Prototype Mr Brain From 1970

[robothut]

I may have touched on this before but if not then here goes. back in 1996 I was contacted by a Anthony Campanile that was a prototype builder for Remco toys back in 1970. He built and discribes how it was built in the letter I will post, 20 prototype Mr Brain robots that were used as saleman samples and trade shows. Pictures of the prototype are also posted . He wanted to sell me the Mr Brain he kept for himself after hereing about mr robot buiulding and collecting on a TV show but his asking price was too high for me at the time. It would be so cool to have the robot in the collection but it was not ment to be.

Enjoy the robot history from a robot histoy maker. You will see his work bench at Remco looks alot like all our work benches. Also note the gutted RUDY ROBOT and the prototype Mr Brain body part on the bentch.

[robothut]

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[robothut]

last of text.

[robothut]

prototype pictures.

[festival]

Robohut, I have both variations of this robot, white body also blue body. Is the white one rare? I know the blue is more common and I have seen the white body one once on ebay. I forgot how much it went for. I can't remember where i purchased mine. Yard sale, flea market ?????

[robothut]

Mr Brian in general is not a rare robot in either color but the prototype is rare and the story of how it was built and how many were built is very cool. I still see Mr Brain robots compleat in box from time to time with all the cams. The smoker is a very odd design, way down in the body there is a little fan blade no houseing or pipeing to the smoker unit, they just hoped the air would travel up to the smoking unit enough for it too waft out the stack. :blush:

[Fineas J. Whoopie]

I used to watch Personal FX. Back then I liked the idea of collectibles but hadn't yet found "my calling". I knew Stan was on the show but I didn't know you were John. Do you have the episode on tape? Could you get it up on you tube or something? That would be awesome!!

I envy Mr. Campanile, what a great way to make a living. Nice little back story on Mr. Brain too. So obviously Rudy pre-dates Mr. Brain then, I didn't know that.

[Joe K.]

Great stuff, John. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Here's a 1970 Penneys catalog page with another Mister Brain chest door variation:

 

[robothut]

Yes I have the tape of Personal FX, they did a live satellite up link from my farm that I had back then (near Seattle). The problem with adding the show to my site or You Tube is that it is so long. I guess if I were to break it down in to segments then it could be done. The nice thing about this old footage (6-24-96) is that my collection was in storage at the time, I had no place to display my robots so when I set up the deal to do the show I also had to clear out my work shop, set up shelf units and put out about 250 robots. I will dig out some pictures and post them for you.

[robothut]

Ok here is the uplink truck and inside the uplink truck. It was a 1000 to 1 shot but the guy that was running the uplink truck was a guy that I had worked with for 5 years when I was with AEI MUSIC, so I knew everything was going to be OK. Now the camera man and light guy were not as good, the light guy almost burned down my shop by clipping a very hot lamp to the wood rafters and after about 1 hour I started to smell smoke. Then later the camera guy decided to move a hanging light and droped it just missing a large group of my robots. but alls well that ends well.

[robothut]

But the best part was Suzanne Whang, oh lucky me it could have been one of the others from the show. my wife kept a close eye on me, yea she had the camera.

here is a YOUTUBE link to a 3:45 long main segment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ7OFqEmMB4

or if you like down loading lrage files here is a 40meg file of the Personal FX ROBOT show 1996.

http://www.robothut.robotnut.com/PFX.wmv

[robothut]

Just poping back to the top so the guys that wanted to see the Personal FX clip will notice I added the links to You Tube and my site. Enjoy. Ah the good old days!

[Fineas J. Whoopie]

Thanks John!! Cool segment. That brings back memories. I remember my mom had a big crush on John Burk, one of the hosts of the show. Sadly I also remember the last episode, John Burk said that they weren't sure if they would be back next season. They weren't.

I miss all the collectibles shows that used to be on about five or six years ago, like the Incurable Collector on A&E and HGTV had a bunch too - At the Auction, Collectible Treasures, Super collectors, Flea Market Finds with the Covels, I even liked Bargain Hunt! I remember you could watch collectibles shows all day long on the weekends back then. Now Antiques roadshow is all that's left - at least around here anyway.

[plasticaugie]

Hey John,

It looks like the meat of this thread is missing, do you still have these images  and text files that you could upload? This is a worthy subject to restore. 

 

Thanks!

 

 

[Brian..]

See the MISSING IMAGES tab at the top right of the page, Plasticaugie.