The Five Best Classic Movie Robots

They come in all sizes, from imposing, lumbering giants to pint-sized wheeled models. Sometimes, they can speak a variety of languages fluently, but other times they can only make beeping sounds or no noise at all. They're adept at fixing things and destroying things. Once in awhile, one goes bad--but typically they function as loyal companions. Yes, we are talking about robots of the silver screen!

In our picks below, please note that cyborgs and androids have been omitted (sorry, Blade Runner, RoboCop, and Terminator!).

1. Gort (The Day the Earth Stood Still). Eight feet tall and made of an impenetrable alien metallic substance, Gort was the movies’ first robot superstar. He doesn’t say a word, but was the recipient of a classic line of dialogue: “Klaatu barada nikto” (roughly translated, it means that Klaatu was killed and needs to be revived…and, by the way, please don’t destroy the Earth). Definitely the tall silent type.

2. Robby the Robot (Forbidden Planet). Slightly shorter than Gort and much more talkative, Robby also starred in the cult sci fi film The Invisible Boy (1957). But he’s most famous for Forbidden Planet, in which his character was inspired by the sprite Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Dr. Morbius programmed Robby so that the robot could not harm humans. (Robby was also the obvious inspiration for the robot in TV's Lost in Space).

3. The Robot Maria (Metropolis). This 2006 inductee into the Robot Hall of Fame (Gort made it the same year) is the oldest robot on this list--though she's doesn't look it, of course. Possibly cinema's first female robot, the Robot Maria (also know as the False Maria) is eventually given human features that make it impossible to discern the real Maria from her robotic duplicate. Still, it's the image of the robot prior to the transformation that has captured the imagination of millions of film fans.

4. R2-D2 and C3PO (Star Wars movies). They need no introduction after compiling more screen time than any other robots in motion picture history. Plus, they've starred in video games, been molded into popular play-action figures, and been transformed into kiddie Halloween costumes!

5. Huey, Dewey, and Louie (Silent Running). These three little service drones prove invaluable to an astronaut-botanist (Bruce Dern) after he hijacks a spaceship carrying a living forest. The drones not only conduct maintenance on the station, but they also perform surgery on Dern’s injured leg, tend to the forest, and play poker with their human companion.


Honorable Mentions: The Iron Giant, Tobor the Great (spell his name backwards), and Terror of Mechagodzilla.

A Life in (Front of) Movies

All this month, the Cafe will celebrate "movie-watching memories." Today's guest post is by Michael Nazarewycz who writes several personal blogs about films from all eras. Click here to check out Michael's blogs. Michael is also an Editorial Contributor at www.ManILoveFilms.com. His daily method of communication with his fellow film-lovers is via Twitter @ScribeHard.

James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life.

My first-ever favorite actor was Jimmy Stewart. I’ll get to why later.

Jimmy Stewart—he of It’s A Wonderful Life and The Philadelphia Story and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and more classics than I have italics—was once quoted by Peter Bogdanovich as having said the following:

"An’ that’s the thing—that’s the great thing about the movies…After you learn—and if you’re good and Gawd helps ya and you’re lucky enough to have a personality that comes across—then what you’re doing is…you’re giving people little…little, tiny pieces of time…that they never forget.”

God bless Jimmy Stewart.

And he was more right than he realized. Not only are the movies little tiny pieces of time that we never forget, the movies are little tiny pieces of time that we live through. When we watch movies, we aren’t just bearing witness to history, we’re making history of our own—through decisions and events and circumstances that take place as part of the overall moviegoing experience. In fact, many of us can probably construct a timeline of our lives using all of those Little Pieces.

My timeline begins in 1974, at the Route 202 Drive-in theater in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I’m in my jammies and in the back seat of a gigantic Ford Thunderbird (and really, were there any small Thunderbirds in the early '70s?). The night’s double feature begins with Herbie Rides Again. I fall asleep during intermission and never get to see what the grown-ups watch.

Crowds lined up for Star Wars.

Fast-forward to 1977 and the Eric Theater at Tri-State Mall in Claymont, Delaware. The film is Star Wars, and in all of my visits to that mall—whether to see a movie or to get a brand new pair of Buster Browns (from the Shoe Boat, of course)—I’ve never seen a line at the mall’s theater so long. It’s my first event movie before such a phrase even existed.

Now, sometimes the memories of childhood are like the closets of childhood: messy to the point that you know what you are looking for is there, but you simply can’t find it and really wish you could.

Montgomery and Loy in
Petticoat Fever.

