Robot Wars Wiki:Tom Gutteridge Q & A

On Sunday 19th February 2012, as a celebration of the fourth anniversary of Robot Wars Wiki, Robot Wars executive producer Tom Gutteridge joined the wiki community for a question and answer session hosted by Obi-Have on the Wikia Chat feature. The following is a log of the questions and answers from the session.

Session Log
Obi-Have: Right, if we could start the Q & A with you just describing your work on Robot Wars, what your role entailed etc.

Tom Gutteridge (username: Tomgrobots): I "discovered" RW in 1995 when a friend of mine brought back a home video he'd made in San Francisco of Marc Thorpe's Robot Wars - there was an event and he'd just gone along. So I thought, this was just about the most interesting, different, exciting thing I'd seen in years and I found out that an American lawyer called Steve Plotnicki had bought the rights from Marc. So I did a deal with him to create a TV show around the idea. I then hired a guy called Steve Carsey to help me write the format. I was Executive Producer of all the RW shows throughout the world until it ended.

Obi-Have: OK, having read the "Gearheads" book, I know a little bit about the foundations of Robot Wars. Would you explain a little bit about your dealings with Steve Plotnicki?

Tomgrobots: What do you want to know? I paid him money for the right to make a TV series using his brand name.

Obi-Have: Well, more about that kind of time, what was going on at that point? Especially, I'm talking about in reference to the pilot episode filmed in about '96. Datovidny adds that this pilot was referred to as the UK Open Championships.

Tomgrobots: I think it was 95, actually. It wasn't an episode and it wasn't filmed - sadly. What happened was this: I thought this would be a great show for Channel 4, so I edited down the little tape my friend had made together with some MTV News footage of the SF event and showed it to Dawn Airey who was head of entertainment at C4. She wrote back that "there was no way robots fighting would ever make it into prime time on British TV".

Obi-Have: This is the event feature Thor, La Machine and The Master, correct?

Datovidny: This also featured the stock robots from 97 too didn't it?

Tomgrobots: So I tried the BBC instead. The boss of BBC2 was Michael Jackson. I couldn't get him interested either, but I showed the tape to his Number 2, who was his scheduler, called Adam McDonald (none of this story has been told anywhere by the way). I put a meeting in Michael Jackson's diary, and then arranged secretly with Adam that instead of meeting in Television Centre, he would bringing him outside to a warehouse that I'd hired for an "event". I paid for Thor, La Machine and The Master to fly over, and I paid for some "ringer" UK robots to be built - they didn't have decent weapons, but they moved and looked good - there was a mouse or a cat or something I think. And we invited about 100 people and put a cage up and some rubber tyres around for safety (!!) and gave the "audience" some wine, and then at the prearranged time Adam and the Controller Michael Jackson arrived and all hell broke loose. So Michael took one look at all the people shouting, and the mayhem, and mouse robot getting killed and he said "Oh well, I guess we should do it then." So he promised me some episodes. Then he left the job the following month to become Controller of BBC1, and was replaced by Alan Yentob. Yentob wasn't into robots! So nothing happened till 1998. But I kept badgering. Besides, the whole exercise in Shepherds Bush, which wasn't a pilot at all, just a way of getting the BBC to see the show, had cost me £95k and I wanted my money back! OK - that's how it all started. It wasn't till Michael said he wanted the series that we began to seriously think how we'd do it, though we had commissioned some drawings of potential house robots by then.

Obi-Have: OK then Tom, moving on a little bit forward, when the series was commissioned, what was the workload? What sort of jobs were you doing?

Tomgrobots: Don't understand question Obi-Have: Workload? I'm a producer. I created the format of the show - decided that we'd have house robots, commissioned them, paid for them, built the arena etc. I did all this in consultation with Marc Thorpe, who was hired as consultant. It wasn't until 1998 that we got the series away. Mark Thompson, who's now Director General of the BBC, became Controller BBC2 - he's a good friend of mine and so the day he arrived I rang him up to congratulate him and told him that Jackson had promised me a series. So he was good to his word and we got into production, built a few house robots and hired Jeremy Clarkson and Phillipa Forrester.

Obi-Have: OK, then I'll move on. When reading the Gearheads book, I read about a potential American episode to be filmed around the time of Series 2. There was a substantial backlash caused by this offer, what were the circumstances around that.

Tomgrobots: That doesn't make sense to me, Obi-Have - what is this "American episode"?

Obi-Have: Apparently you contacted the American robotic base around 1998/1999 about filming an episode containing the American robots- and it was received negatively.

