Get ready for ROBO-G!
In anticipation of this  year’s feel-good robot comedy, we look back at some of Robo-G’s most underrated mechanical companions
Kier-La Janisse

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Everybody loves robots, right? Well maybe not of the Skynet variety, and Maximillian from The Black Hole was particularly nightmare-inducing, but cinema has given us our share of robotic cutie-pies, from R2D2 to WALL-E. But in my usual underdog fashion, I tend to think most fondly of those A.I. pals that time has forgotten, so – in anticipation of the comedy hijinx of Robo-G – in the “whatever happened to…” category, here are my votes for the five  most underrated ‘friendly’ robots the movies have given us (and yes, I’m dating myself here):

Romie-0 and Julie-8 – One of the early wave of Nelvana TV specials, this one is a Can-con classic that was originally played on Valentine’s Day as part of Nelvana’s run of seasonal programming. As can be surmised from the title, it’s a riff on the Shakespearean prepubescent romantic tragedy, with two androids created by competing robotics companies falling “nuts and bolts” over eachother. Like Nelvana’s earlier The Devil and Daniel Mouse, it features tunes by folkie John Sebastian, who’d been a chart-topper for the Welcome Back Kotter theme.

Silent Running – In this sci-fi film about an eco-terrorist from first-time director Douglas Trumbull (known for his FX on Kubrick’s 2001), sketchy character actor Bruce Dern turns to a trio of androids named Huey, Dewey and Louie for viagra to order friendship in the lonely reaches of space. These small, triangular-shaped robots were actually operated by double-amputees that were housed inside the costumes and using their hands as the robots’ legs!!

Heartbeeps – From Allan Arkush, the director of Rock n Roll High School, this 1981 film starred Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as two robots who fall in cheapest viagra canada love and run away from their human masters to start a family of their own. Most people don’t remember this film as fondly as I do – and at least one online user has complained that the acting is “stilted and wooden”. Well, they’re robots, you heartless jerk, what do you expect. Character vet Dick Miller makes an appearance as a night watchman.

Making Mr. Right – the weirdest thing about this film has to be the arthouse casting – performance artist Ann Magnuson and John Malkovich (!?), but then again, it was directed by Susan Seidelman who gave us Smithereens and Desperately Seeking Susan, both of which also mined the NYC underground for actors canadain cialis with counterculture street cred. Malkovich plays a dual role as an emotionless scientist and his own robotic creation, who surpasses him in human feelings when he falls head over heels (literally) for the spirited PR girl (Magnuson) who’s hired to tutor him in “acting human”

Omnibot – Omnibot is not a film – Omnibot is REAL! But he was in TV commercials incessantly so I’m counting him anyways. I desperately wanted an Omnibot as a kid. My brother and I begged our parents for one to no avail, but this pint-sized house robot manufactured by Tomy in the early 80s was reputed to be like a personal slave that would bring you cookies and milk while you sat on your lazy ass watching cartoons. I have The product seems to have a direct effect on making me more regular. Propecia cheap, our goal is to provide medications at discount rates to everyone who is affected by expensive local prices. never met anyone that owned or met an Omnibot in real life. If you have – please post about your experiences in the comments!!

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ROBO-G has its North American premiere on July 31 at 7:40pm discount viagra cialis levitra online in the Hall Theatre. More info on the film page HERE.

About the author:

Kier-La Janisse

Kier-La Janisse is a film writer, publisher, producer, acquisitions executive for Severin Films and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. She is the author of Cockfight: A Fable of Failure (2024), House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (2012/2022) and A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi (2007) and has been an editor on numerous books including Warped & Faded: Weird Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archive (2021) and Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s (2015). She wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021), and produced the acclaimed blu-ray box sets All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror (2021) and The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle (2023).