The next few years of my life are joyfully cluttered with Little Pieces, including Saturday horror on Creature Double Feature; some new-fangled television system called “cable,” which has entire channels that show nothing but movies (perhaps you’ve heard of it); and the Million Dollar Movie, where I watch my first old movie (if you don’t include those annual, network prime-time airings of such greats as The Wizard of Oz and The Ten Commandments). It’s a forgettable 1936 effort called Petticoat Fever, starring Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy. Only it isn’t forgettable. I remember it. Well, at least I remember having watched it. It has since played on TCM, and I’ve recorded it, but I’m too attached to the perfection of the memory of watching my first old movie to risk spoiling that memory’s perfection with the film’s potential mediocrity.

Now it’s 1982, and I’m an 8th-grader at Holy Rosary Catholic Elementary School. I’m in the auditorium for what will be the last time my friends wheel in a projector and play Free to Be, You and Me for the entire school. I’ve seen the thing a half-dozen times, but never with the weight of an era’s end hanging around my neck. I’m devastated to have to say goodbye to the babies one last time.

It’s 1984, and I watch my first ... hmm. Let’s just say that for as much as my memory fails me about Petticoat Fever, it fails me not when it comes to my first adult film. That night could be a column unto itself.

The Little Pieces Timeline continues to build and build, and behind every movie is a story of what happens around seeing the movie. And for every memory I share here, there are dozens I keep to myself not to horde them, but because I have to stop typing at some point. But please know I want to share them all.

An engagement ring
hiding place!

They range from the Little Piece about my first VHS purchase (Lethal Weapon) to the Little Piece about hiding my wife’s engagement ring under a VHS copy of the first movie we saw together in the theater (Sleepless in Seattle), to the Little Piece about working at a video store, to the Little Piece about being an online film critic, to the Little Piece about crying with my kids at the end of certain films.

To the Little Piece. To the Little Piece. To the Little Piece. Until finally I have a fully-developed (yet far from complete) Little Pieces Timeline that rests with this Little Piece right now, my revisitation with you of some of my Little Pieces of Time.

Which brings us back to Jimmy Stewart, and the promise I made in the open that I would explain why he was my first-ever favorite actor.

It’s the Little Piece about my grandfather.

At some point in that big messy closet of my memory, my grandfather introduced me to and schooled me on the music of the Big Bands of his youth; in particular, the sounds of Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. With that education came repeated viewings of The Glenn Miller Story, starring Jimmy Stewart. It was through Stewart as Miller that my grandfather and I began a movie-based bond that ended not when he died, but when he was buried.

The VHS cover for The
Glenn Miller Story.

You see, the Little Piece about my grandfather is not about watching the movie with him, but about the VHS copy of The Glenn Miller Story that I bought him one year for his birthday, that we would revisit on occasion, and that I placed in his casket the day he was buried.

Between you and me, that’s a big Little Piece.

So, with one clever phrase, my first-ever favorite actor summarized my movie-going life in a way 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 words never could.

God bless Jimmy Stewart and his Little Pieces of Time.

The 5 Best Sidekicks in a Film/TV Series

Sidekicks in a series can be an essential ingredient to a film or TV show. The best sidekicks will enhance the story and characters, whereas the not-so-good ones are fruitless, empty vessels just taking up space. Still others, through no fault of their own, may wind up stealing the spotlight from the person(s) intended as the star. The following is a list of sidekicks that my wife and I assembled. These so-called sidekicks are people (or furry things) with whom we wouldn’t mind sharing adventures -- which should explain the absence of Robin from the TV series, Batman, who can stay at Wayne Manor with Bruce... not that I’m verifying that Bruce Wayne is Batman...

1. Chewbacca (the Star Wars series) Chewbacca, affectionately dubbed Chewie, belongs to a species known as Wookiee, from the planet Kashyyyk. He was the sidekick to Han Solo in the Star Wars original trilogy (1977-83). Chewie’s presence is an amazing union of ferocity and geniality. He’s both lethal and lovable. It’s perfectly reasonable that stormtroopers might flee at the sight of Chewbecca, but as he’s one of the good guys, it would be difficult as part of the Rebel Alliance to not monopolize time on the battlefield giving Chewie sneak-attack hugs. Chewbacca’s euphonic and beloved growls are actually a language, Wookieespeak (or, more formally, Shyriiwook). Speakers of Galactic Basic (a common tongue in the Star Wars world and similar to English) can understand Wookieespeak but, due to anatomical distinction, cannot necessarily speak it, in the same way that Chewie comprehends Basic but cannot physically articulate the language. This is how Han Solo and Chewbacca can have arguments in their native tongues. The 7’3” Peter Mayhew portrayed Chewie in the original trilogy and appeared in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and the infamous The Star Wars Holiday Special broadcast on TV in 1978. He also voiced Chewie for the animated series, The Clone Wars.
2. Daigoro (the Lone Wolf and Cub series) The Lone Wolf and Cub films (1972-74), based on a popular manga, detail the lives of Ogami Itto and his son, Daigoro. After his wife is killed and he is disgraced, Ogami offers Daigoro the choice of a sword or a ball: follow his father and wander as an assassin, or be with his mother. Daigoro, who is merely a year old, crawls to the sword. Ogami chauffeurs Daigoro (around three years of age when the series begins) in a wooden carriage that’s armed to the teeth. In an unforgettable scene from Baby Cart at the River Styx (the second of the series and a fan favorite), father and son are halted by a line of would-be assassins. Ogami pulls weapons from the cart and pushes it, with Daigoro, towards the samurai. Daigoro’s tiny foot triggers blades that protrude from the cart’s wheels and slice through a couple of ankles. In the same film, the little boy tends to his injured father by bringing him water and food. In one of the most endearing moments, Daigoro takes rice cakes from the foot of a Buddha statue, and drapes his vest over the Buddha as an exchange. Akihiro Tomikawa plays young Daigoro in all six films, made within three years. Shogun Assassin (1980), sometimes listed as a seventh entry, is actually a composite of mostly the second film and some of the first, and dubbed in English. Sequels to said movie were likewise reedits.