Tomgrobots: By whom? We'd been in touch some American roboteers throughout - Marc was a consultant, remember. It was Steve Plotnicki they had problems with, not me.

Obi-Have: Wasn't there an intention to film a Robot Wars event in America around '99 time?

Tomgrobots: I think we'd always been interested in turning this into an international brand: my company Mentorn specialised in that: we were a production company with an international division that made shows overseas. Never wanted to film anything in America that I can recall. But you may be right - my memory's not amazing. I was certainly very interested in producing a show with American robots because they were so good. So eventually we flew over loads of them and produced a whole series for the US. Two series in fact. I think we might have looked at the cost of producing in the US, but the cost of the Arena was so huge, it was much cheaper to shoot at Earls Court.

Obi-Have: If I could move on to a question from Datovidny, what was the attitude of the show's personalities throughout the run, for example Jeremy Clarkson has a rather strange way of encouraging the competitors.

Tomgrobots: Jeremy thought it was all hilarious. But he was trying to be a serious presenter - he wanted his own chat show. He was perfect for our first series because he gave the whole thing gravitas for the TV audience. But he never wanted to do a second, and we were delighted with Craig. Don't forget that what you didn't see in the first series was that hardly any of the robots actually worked. Jeremy had to stand through hours of false starts, waiting around for them to be fixed etc. We had to use our spare "ringer" robots to make up the numbers. The beginning of every show there was supposed to be a "procession" of robots - they were supposed to come on stage to tumultuous applause. But in the end, some of them had to be pulled on with fishing wire. it was a nightmare and we went wildly over budget.

Obi-Have: Following up on that with a question from Christophee, why did Clarkson leave? Was it because of the incident with Dead Metals disc?

Tomgrobots: No, tell Christophee it was nothing to do with the day we nearly beheaded him. It was all about what Jeremy wanted to do next, and Robot Wars wasn't right for him - and his schedule wouldn't fit a bit series. What happened was this: the series was scheduled in a "death slot" - on Friday nights against TFI Friday. The average audience in that slot on BBC2 was 600k - TFI was getting 3.5million. The day after our first transmission - no, the MOnday after the Friday, I was driving down Marylebone High Street (I remember this event - it was one of the highlights of my career) and Mark Thompson called me in the car - he said "Tom, it's payback time. I want as many episodes as soon as you can make them." We went into production the following day with 26 new eps. Jeremy simply wasn't available during this time - he was doing Top Gear and his chat show, so we had to find someone else. Robot Wars was beating Chris Evans' TFI Friday by the end of episode 3. Helped by The Simpsons lead-in. The Simpsons was crucial to the success of the first few series.

Obi-Have: Another one from Datovidny: Were you surprised at how quickly the British standard caught up with the American standard? In the various World Championships we seemed well in charge.

Datovidny: Or did the World Championships purposely have terrible foreign robots to make sure that the British won?

Tomgrobots: Re the World Championships - the Brits had the advantage of already having a series produced, so people knew how to do it. Also we had advisers to help them. I think some of them did pretty well. But most were overambitious and they kept breaking down.

Obi-Have: If I could now spend some time to quiz you on your favourites during your time- What was your favourite robot?

Tomgrobots: House or competitor?

Datovidny: Both.

Tomgrobots: As producer I needed Shunt - it was totally reliable. We needed it to get the disabled robots off the stage. As to the competitors: I like all the ones that had weapons that worked, of any kind. And I hated "boxes" that didn't do much. That's because I'm a TV producer, not a roboteer. Sorry to disillusion you.

Obi-Have: Did you have any specific highlights of the series?

Tomgrobots: A million highlights: the near-decapitation of Clarkson; the first time a robot caught fire; the first appearance of Killalot; the incredible atmosphere in the pits; the first time we moved to a big arena and had an audience of thousands; the first recording with Craig Charles - who completely "got" the series; the day I signed the American series; the sight of hundreds of tired grey TV executives lining up to play with the toy robots in Cannes, and then buying the show; the regular meetings with the roboteers to discuss the rules and the future of the series; the sound of children in playgrounds throughout the UK going "3-2-1 activate", the atmosphere and cheers in teh control room when a house robot got trashed (Matilda!). Matilda's bloody chainsaw that kept coming off. The arguments with the BBC over health and safety. You want me to go on?

ToastUltimatum: "I like all the ones that had weapons that worked, of any kind. And I hated "boxes" that didn't do much." -- I guess that explains why Mortis miraculously beat Napalm in the trials.

