back in october of 2010 cartoon network would premiere a new show on their channel
three months later that brand new show would come to an end in january of 2011
only premiering a total of 10 episodes each with an 11 minute run time before it would
be canceled giving this show the illustrious title of cartoon network's shortest lived show
the show that would produce the least amount of episodes for the network was robo tommy
robotomy robot or whatever you want to call it robotomy set upon the planet inhabited by
violent killer robots called insanias two robot friends blastus and thrasher must navigate their
high school lives the story as to how the show that seemed to be doomed from the beginning is
actually pretty interesting and the reasons why it was greenlit and the reasons it failed
is also equally as interesting so grab a can of your favorite motor oil as we cover this
minuscule rise and tremendous fall of the surprisingly graphic and mature action-packed
cartoon network forgotten series robotomy or robotomy robot or whatever it's called wow that's
actually the dumbest thing i've ever heard
let's celebrate our main characters are thrasher and blastus they're both very similar to normal
high school human students they crave affection from their crushes and try to avoid being killed
off for their humane qualities you know typical high school stuff thrasher is the taller of the
two he is voiced by patton oswalt yeah that remy rat fella from ratatouille thrasher is the main
protagonist and is more apathetic compared to blastus but then again tis the angsty and
self-absorbed life of a teenager throughout the series he is constantly chasing his crush
mamie using this as the primary motivation for many of the actions throughout the series
blastus on the other hand is much more empathetic but is motivated by popularity resulting in him
being the more outgoing one whose schemes don't always work out as he has planned voiced by john
gemberling the two of them often argue and act more like brothers than best friends to be honest
but they manage to both make it out of dangerous situations just by the skin of their robot teeth
do robots have teeth or skin it's just all metal right so would their teeth be considered a grill
these are the important questions that no one is asking along with armed two main leads there are
some bigger names in the cast list including kate mckinnon dana snyder jack mcbrier and even lil
jon was in two episodes yeah the idea for the show came about in a pretty comical way the creators
of the show michael buckley and joe deezy were approached by cartoon network to create a show
and they pitched dozens of ideas month after month each idea the executives were just not
fans of so in a frustrated last-ditch effort to just get them off their backs they created an
idea that they were approaching from a different mindset from there they came up with this idea
for a violent show focused on killer robots in high school and surprise surprise they loved it
they wanted to capture the combination of super bad transformers in the wwe all-in-one show and
that sounds freaking awesome they purposefully made it heavy on violence and easily outfronting
but the network greenlit the show and so we have what we know today as robotomy
robotomy robotic we don't have a lot of it but we sure do have it for what we do have that
super bad feeling is surely there with these two robots they stand out from the murderous
shenanigans that litter their peers by just like in superbad having a through-line plot of gaining
the affection of a female robot or to be kind of popular it has a level of fun to it that i
can appreciate because it feels like it's playing outside of the rules for traditional programming
at least on a kid's network but it is clear to see that the show while trying to apply
its reach to several demographics that it unfortunately ended up capturing none of
them i'm sorry my friend got carried away with crazy promises robotomy new series premieres next
on the surface cancellation would seem pretty obvious based on the show feeling a bit too
mature for regular cartoon network and appearing more fitting for the adult swim content block
there's no explicitly mature themes but there's definitely a ton of implicit mature content it
plays along an unspoken thin line where it's a bit much for younger viewers but not crude
enough to be considered for an older audience they still made edgier jokes or references but
conveniently cut each other off before the actual mature word or concept was expanded upon these
jokes were definitely going over the heads of any kid under the age of 12 which means that the
general appeal to a younger audience just wasn't very strong unless you just like robots and the
wacky visuals on the screen there may not have been much there to attach onto at a younger age
in an mtv interview one of the co-producers world leaders entertainment who worked with
cartoon network stated the way cartoon network has blended its adult swim identity look feel attitude
etc with its core kid programming is totally brilliant to us as you can tell robotomy robot
is very much a partnership between the network's kids side and adult swim wow where can any of
that go wrong but i mean technically they're not wrong they definitely did achieve some sort of
partnership between the regular cartoon network content and adult swim but there's a reason that
these two are separate to begin with it's just not going to work if you try to appeal to all
audiences when you're relying on the mature themes in the first place they certainly did try to make
a show that skewed older but was also appealing to a younger age range but at that point it was 75
adult swim and 25 cartoon network the show would most likely have had much more success airing