3. Dr. John Watson (Sherlock Holmes) One of the earliest examples of a sidekick, Dr. Watson almost acted as a sounding board for the brilliant mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. But Watson was more than a simple assistant. He was also a moral compass for Holmes, an intelligent man of action, and a friend to the socially awkward detective. Nigel Bruce played Watson, with Basil Rathbone as Holmes, in the popular series of films beginning in 1939 with The Hound of the Baskervilles. Some fans, however, did not appreciate the interpretation, as Watson was little more than comic relief. Frequent Hammer Films star Andre Morell fared much better in his portrayal of the doctor in Hammer’s 1959 Baskervilles adaptation, with Peter Cushing as the detective. Audiences were likewise receptive to David Burke in the first British TV series featuring the renowned Jeremy Brett, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984-85). Burke stayed true to the nature of Watson’s literary roots, while Edward Hardwicke appeased fans with a winsome, affable Watson in three additional series that ran to the mid-90s, for a total of 28 episodes (and five of those feature length).
4. Fozzie Bear (The Muppets) Fozzie is, for all intents and purposes, a walking, talking teddy bear. He’s fuzzy and squeezable, and much like a teddy bear always by a child’s side (or an adult’s side, for those who weren’t so cruel as to neglect a faithful and cuddly companion), he often accompanies Kermit the Frog. They regularly appeared with one another on the TV series, The Muppet Show (1976-81), but perhaps their greatest pairing was in The Muppet Movie (1979), when Kermit, on his way to Hollywood, is picked up by Fozzie Bear. This leads to Fozzie’s now classic line: “A bear in his natural habitat -- a Studebaker!” Fozzie was a stand-up comedian, and though the Muppet audience was generally unappreciative, his honest nature and cheerful confidence put a smile on the faces of those watching at home. Created by Jim Henson, father of the Muppets, Fozzie was originally voiced by Frank Oz, who also voiced fellow Muppets, Miss Piggy and Animal, Cookie Monster in Sesame Street and Yoda in the Star Wars films. Oz moved on to directing humans, and Eric Jacobson is now the voice of Fozzie, as well as Miss Piggy and Animal.

5. Kato (the 1966-67 The Green Hornet) Before his rise to stardom in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee earned a starring role in a U.S. TV show, The Green Hornet. In the show, wealthy American newspaper publisher Britt Reid decides to become a vigilante for justice, and, like most people with money and power, has someone else do the majority of the work. Kato, a skilled mechanic, was Reid’s driver and, in essence, his muscle. The series only lasted a season, but Lee’s portrayal of Kato was so popular in Hong Kong that The Green Hornet was aired as The Kato Show. Retrospectively, of course, one can clearly see Lee’s charisma shine through the supporting character, even with Kato in disguise. But Hong Kong saw it first, and Lee made a trio of hugely successful films in said country. He only achieved fame in America with Enter the Dragon (1973), which had been released after his untimely death. With Lee a household name, episodes were edited together and released as feature films, The Green Hornet (1974) and Fury of the Dragon (1976), both movies focusing on Lee’s fight sequences. In the serials, The Green Hornet (1940) and The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1941), Kato was portrayed by Keye Luke, who also played Charlie Chan’s “Number One Son” in numerous films, dubbed Mr. Han’s (Kien Shih) voice in Enter the Dragon, was a regular on the TV series, Kung Fu (Lee was considered for the lead but lost to David Carradine), and was Mr. Wong in the Gremlins films (1984/1990), unfortunately selling a Mogwai to irresponsible owners. Taiwanese musician/actor Jay Chou was Kato in the Green Hornet feature film in 2011.