Tomgrobots: I didn't rig a single fight, but we did have control of the house robots and as long as the competitors went into the PPZ, they were fair game. It was actually impossible to rig a fight - if they stayed out of teh PPZ - the judges were impartial and Steve and I often disagreed with the decisions. Steve Carsey, as series producer, was in charge of the day to day filming. When you saw Razor for the first time you realised you were in the presence of robot royalty.

Datovidny: Were there any judges' decisions in particular that you didn't agree with?

Tomgrobots: Loads of decisions surprised us. But they had strict criteria and we couldn't argue with their decisions. We also controlled when the pit went down, of course. That was helpful.

Obi-Have: Moving on, one of the main differences between RW and Battlebots is that in Battlebots, any robot that worked could fight. RW had a much stricter screening process. Do you think that your way was better?

Tomgrobots: Yes, Robot Wars became an international hit. Battlebots was only commissioned on Comedy Central because we turned them down. A guy called Bill Hillary was head of the network (he'd been at C4 and disagreed with the decision to turn it down) and he rang me from New York the day he got the job and asked if he could have RW as a comedy show. I said no, it wasn't a comedy. And so we hung out for a better deal from elsewhere. We offered it to Discovery and they went off an commissioned a rip-off called (can't even remember the name, I was so cross). Eventually we went with TNN - now called Spike. Re the rules: we wanted it to be fair - hence the rules. The rules were for safety reasons as much as anything. One of the most important successes for me was that we never had a serious accident (apart from the floor manager).

Middle Eye: I have a specific one; why was TX-108's battle against Hypno-Disc in the Wild Card Warriors of Extreme 1 never broadcast?

Tomgrobots: I have absolutely no idea. Sorry. What happened?

Middle Eye: Apparently, Hypno-Disc broke down thirty seconds in, but that's all we know.

Tomgrobots: I think we probably had to cut a few for time reasons - but unlikely as HypnoDisc was so popular. Mystery to me. Of course, if we cut a match, it wouldn't affect the result.

Christophee: Going back, what was this incident with the floor manager?

Obi-Have: I was going to ask the same thing. I suspect this relates to the series 3 incident.

Tomgrobots: Oh, a spike went through his foot and he was rushed to hospital. It's before we had the cutout thingys installed as standard. Sorry - forgotten the technical term. With remote controlled, you need to have a safety device so they can be disabled. It's why Shunt was so important - to push them to the edge so they could be disabled safely.

Datovidny: More Panda Monium's spike, wasn't it?

Tomgrobots: Yes, I believe so. The robot suddenly came alive without warning and shot across the stage as the floor manager (it was the Assistant, actually) was walking towards it.

TheDeadlyDoomBug: Were are the majority of the house robots?

Tomgrobots: Where? I don't know what happened after the last series - I sold Mentorn in 2000 and left the company in 2003 to go to America. I have five more minutes before my wife hauls me off to the garden centre.

Obi-Have: Right in that case I'll round off with a couple more questions. My first question is, do you have any of the tapes for the show that we perhaps haven't seen?

Tomgrobots: I don't have very many tapes, I'm afraid. Wish I did.

TheDeadlyDoomBug: Were there any more backstage injuries that we never heard of?

Tomgrobots: No - no injuries.

Datovidny: What do you think of the current Robot fighting events today, i.e: Roaming Robots?

Tomgrobots: I am delighted that Roaming Robots is keeping the sport going and I wish them well - provided they don't infringe the Robot Wars brand or trade mark, of course.

Obi-Have: And my last question, as the clock strikes two, would you ever consider doing Robot Wars again?

Tomgrobots: Obi-Have, that is a leading question. Steve Plotnicki still owns the Robot wars trade mark - despite certain people trying unsuccessfully to steal it from him. I think that it won't be long before public demand for it returns. Hope so anyway. And if so, yes, I would gladly be involved.

Obi-Have: In that case, I would really urge you to get in contact with Steve Plotnicki and sort it out. Sadly guys, that's all we have time for I think. I would really like to thank you ever so much for joining in with us today, I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we've had a great hour.

Tomgrobots: On that optimistic note, I take my leave. But I would like to say how appreciative I am that you are keeping this Wiki going, and it's great to know people liked what we did. You have all been very polite to me - I appreciate it. I loved doing the series - it was the best highlight of a very long career (which, thankfully, is still underway!). And I hope that, if ever RW comes back, you'll support it.