About

Battlebots is a robot competition show in which teams work to create remote-controlled armed and armored machines who then enter an arena and duel to be the last operating robot. After the show's initial run on Comedy Central in the early 2000s, it was revived over a decade later.

History

Battlebots was created by Greg Munson and Edward P. Roski.^[1] It was originally an offshoot of the program Robot Wars which aired in the late 90s. Battlebots updated the Robot Wars format to be more like a sports competition, complete with an in-ring announcer, a "red" and "blue" corner, and a single-elimination competition style. Competition arenas feature hazards such as "kill saws" and "pulverizers" that can harm the bots and are not controlled by either team. The show was picked up by Comedy Central and premiered on August 30th, 2000. It featured major celebrities including Carmen Electra as a co-host and Bill Nye as an expert commentator (battle shown below).

The show was successful during its run, with its third season beating South Park in ratings. The success of the show led to other robot competition programs including Robotica and imported runs of the British Robot Wars series. In September of 2002, Battlebots was cancelled after five seasons.

Revival

In December of 2014, ABC announced a 6-episode revival of Battlebots, which premiered in June of 2015. The show was updated with a sleeker look and did away with comedy-sketch interludes but kept elements such as the in-ring announcer (battle shown below). Competitors competed for a trophy called "The Giant Nut."

Season Results

The devastating spinning blade of robot Tombstone proved to be the deadliest weapon in the tournament and made it ato the finals, but it the armored and versatile Bite Force that ended up hoisting the Giant Nut trophy as champions. After the season ended, ABC announced that it would bring BattleBots back for another season in 2016 and expand the tournament field to a total of 48 bots.

Veterans from the previous season, including the defending champion Bite Force, as well as more legends from the original BattleBots, competed for the championship. After placing second in the last year's tournament, Tombstone returned with a vengeance and claimed the Giant Nut trophy with many dominating victories. Other notable showings include the surprising run of Bombshell, who entered as a wild card but made it to the tournament finals before being demolished by Tombstone, as well as powerful spinners such as Minotaur, Nightmare and Warhead.

After that season, Battlebots was removed from ABC's reality shows and picked up by Discovery Channel. The show's Discovery Channel run begins May 11th, 2018.

Online Presence

Battlebots has developed a strong online presence since its initial run. A subreddit for the show, /r/battlebots,^[2] has over 13,000 subscribers and its Facebook page has over 307,000 likes.^[3] On YouTube, videos of the fights from the revival series hosted on ABC's channel have hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of views (examples shown below).

Search Interest

External References