Porsche. That's been end 1959, at my age of 11 - and I decided for the Porsche. Not too long past Xmas, I needed the Porsche's motor to drive the pulley on a gantry crane, that I had constructed with my Stabil Baukasten set - something like Meccano or Gilbert. Astroman would have given me two drives.

Actually my first robot was that little blue Yone hopper with the Apollo rocket in his ass. An absolutely ridiculous guy, that I bought spontanously, when seen in a department store. If I recall it correctly, that was around 1970. Took another 4 or 5 years and 4 or 5 robots, before I noticed, I had started a collection.

Finally Dux Astroman was a birthday present by my girl friend in 1976/1977/1978? I married her, of course. So much for the passion.

[gernot]

Nice topic, let me join.....

My first robot - HORIKAWA NEW SPACE EXPLORER, the robot with TV Screen and the opening door in front of the screen.

Believe it or not, I never had a toy robot in my childhood - even I was interested in space travel, science fiction and also robots at that time.

I purchased my first robot - at the age of 19 in October 1981, just after high school (German Gymnasium) and before entering the University to study Mechanical Engineering.

I found it for about 5 German Mark (appr. 2 US Dollar at that time) at a local fleamarket in Darmstadt , it was sold complete, but in separate pieces in a cardboard box - A challenge for the engineer in me.

I managed to put it together and got him to work, still there was no antenna (edit - yes this Robot has No antenna), but I was happy and very satisfied to have successfully repaired my first robot.

I proudly put it on my empty bookshelve in my new student appartement which I shared with 4 other people.

I did not know it at that time, but it was the start of my collection and an ongoing never ending life as robot and space toy collector.

Incredible, this was just about 33 years ago.

I never really stopped collecting until now, changed and sold many toys and my previous comic book collection but it still lives in me and the love is still there.

Everybody was thinking in 1981 that I had become completely crazy, but nevertheless I kept on searching and looking and buying robots, astronauts and space toys during all those years.

Attached is a picture from the Alphadriome database to show my first robot (off course this is not the same one).

[Guest]

My second Robot was the Alien by Zeroids, I only found the top of the box, loved that Robot, you would put diff cogs in the chest and it would make his do things or explode, I used to watch the Jetsons and wondered if Alien had a Cogswell Cog? Lol

I got to get that Pic of me and Rudy up.

[Kilroy]

Mine was a brown attacking martian. I still vividly remember laying on the floor, eye level with him, staring at the red lights flash in his chest guns. About 10 years ago my brother asked me what the best Christmas present we ever got was and the answer was unanimous: the Mattel Thingmaker (it was a toy that made toys and it doesn't get any better than that). So I acquired several thingmaker sets and made creatures of plastigoop with my kids. I then reminisced of my other toys and the next favorite was the robot and so I bought one of those and discovered that it had variations which had initially confused me as to which one I had owned but shortly became rewarding in that I enjoyed the variations immensely. It has been great fun collecting the toys of my youth as well as the toys I wish I had, then there is the stuff that was just too cool to pass up.

[kennetzel]

I got a Thingmaker a couple of years ago on EBay. It still works, and I think TOO well. I think it gets too hot. Things that use lots of goop tend to burn if kept in too long even if not finished cooking yet. .But I got it to show my daughter the fun we had as kids playing with ours. She had a ball with it. I got her one of the new sets, and they were terrible, using a 100 watt lightbulb to heat the molds...in fact you can't use them today due to the ban on 100 watt bulbs these days. So you go to the source and get the real thing (maker). They still make the goop these days for the newer sets, problem is, it doesn't smell like the old goop, which I remember fondly. It was a smell of something "new". As Killroy says, it was a toy that made toys. So when you smelled that smell, you knew you had a new toy coming out. Those were a blast but now they couldn't make them like that any more due to political correctness...kids might get a burn...Ooooo. I played with mine a LOT, and I lived with out scars. Anyway, thanks, Killroy, for bringing up the Thingmaker. Great memories in that thing. In fact I just used it a few weeks ago to make bats and spiders for Halloween, so I'm still having fun with it. Can't beat the classics.

[Krel]

Kennetzel, your Thingmaker may not be broken. The original Thingmaker was designed to heat the molds to about 350 degrees to cure the latex plasti-goop. The newer plasti-goop may be designed to cure at a lower temperature that the light bulb would produce. I loved my thing maker as a kid, and I never once burned myself with it in all the years I played with it. I'm just sorry that Mattel never made the Major Matt Mason set they considered. I guess they figured it would be in conflict with the larger figure.

If you will recall, with the original Thingmaker there was always a patina of goop on the molds that you could never scrape off. That is why Mattel stopped making the Thingmaker sets and plasti-goop. Their research indicated that that layer of goop on the molds had the potential to become a bacteria growth media. It was not guaranteed to become one, but Mattel decided to not take the chance, and stopped producing the Thingmaker sets and plasti-goop.

My first toy robot was in the early 60s, a blue Robby the Robot, with a control box with two buttons, and a grill for a 'face'. The thing I really stood out about to me, was that the hands were of red rubber, just like on a pencil eraser. I don't know what company made it, but I wish I did, and it's name. My second robot was the REMCO "Lost In Space" Robot, mine was blue and red. My third robot, I don't know the name, or who produced it. It was gold and would walk along the floor with wheels on the bottom of it's feet. It would walk, then stop as it's chest panels swung open and two transparent machine guns with red lights in them would pop out. The lights would flash as it made a rat-a-tat-tat sound, then the guns would retract, the chest panels would close, and the robot would continue walking.

David.