Robot Wars (TV series)/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The characters page for the popular robotic combat show, Robot Wars. This page will feature some of the programme's most notable competitors from both the classic and modern eras of the show, as well as the personalities outside the warzone. To avoid cluttering up the page, links will be provided for the following subpages to make the experience less exhaustive:

The House Robots

Sir Killalot

  • Achilles' Heel: Even the mighiest of House Robots has a weakness: he is petrol driven, and thus prone to catching fire as he did a few times. Funny to watch, not so much for him! One Series 7 fight exposed another weakness; although sturdy, the tracks are vulnerable to attack, as demonstrated when Storm II rammed Supernova straight into Killalot, and ripped his right-hand track clean off.
  • The Big Bad: Until Mr. Psycho's arrival.
  • Blood Knight: Take a look at him, he's like some cybernetically revived evil knight.
  • Crush! Kill! Destroy!: Ironic, considering his claw was fashioned from the "Jaws of Life", used to cut people free from wreckages.
  • Humiliation Conga: Both the giver and taker of this trope, shared with the other House Robots.
  • Informed Attribute: It was repeatedly stated that Sir Killalot weighed 280kg. He actually weighed 520kg.
  • Jousting Lance: Used to pick up robots and drop them in the Pit.
  • The Juggernaut
  • Knight in Shining Armour: With glowing red eyes and a crushing claw.
  • Mighty Glacier: Was until The Sixth Wars the heaviest House Robot, clocking in at 520 Kilos. He was also very slow too, at just 5mph.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: In 2016, he is twice as fast as he used to be, so good luck keeping away from him!
  • Red Baron: The Undisputed Titan of Mechanized Warfare.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning
  • Shout-Out: To Sir Lancelot of the King Arthur legends.
  • Tin Tyrant
  • Took a Level in Badass: When Sir Killalot was brought back in 2016 for the reboot, he was more heavily armoured, weighed 230kg more than he did a decade previously, and his top speed was doubled. He has the weight of Mr. Psycho, with the speed of Tornado.
  • The Undefeated: He remains the only House Robot to have never been flipped over by a competitor, although Apollo came extremely close to doing so.

Dead Metal

  • Awesome but Impractical: The saw was originally on a ferocious-looking swinging arm, but didn't actually work. In series 3 it was revamped so it did work, and the saw mechanism was now far more compact.
  • Frankenstein's Monster: Chris Reynolds, who built the original House Robots, suggested Dead Metal was created when a bunch of junk parts came to life and fused together.
  • Sword Sparks: Saw sparks, more accurately
  • Scary Scorpions
  • Took a Level in Badass: Dead Metal is now 3 times heavier than in the original series (112kg to 343kg), slightly faster (12mph to 13 mph), and has both a bigger reach (1.4 meter wide claws) and a nastier sting (3,000rpm saw to a 4,000rpm magnesium tipped saw).

Shunt

  • An Axe to Grind
  • The Brute
  • Construction Is Awesome: he is based on a bulldozer, after all.
  • Lightning Bruiser: At first. When the weight limit was increased to 100kg, Shunt lost a lot of his pushing power. They fixed this by amping the power of his axe Up to Eleven. He still had a great deal of power for his size, despite being the smallest house robot. Even after he was rebuild for the revival in 2016, he remained the lightest of the House Robots weighing in at a still burly 327kg. He also reaches speeds of 11mph, which is roughly the same top speed as Terrorhurtz.
  • Ramming Always Works
  • Ship Tease: Jonathan Pearce implied that Shunt and Matilda might of been intimate.

Matilda

  • Chainsaw Good: In the first two wars, that is. Afterwards, with more robots gaining thicker armour, Matilda's chainsaw became useless. It was replaced in series 5 with a 27kg Flywheel. It was much more destructive.
  • The Chew Toy: Matilda was the first house robot to be flipped (by Recyclops in Series 1), may have been flipped or otherwise attacked by competitors more than any other house robot, and on one spectacular occasion, literally ended up as a chew toy for Razer.
  • The Dark Chick
  • Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Matilda seems to be a cross between a triceratops and a hippo or rhino.
  • Lightning Bruiser: As of 2016, she weighs a hefty 350kg and can hit 14mph top speed, making her the fastest House Robot still in service.
  • Red Baron: The Matriarch of Mayhem.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her LED eyes now have a sinister red glow to them.
  • The Smurfette Principle: As far as the House Robots go, Matilda is the only one who is female.
  • Took a Level in Badass / Everything's Better with Spinning: The aforementioned flywheel.
    • Even more so in 2016, Matilda could now reach 14mph top speeds, was three times heavier at 350kg, while her flywheel bottom weighed 35kg and was made from HARDOX, and her tusks (now the whole head) operated with 800psi of lift.

