Robby the Robot! – The Pop Blog

The iconic Robby the Robot suit is from the film Forbidden Planet (1956) and it sold at an auction in 2017 for a total of 5.3 million dollars.

The original Robby the Robot suit weighs approximately 120 pounds, and it consists of three main interlocking sections:

1.     His intricate “head”

2.     The upper torso with bellows-jointed arms

3.     The legs; constructed of Royalite plastic, metal, rubber, wood, acetate, and Perspex, with a 1950s pair of men’s size 10.5B black leather loafers found inside Robby’s feet

Robby was designed by Robert Kinoshita, Arnold Gillespie, Irving Block, Mentor Huebner, and Arthur Lonergan, and was built at MGM for around $100,000. All of his parts were created in MGM’s prop shop. The leather shop primarily in fact. Why? Because of its advanced tooling capabilities. Who wore the Robby suit in the film? Frankie Carpenter who was an actor/stuntman and former child star Frankie Darro alternately wore the suit in the film.

Royalite plastic was used for his head, feet, and upper and lower torso. All the spheres on Robby, which are the arm gimbals, legs, and dome, were made of Lumarith (acetate). Also, metal, rubber, wood, and Perspex were used in the construction of Robby. Resistors on either side of Robby’s front neon tubes blink (which give him the appearance of speaking). Robby ran on five 12-volt DC motors, and was also sometimes powered by a cable run from his remote control panel on wheels to his heel.

Forbidden Planet was a huge hit, and since Robby was the film’s star, he did many events and special occasions. Including being there at the film’s premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Also, he was shipped around the country on a promotional tour. Robby was reused in different projects, such as The Invisible Boy (1957), Gremlins (1984) and episodes of the TV series Lost in Space, The Addams Family, and The Twilight Zone. Robby was also honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in a special retrospective of Forbidden Planet. To which he was on display at the Academy for two months.

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