You can probably tell how old someone is by which series they first think of if you say the name Bob Block to them. The first thing that comes into my head is early 'Rentaghost' with the Mumford / Davenport / Claypole trio, but Lisa is just a bit younger than me, so leans more towards the later 'Don't Go Into The Cellar!" stuff.
By my standards, you're terribly young if you immediately reply with 'Galloping Galaxies!' but anyone who thinks of 'Pardon My Genie' or 'Roberts Robots' must be even more ancient than me!
But what's interesting is seeing how Bob is not afraid to reuse storylines and situations in his various series, knowing that each new generation of viewers will come to them fresh.
We've only scratched the surface of this with our look at 'Roberts Robots' which will go onto Episode 23 of 'Round The Archives' but the moment a private detective (played here by Richard Davies) turned up in the first episode ('Follow That Robot') we did begin to get a feeling of deja vu as a similar character features in 'Rentaghost' circa 1980, this time played by Tim Stern.
'Roberts Robots' gets one of the shortest descriptions on anything we've ever read on Wikipedia and apparently nobody can be bothered to add any plot details on IMDb, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. It certainly attracts some decent actors from week to week and although there are the inevitable sequences involving speeded-up film or custard pies there are still moments that raise a smile.
Eric's bolshie attitude as to whether robots are just slaves by another name will one day be a problem that society will have to consider and Katie's relationship with the gas cooker is worthy of 'The Goon Show' in its surrealism.
'Follow That Robot' has Dudley Jones from 'Doctor Who : The Tenth Planet' sharing a scene with Larry Noble (Pinder from 'Blake's 7 : Orbit') which isn't something you get to see every day.
Episode 4 ('Dial C For Chaos') even gives small parts to Christoper Biggins (another connection with 'Rentaghost') and a certain Sylveste McCoy, as he was then known.
Daft it may be, but I'm not averse to a bit of daft, as regular listeners might have noticed. I'm never going to claim that 'Roberts Robots' is a work of genius, but it's solid enough for what it has to do and Bob's scripts are frankly more reliable than many of the characters that feature in them.
And that in itself is no mean achievement.
(By Andrew Trowbridge)
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