Sgt. Bash

Mr. Psycho

Growler

  • Angry Guard Dog
  • Canine Companion: To Mr. Psycho
  • Expy: Of Bill Sykes' dog Bullseye.
  • Kill It with Fire: Growler has a rear mounted flamethrower, but it was very rarely used in battle.
  • Lightning Bruiser: one of the heaviest and fastest house robots.
  • Ramming Always Works: With 17mph top speeds and 450kg behind him, Growler can do some serious damage just by charging into his prey at high speeds. Both Dominator II and SMIDSY learned this the hard way in their 2nd Round clash in Series 6.

Cassius Chrome

Refbot

Other Notable Robots

Diotoir (Entered with Nemesis in Series 1+2)

(Heat Finalist Series 3/5, Tag Team Terror Champion w/ Pussycat; Seeded 21st in Series 4)

Win Record: 13 victories, 13 defeats

  • Born Unlucky: Oh dear... fearing a repeat of the customs incident in Series 3, the team brought Diotior with them in a disassembled state for Series 4. However, when they got robot to the studio (intact of course), they team discovered that their firing mechanism for the flipper had broken, leaving it weaponless, then they learned that the robot was overweight, so they removed the top armour, exposing the wheels and internals. These factors all culminated in a dreary Series 4 campaign that only lasted about 5 seconds!
  • The Bus Came Back: Even if it was short lived, and robot was a recycled loanerbot, it was great to see Diotior and its captain, Peter Redmond, back again for the World Series!
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: An obvious joke entry, covered in highly flammable fur with a rather ineffective weapon. But its predecessor Nemesis (which had an even less effective weapon), defeated a house robot and went toe to toe with a future champion, Diotoir itself reached 2 heat finals, reached the semis of the First World Championship, made the final of the International championship, the finals of the Celebrity Special, won the Tag Team Terror and defeated the mighty Tornado in Series 5 (Team Tornado called it the most powerful 2WD pusher they'd ever seen.)
  • Incendiary Exponent: Diotoir caught fire in every single fight it had. And it was glorious.
    • Intentionally taken to its extreme in one of the exhibition matches at the end of series 2. The lineup was Sgt. Bash, Nemesis and a similarly flammable sacrificial robot built for the occasion. The latter two were sprayed with paraffin before the fight. At the beginning, Bash fired the flamethrower once. Hilarity Ensued.
  • Legacy Character: Its full name in its first appearance was Díotoír, Son of Nemesis.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Díotíor was never the most menacing robot in the show's history, but it definitely has the capacity to win a few fights, and even demonstrated incredible resilience against Tornado.
  • Man on Fire: Well, it was designed to look like a face that is on fire.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Doubles up as Meaningful Name. It may not sound threatening at first, but check what it means in Gaelic. Díotoír translates to "Annihilator".

Kan-Opener

(2 time Annihilator Champion)

Win Record: 9 victories, 4 defeats

  • Animal Motif: Appears to be loosely based off a crab, often described as such.
  • Dark Horse Victory: The only robot in history to ever win 2 separate Annihilators, and beat highly fancied opponents in the finals like Thermidor II and Ripper to do so. Funnily enough, Kan-Opener never won a battle outside of these competitions.
  • Fatal Flaw: Getting its claws stuck inside another robot was a major one for Kan-Opener; in Series 6, not only did it get stuck in with Demolition Man, but it left itself vulnerable to a brutal assault from Fluffy, who ripped it open and immobilised it.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Unlike other robots that had multiple iterations, Kan-Opener differentiates itself with letters instead of numbers. The latest version we saw on TV in 2016 was the J-Spec version, while the one that won the Annihilator in 2004 was the H-Spec version.
  • Left Stuck After Attack: Kan-Opener's biggest flaw; getting stuck in with the claws wasn't an issue... getting them out again on the other hand, was. This cost it dearly in Series 7, when it spent the entire battle with one of its claws embedded in one of its opponents.
  • Running Gag: Kan-Opener never made it past Round 1 in any domestic championship it entered, and only ever won a battle in an Annihilator.
  • Victory by Endurance: How the team/robot managed to win the Annihilators, by mostly staying out of harm's way and getting involved when necessary. The team stated that in this type of competition, surviving is what really counts, as opposed to the main event in which they only get one shot.

Presenters and Judges

Jeremy Clarkson (Series 1 Presenter)

  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Jerkass: "How long did that take to build? I reckon it took two months to go two yards." And his infamous: "That is the worst robot I've ever seen in my life. And it crossed the finish line twice."
  • Unperson: He isn't mentioned in any tie-in media, and all footage of him was removed from "The First Great War", a VHS release of highlights from the first series. Just as well, really. He didn't exactly hold the show in high regard.