during adult swim due to it prioritizing its older audience because of this other international
distribution was basically non-existent while canada did air this show on cartoon network
any other network did not want anything to do with this show due to its maturity and violence another
reason why the show was canceled can be attributed to the high production budget it racked up the
animation team is also the team that worked on chowder and the animation itself is heavily action
oriented there's a lot going on at all times and you can tell that the animation team is heavily
talented because the art style is very impressive it tends to stick to a minimal color palette
very heavy on the darker yellows reddish browns and the desaturated blues and greens with metallic
textures and a gritty feel to each shot the style feels very cohesive and establishes the setting
very well it's kind of perfect for an apocalyptic planet but then again there's not a ton of variety
in each episode inspired by the works of paul clee a swiss german artist and katsuhiro automo
a japanese manga artist the show was going for a bold fresh look one that would mirror the universe
so this influenced their decision to mute the initial color palette to refocus the viewers to
the style of their line work when there is a pop of color thrown in the fluorescent inspirations do
jump out even more thanks to the show in general's looks so i get why there is less of it in the show
less is more and is more effective when doing so i just personally love bright splashes of color
so when it's not in the show for a majority of it it maybe could have done with a little bit
more of it you know contrast the whole murderous robot thing online there are a lot of connections
drawn to whatever happened to robot jones which i covered a little while back here on the channel
it was another cartoon network show from the early 2000s and yeah in general it's true the
base subject of attending school and the trying to fit in of a robot is definitely something that
the two shows have in common but i feel the main similarities lie in the art design and the setting
of the characters they both heavily feature bold outlines and detailed work the general design of
robots and robotomy of robotami or robitussin is very obviously heavily influenced by the
rise of robotics and computer intelligence of the 80s clunky metals various shades of mixed
gray colors it's very different from a modern design think wali vs eva both robot jones and
robitussin draw inspiration from a pre-modernized robotic design while the cartoon was pretty much
ignored by cartoon network after its cancellation it was available on netflix until 2015 and even
reruns aired on cartoon planet for a year in 2012. however the network did give a little
nod of acknowledgement in its crossover nexus episode of okko let's be heroes where blastus
makes a fleeting appearance in the background but then again is there any show that they didn't
reference in this episode so overall crumbs they're giving the show crumbs next robotomy
overall the general concept is an interesting topic to cover for a cartoon and it had potential
to touch on some interesting topics if it were given more freedom from the network to tackle less
kid-friendly subjects personally i love the idea of a dystopian and inhuman planet where robots
have traditional structures like schooling and obviously feel human-like emotions such
as love anger fear and pride but robitami uses it as more of a plot device ensuring absurdist
plot points for a laugh shows like bojack horsemen are centered around core mortal fears like death
disappointment existentialism and more there could be room to look into all of this for an actual
serious topic and still making it for comedy and i do appreciate a good comedy but i feel like it
has to feel deserved and there has to be a bit of clarity in the chaos or else everything just feels
aimless and lost i would have loved to see the show go in a direction that tackles these themes
with a more intelligent approach not to say that the show isn't intelligent it just felt lacking
when it came to the nuance of it all the raiders are clearly witty and had the potential to make
more of an interesting statement about this backwards world where leaders choose to blow their
budgets on explosives as opposed to textbooks despite being forced to go to school every day
both teachers students and world leaders all agree on the insignificance of education on their planet
all in all it had a lot of potential but was just in the wrong place with an underdeveloped
idea and possibly at the wrong time today a show like this could do great and have the time to
flesh out its original point it would just need to decide which part of the audience demographic
it needs to aim for if you want to go for that super bad feel lean into the absurdity of it
go into the more mature themes and make it for adults and why does cartoon network have such a
weird love-hate relationship with robot shows i feel on the channel we have covered so many of
them and every time one robot show was cancelled another would come around then be cancelled and
then another would come around cartoon network most of these robot shows are great you're just
not giving them enough time to shine or you're having them come on at the wrong time or in this
case releasing it on the wrong programming block on your own network but cheers to the
next robot show and presumptive sorry for its cancellation but what are your thoughts on this
did you even see or know about this show and if you did did you enjoy it and if you do need a
refresher it's a really approachable series with a total run time of under two hours so let me
know your thoughts down in the comments thanks so much for watching make sure to hit the like
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you