60's Movie Robot

ajward

A robot rover from the 1960 'classic' "First Spaceship on Venus".

http://bit.ly/sWgI9u

Found this great movie in the Prelinger Archives.

Amanda

Martin_H

Amanda, I see your Venus robot and raise you the "Six Million Dollar Man vs Venus Death Probe":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4st0a0gWp0

GordonMcComb

Martin_H wrote: »

Amanda, I see your Venus robot and raise you the "Six Million Dollar Man vs Venus Death Probe"

Great Universal backlot action! Forty five seconds of camera time stretched out to a full 10 minute first act!

Allan Balter, who was the line producer for the show, was a mentor of mine in the mid 70s. He never did produce any of the SMDM scripts I wrote for him. Apparently they weren't as good as this one!

Very nice plywood-and-bondo vehicle from the Universal SFX department. I'm not sure what the under-carriage is, but it looks like it could work for a pretty nifty UV! It almost looks like there's a Bobcat under there (minus the shovel).

-- Gordon

localroger

GordonMcComb wrote: »

I'm not sure what the under-carriage is, but it looks like it could work for a pretty nifty UV! It almost looks like there's a Bobcat under there (minus the shovel).

The machine under the Venus probe is a mini-excavator. It's like a Bobcat but also has the swivel cab mount so you can swing the backhoe around without tearing up the ground with the skid-steer treads. The "sample arm" would be the first part of the articulated digging arm, fitted with a fiberglass glove to make it look spacey. Must have been great fun for the guy driving it, since they didn't have teeny cameras back then and he was probably steering by a view through peepholes or slits.