Honorable mention: Q (the James Bond series) -- Though he was rarely in the field with 007 (1989’s Licence to Kill is an exception), Q (Demond Llewelyn, who was in nearly every Bond film) provided the MI6 agent with all of his gadgets and weapons. Perpetually exasperated by Bond, Q’s blasé attitude towards the spy is always a welcome sight.; KITT (Knight Rider) -- KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand), a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with artificial intelligence, was so capable that one can’t help but wonder why Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) was even necessary. Had KITT any arms or desire to bed women, Michael may very well have been unemployed.

The Christmas TV Companion by Joanna Wilson -- A Stocking Full of Christmas Treats (and some tasty lumps of coal)

And now for something completely different -- The Christmas TV Companion: A Guide to Cult Classics, Strange Specials and Outrageous Oddities by Joanna Wilson. The author diligently viewed and researched hundreds of TV episodes, motion pictures, and animated features and shorts, to create a compendium of the charming, offbeat, bizarre, irreverent, offensive and crude interpretations of Christmas and its popular icons, including Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and the Nativity Story. Her entries run the gamut from amazing to thoroughly tasteless; however, they are never dull and often fascinating.

The book is divided into five major chapters, Macabre , Sci-Fi, Variety, Animation, and Dark. Each section includes three subcategories, Kids' Christmas, Hidden Gems, and Make Your Own Marathon, which highlight additional material not previously covered and deserving of a special mention. Some of the well-known Christmas staples are omitted in favor of presenting a worthy list of esoteric, rarely seen, and difficult-to-find holiday fare. The author made sure that the majority of the titles were available for public viewing, either on DVD, VHS or online. The details of each selected title are summarized in paragraphs, ranging in length from one devoted to the Academy award nominated 1993 short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life to an in-depth analysis of the 1978 debacle The Star Wars Holiday Special. She also provides occasional margin notes as further comment on the current topic. Other entries in this eclectic compilation include Mad TV's send-up of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a Martin Scorsese-directed mobster film, Raging Rudolph; Hard Nut, a revisionist version of The Nutcracker Suite by the highly-regarded Mark Morris Dance Company; a 1958 Christmas episode of the Western TV series Wanted Dead or Alive entitled "8 Cent Reward"; and Carol for Another Christmas, a 1964 made-for-television movie retelling of the Dickens Christmas classic, written by Rod Serling as a film with a political message. It boasted a star-studded cast including Sterling Hayden, Ben Gazzara, Peter Sellars, and Eva Marie Saint.

The above-mentioned titles are merely a micro sample of the wealth of information found in this unique guide. Television enthusiasts searching for unusual Christmas TV and film topics, presented in an informal and entertaining format, should seek out The Christmas TV Companion: A Guide to Cult Classics, Strange Specials and Outrageous Oddities. The extensive index provides references and cross-references to all material contained in the book, the good, the bad, and the ugly of holiday entertainment, offering myriad possibilities for creating personalized Christmas viewing schedules based on family traditions, childhood memories and genre preferences.

This is the first book by Joanna Wilson, a bona fide TV junkie from childhood, who earned a college degree in film and an advanced degree in philosophy. She draws upon these two areas of expertise to provide cogent analysis of the film and television elements which comprise the content of her initial effort as a published writer.

The Christmas TV Companion: A Guide to Cult Classics, Strange Specials & Outrageous Oddities will be published by 1701 Press on November 10, 2009. This 160-page book retails for $22.00 and can be ordered through Amazon.com and booksellers everywhere.

This Week's Poll: Who is your favorite character in the original Star Wars trilogy?

Jedi Knights, this week’s poll requires you to make a tough decision: Who is your favorite character in the original Star Wars trilogy? Your choices are justly famous, but here are some refresher introductions anyway:

Han Solo (Harrison Ford) – Cynical pilot of the Millennium Falcon. Known to do a little smuggling. Not brainy, but has space smarts and never backs down from a fight.

Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) – Feisty princess with the most famous hair-do of the late 70s. Can trade wisecracks with the best (e.g., Han Solo). Doesn’t like to be told what to do.

Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) – Spunky lad who appears to possess gifts he doesn’t understand, such as dueling with a light saber and navigating fighter spacecrafts.

Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) – Bigfoot-like co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon and crony of Han Solo’s. Prone to uttering growls of frustration during chases and battles.

Darth Vader (Dave Prowse & James Earl Jones) – Imposing villain and former Jedi Knight. Has embraced the dark side of the Force. Wields a mean light saber.

R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) – The little droid who can do it all; communicates with techno noises; handy for storing holographs with valuable information.

C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) – A human-size droid that looks sharp in gold; can speak in English; R2-D2’s de facto partner.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) –Master of the Force, a Jedi general during the Clone Wars who can perform the “Jedi mind trick.” Still pretty good with the light saber. Can make ghostly appearances when needed.

Yoda (Frank Oz) – Little Jedi master; species unknown. Quicker than he looks. Often speaks with nouns before the verbs (e.g., “Stopped they must be”).

Those are your choices. I said it’d be a difficult decision, so may the Force be with you!