The battling robots are back! Twelve years after BattleBots ended its run on Comedy Central, ABC has picked up a reimagined take of the killer robot combat sport, from Whalerock Industries and the creators of the original BattleBots franchise, Ed Roski and Greg Munson. Former ABC topper Lloyd Braun executive produces the project, which has received a six-episode order to air this summer.
Like the original, the new series will feature homemade robots battling against each other in a single elimination tournament style format, until there is one champion. Of course, it will bring the franchise to 2015 with next generation robots – bigger, faster and stronger. The show also will have a greater emphasis on the design and build elements of each robot, the bot builder backstories, their intense pursuit of the championship and the spectacle of the event. There will be cash prizes for winners in the Championship Rounds.
Separate weight classes will be eliminated so that robots of all sizes will battle against each other. (In the original BattleBots tournaments, robots were divided into four categories: Lightweight – 60 pounds; Middleweight – 120 pounds; Heavyweight – 220 pounds and Superheavyweight – 340 pounds)
State of the Art Onboard Technology and Cameras will be used for combat analytics. MGM Television, which has a development deal with Whalerock Industries, will be distributing the program internationally. Executive Producers are Braun, Chris Cowan, Roski and Munson.
A couple of years ago, Discovery Channel tried to launch a series with the same basic concept, Robogeddon, from producers James Cameron and Mark Burnett.
The BattleBots company launched robot competitions in 1999. That led to five semi-annual BattleBots tournaments, which were televised as a primetime series on Comedy Central. It premiered on 2000 and ran for five seasons. Here are some top BattleBots moments:
This is a surpassingly masculine series for ABC whose brand has been female-focused, including its unscripted franchises, The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars. The network has been looking to expand its male-friendly footprint with shows like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
I’ve got a show of me shaving. Might make a good companion piece.
You should also enjoy their new DIY painting show “Will It Dry?”
Are you saying this will be boring? Not sure what you’re getting at.
I enjoyed the series when it was on Comedy Central. I may give this a watch.
This is awesome! I still have a few Biohazard toys decorating my workstation.
I hope ABC will treat the concept a little more seriously than Comedy Central. Showcase the talent, creativity and mayhem, not try to yuck it up. I won’t count on that, though.
Amen. Battlebots had so much potential, but Comedy Central tried to make it funny, instead of a sport.
Potential unrealized. Take it out of the bean counters hands and get some universities (robotics) involved to push the envelope!
This will do even worse than the American Gladiator reboot from a few years ago.
Awesome! Cant wait!
OMG YES! I loved this show when it originally aired, can’t wait to watch it again.
Awesome! Not sure if I agree on eliminating the weight classes though. Putting emphasis on the builders themselves is laso quite interesting and could easily go wrong if not handled properly. Oh well, can’t be worse than what they did in Season 05
I pray that the Robot Grandmaster himself, Grant “The Samurai” Imahara, is a part of this…
A “Chin-killa 2” would be an awesome comeback as well
Well I’ll be! I used to love this despite the limited coverage it received in my native England!
Even better that one the robots in the pic is Backlash, my all-time fave BB Competitor, fighting Atomic Wedgie’s younger bro Skid Mark.
I use to love this stupid show! This is the best news I heard today!
I don’t know what’s inherently “masculine” about robots fighting each other. I think that’s the kind of pass time that everyone can get behind.
Agreed! I was so excited about this until I saw that. I loved Battlebots!
Exactly! As a woman who will never watch the Bachelor or Dancing with the Stars, but totally watches Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, I take offence!
They should have arenas with obstacles or different types of terrain. It seems like everyone just makes a low to the ground robot that tries to flip the other robots over
They made a couple shows like that, one was robot wars. It was terrible. And if you watched the original run most of the robots in it were made to be fun, there were a couple of flippers but even some of those were awesome.
I remember watching Battlebots a lot when it first aired. But I don’t like the idea of turning this more in to a reality show. I want to see the bot fights NOT reality TV.
Grant I agree completely with your statement. Unfortunately reading the article makes me think network will make it reality with back story etc and leaving scarce few minutes of actual competition.
Pumpkin chunkin comes to mind.
So men should engineer robots — and women do what exactly? Cooking shows?
C’mon now, he’s talking about television demographics. You’re making it seem like he’s making some sort of statement about what people “should” do based on their gender. He’s just pointing out it’s a show that had a higher male viewership than the shows ABC currently has.
Thanks for saying what I was thinking.
They should engineer cooking robots.
I have one of those. They call it a ‘Foreman Grill’.
Sounds rather boring now… no weight class… so the one that looks like a tank will win.
keep on trying, ABC. men still aren’t going to watch you no matter how much you keep trying to get them. if agents of shield couldn’t do it, nothing will.
Agents of SHIELD isn’t actually all that good, so not sure I agree with your premise.
Agents of SHIELD is pretty awesome and season 2 has been incredible.
No weight limits is going to kill this. Before it was a fine balance, now it’ll just be the biggest. Take it to the next level guys. AI vs AI.
The weight limit is 250 pounds – so you can expect all the bots to be within a few ounces of that.
Yea it just seems like they are only having one weight class.
Followed battle bots for some time, enjoyed the aspect of home grown bots. What was lost was engenuity as most designs homogenized into flippers and spinners. Anyone remember Razer?
I’d develop a one pound mini bot called “mite” that would be so small, it would easily dive in under the wheels of the giant bots – where then it would deploy wire cutters and deliver taser shocks to the delicate innards of the giant bot…
Watching how the designs evolved, I always thought it would also be fun to make a really long robot that would be designed with the sole purpose of clamping on to spinning elements, and throw the spinner totally off-kilter as it went off-balance (the death of many a spinner).
There’s a lot of cool things you do do with different masses vs. each other, with some thought put into the design…
I was excited to see someone link this article, lost interest nearly immediately when I read “Reality Series”. Folks need to know that anything with reality in it is mostly scripted for dramatic effect and what they are watching is not actual reality as we expect (you know things just happening just as it does with us in Real life) but a false reality to trick you into watching and making money for them for fooling you.
As a teacher I used robots to teach all kinds of mathematics and physics. We participated in a robot competition called RoboRAVE International. One of the challenges was jousting robots, which the kids liked because of the bot vs bot nature of it.
As someone who is a fan of robot battles. I can’t wait to see this.
Oh God! Razer! Razer! I need this show so much.
I was one of the contributors to the original BattleBots production: designed and built most of the Arena floor weapons in my shop in Novato. I thought Comedy Central was a poor venue for the show, but in spite of that, it was one their top viewed shows at the time. People still get excited when I tell them I was there during the competitions and quite a few remember the names of the bots. Iconic!
Anyone know how to get on the show? My son wants to build a battle bot.
With geek culture being the current cool thing, of course it will do well. But there is a lot of footage to shoot to make an episode, lots of things to go wrong and lots of uneventful parts.
MXC was funny and entertaining, abc got a hold on it and changed it to something unwatchable, please respect the sport and don’t make an overblown, overdramatized, over geeked up creation. The original show did pretty well run by people who actually got it and were fans. I don’t see how to do it without weight-class. The super-heavy weights got to be insanely pricey. I loved the light-weights. Bio-Hazard rocked but will admit the Son of Whyachy was brutally amazing. Over all, I am excited just nervous that out of touch execs and producers will kill it forever.
You’re all sick and twisted. I will be reporting you to the ASPCR http://www.aspcr.com/
You will be held accountable for your crimes against robot-kind.