Robot Wars

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Robot Wars was the brainchild of Marc Thorpe, a designer working for the LucasToys division of Lucasfilm.[1] In 1992, Thorpe had the initial idea for robot combat sport after unsuccessfully attempting to create a radio controlled vacuum cleaner.[2] In 1994, Marc Thorpe created Robot Wars and held the first competition at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. Approximately one month prior to the event, Thorpe formed a partnership with New York based record company Sm:)e Communications, later Profile Records, who provided additional funding.[1]

Between 1995 and 1997, three further Robot Wars events took place in America and, in 1995, Profile Records partnered with production company Mentorn to produce and televise a Robot Wars event in the UK. Mentorn acquired the worldwide television rights from Profile in 1995 after Tom Gutteridge (the head of Mentorn) had seen an amateur tape of a San Francisco event.

Gutteridge asked freelance producer Steve Carsey and veteran special effects experts Derek Foxwell and Mat Irvine to create a television format based on the Robot Wars concept. They produced a pilot programme in which a number of Derek Foxwell built combat robots took on three American robots. The pilot convinced the BBC to commission a series. Foxwell was the technical supervisor and senior technical consultant. He wrote the rules and regulations and was in charge of the pit area and the technical team, which scrutineered the robots, got them on and off stage and helped the contestants prepare and repair their robots. Irvine, initially a member of the technical team, served as one of the judges.

Profile sought no input or consent from Thorpe before doing this, and this aggravated the already troubled relationship between Thorpe and Profile Records and indirectly spurred legal disagreements surrounding the ownership of the Robot Wars concept. The legal proceedings surrounding these would last until February 6, 2002.[2] Mentorn used Thorpe as a Consultant on the series, however, and the initial series of Robot Wars in the UK was broadcast over six weeks in February and March 1998. It was an immediate hit, with more than 2 million viewers, and a further 27 episodes were commissioned by the BBC that year. 155 episodes were produced in total, and the show was seen in 26 countries. Two series were produced in the US for the TNN (now Spike) network, and a version was also shown on Nickelodeon. Series were also produced in many European countries. Although the series had various directors and producers, all were produced in the UK by Mentorn, supervised by Derek Foxwell and executive produced by Tom Gutteridge and Steve Carsey. The initial series were staged in various film studios around London. But the stage and pit area became too large to fit into any of the conventional studios, so filming was later moved to an aircraft hanger at RAF Newton.