Craig Charles (Presenter from Series 2-7)

Craig: So, why did you call your robot Inquisitor?
Inquisitor team: Red Dwarf.
Craig: Never heard of it!

  • Catch Phrase: "LET THE WARS BEGIN!"
    • Ending every episode with a four-line poem ending in "on Robot Wars".
    • "[Robot] GOES MARCHING ON!"
    • "Too close to call, we'll have to go to the judges on that one."
  • Large Ham

Phillipa Forrester (Series 1-3, 5-6 & Extreme II Pit Reporter)

Julia Reed (Series 4 & Extreme Pit Reporter)

Present from Series 4/Heat A to Extreme I/Episode 15

Jayne Middlemiss (Series 7 Pit Reporter)

Jonathan Pearce (Commentator)

  • The Constant: While presenters and judges have come and gone, Jonathan has been a major part of Robot Wars since day one.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Sometimes, he would get facts about competitors and their history wrong (for example, referring to Terror-Bull as newcomers during Series 6 when they had fought in Series 4). Also, he referred to Killertron as a former Grand Finalist when it arrived in series 2, when it previously reached the heat final. He didn't correct this mistake as far as three years later, where he referred to it as a two-time Grand Finalist in its final fight. Also called Tornado's 'Anti-Crusher Web' an 'Anti-Pit Device', making Tornado's Series 6 championship win a lot more controversial.
  • The Hyena: He was well-known for his occasional laughing fits during matches. Especially obvious when Diotoir caught fire or when Firestorm became the first robot thrown out of the arena.
  • Large Ham: Oh, yeah. Becomes a real case of Large Ham & Cheese if Wheely Big Cheese happens to be in the arena.
  • Motor Mouth: Sometimes, especially his commentary here.
  • The Voice: For the longest time, all we knew about JP is his voice, as he never made an on-screen appearance. Finally averted as of Series 5, where we see the man in the flesh in his commentary box for the first time.

Professor Noel Sharkey (Head Judge)

Present from Series 1/Heat A to Series 10/World Series Episode 2

Professor Noel Sharkey was the Head Judge on the show's panel of judges. His role along with two others was to judge the performances of each competing robot in the given battle based on four criteria: Style, Control, Damage, and Aggression (though Style was phased out in the reboot). It is likely that he was the one who would relay the judges' results and rely them to the host when he announces the winner(s).

  • The Constant: Like JP, he has been a part of Robot Wars since the very beginning among the show's panel of judges.
  • Fighting Irish: He was originally from Ireland, given his Irish brogue.
  • The Judge: His job is to pick a winning robot or two from the battle based on the four criteria mentioned above.
  • Suddenly Voiced: It wasn't until the 6th Wars that we finally got to hear him speak, which was anytime he spoke to Jonathan Pearce before a heat final.

Stuart McDonald (Voiceover & Director)

Present from Series 1/Heat A to Series 7/Third World Championship

Stuart McDonald has been involved with the show since the very beginning, acting as the voiceover that introduces the host, the robots as they enter the arena, and counting down to activate. He was also the show's director, so he played a fairly large role in the program. Like almost everyone else from the classic era of Robot Wars, he didn't reprise his role in the 2016 revival.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the master of mayhem: Craig Charles!
Roboteers, stand by...
3, 2, 1, Activate!
Cease!

  • The Constant: Had been a consistent part of the show's classic era, being involved in every episode.
  • Fake American: He had also acted as the voiceover for the American versions of the show (which were filmed in the UK studio). During these series, he would put on a surprisingly convincing American accent.
  • Hammy Herald: Specifically, he is the big voice you hear when introducing the competitors. In addition, for the first 4 series he would introduce the host with an often comical intro, like for example: "Please welcome the man who thought a Kamikaze was a Japanese toilet: Craig Charles!"
  • Mission Control: As director, he was also in charge of the cameras and directing the audiences' reactions. There is some speculation that he gave directions to the House Roboteers too.
  • No Pronunciation Guide: He has, on occasion, messed up some robot's names over the years, most notably "Dan-tome-kya" instead of "Dantomkia", and "Tusami" instead of "Tsunami" (though he eventually got the former correct).
    • Funnily enough, having pronounced "Sir Chromalot" correctly after 4 Wars and one Extreme, he somehow introduced it as "Sir Chompalot" in the robot's final battle.
  • The Voice: That booming voice we hear as robots enter the arena is what he is best known for; he has never made an on-screen appearance.
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