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Television Media

Comedy Central Cancels BattleBots 356

Posted by chrisd from the crow-and-tom-servo-hang-thier-heads-low dept.
Rathian writes "Bad news for BattleBot lovers, I saw on the BattleBots Builder's Forum that CC is NOT going to film Phase 6.0 of BattleBots. You can see copies of the email from the BattleBots founders Trey & Greg at RobotCombat.com, and at Team DaVinci Robots God willing, another network will pick it up and keep this sport alive!"
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Comedy Central Cancels BattleBots More

Comedy Central Cancels BattleBots

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  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Slarty ( 11126 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:37PM (#4240563) Homepage
    Not to be a troll, but the whole BattleBots concept has gone from new and fun to watch to rather dull within the span of a couple of years. That's why they had to throw Carmen Electra on, right? People weren't watching, and a little sex appeal was required?

    Not that I don't think something BattleBots-ish won't survive for a while, but I doubt it'll be for long. Just a prediction.

    • Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Com2Kid ( 142006 )
      Not to be a troll, but the whole BattleBots concept has gone from new and fun to watch to rather dull within the span of a couple of years. That's why they had to throw Carmen Electra on, right? People weren't watching, and a little sex appeal was required?

      I would put it more towards the stupid rules that they had imposed. Stuff like weapons limits and all that.

      I stopped watching after last season because I knew that it would just be yet another batch of improvements upon the same old designs with maybe one or two new ideas thrown in there for the mix.

      I want my large caliber projectiles and I want them now.

      • Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by axxackall ( 579006 )
        New bot design ideas would follow after new arena design ideas. It is boring to see the flat arena, even with small odds around. "Robotica" has much more interesting competition conditions. That's the way to go. Build big and complicated mazes, put there more agressive arena bots, change maze planning all the time. Or begone!

      • Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by patchmaster ( 463431 )
        I think it started to go downhill when the hazards became almost as important as the opposing robot. I wanted to see robots do battle, not have the robots getting beaten up by the ring. It was particularly nasty for the lightweight bots that would get tossed across the box by the saws. They should have had the hazards on some random sequence and not had some guy on the controls gunning for every bot the wandered by.

        BTW, I believe you can have large caliber projectile weapons, you just need to tether the projectile and reel it back in after firing.

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by HorsePunchKid ( 306850 )
      I agree that it's become somewhat dull, but keep in mind that this recent (last few years?) wave of robot competition shows isn't the first. I remember watching Nova on PBS as a kid (err... well, maybe 10 years ago). My favorite ones were the robot competitions, only they generally weren't this one-on-one battle sort of situation. They'd have tasks to complete, and whichever did it best or fastest won. So they'd be building robots out of Legos and whatnot that would have to move ping pong balls from one box to another or fly magnetic discs over a net. I seem to remember them generally being autonomous, but I'm not sure. Anybody else remember these shows? (Heck, I'm sure some people here were involved directly in them!) Does this kind of thing still air anywhere?

  • About time.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ziggles ( 246540 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:38PM (#4240575) Homepage
    How many times can you watch remote controlled scrap metal bump into each other and flip each other before it gets boring? For me.. it only took one episode. Not to mention the show has no business being on COMEDY central, since the only funny thing is watching the obviously fake "chemistry" between the hosts. Oh.. and whatshername's boobies are nice.
    • (* How many times can you watch remote controlled scrap metal bump into each other and flip each other before it gets boring? *)

      That is like saying, "How many times can you watch a bunch of sweaty guys bounce a ball around a wooden floor and toss it thru a ring." Yet sports fans can never get enough.

      They have to treat it more like a sport, including making the builders into celebrities. I am sure there is a Kobe Bryant of smashbotics out there.

      And finally, they need *explosives*. You have to get rid of the idea of a live audience, at least a close one though. But roughly 80% of all men like explosions.

      Make it a true sport with explosions and it becomes a sure winner with males.

      BTW, why no Geek Channel? Or at least a Guy Channel. Then we can see the 3 Stooges too. Most females lack a gene to make them appreciate The Three Stooges and explosive hardware.

  • Well (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 )
    The show wasn't really "funny". I mean, I never laughed. If anything wresting should be on comedy central. Now people pretending to hurt eachother while young rednecks actually believe that they are hurting eachother - That's comedy!

  • i've seen this coming. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by edrugtrader ( 442064 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:40PM (#4240593) Homepage
    i'm a loyal battlebots viewer.... but with the advent of 3-4 other 'bot' fighting shows, someone had to die.

    battlebots is RAW, its just the bots out there with some minimal hazzards. you look at other shows like robot wars, and each individual bot makes little difference to who wins. there are like 5 huge 'house bots', and all you have to do to win is watch the house bot push the other guy in the pit. lame. shows like robotica are just glorified RC cars that race around. lame.

    battlebots did everything right, no compaints here at all. i'll be watching the re-runs after back to back to back SNL marathons i'm sure.

    on a side note, be sure to check out the new season of INSOMNIAC on comedy central, its fucking hilarious.

    • Re:i've seen this coming. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Gekko ( 45112 )
      With the advent???? Robot Wars was around well before battle bots.
    • Eh? The house robots only act if the bots go into the house robot's zone or if a bot is disabled.

      The idea is to allow more inovative robots that can disable rather than outright destroy, such as flippers or robots that can push the opponent into the house robots. Just having robots with either a big axe or a big disc could easily get boring.

      Still, my friend on the Storm team will be disappointed, he wanted to get into Battlebots because they pay a lot better than Robot Wars.
    • The "rawness" of this entertainment is what is so compelling, I think. It is pure brutality waged by machines. If it were people being this brutal with each other, everybody would watch it too if they could (don't deny it). Battlebots to me has all the brutal appeal of, for example, Ultimate Fighting Championship, but without the social complications. Advertisers have no problem with it- in my market, there are always ads for Christian music albums during the show...never understood those demographics.

      I also agree that the other Battlebots imitators (and I don't care who "really" was first, Battlebots was the first one anybody knew about) are unwatchably lame.

      Although, there are too many hazards in Battlebots. They are too much of a factor in the fights. Too many fights are decided because somebody accidentally drives over a hazard, which is unavoidable because there are so many all over the place. Get rid of the spinners, the pistons, the spikes in the floor, and the lifting panels in the center. They just break up the flow of the action too much. They should just have the hammers and a couple sets of saws, and of course the spike strips on the sides, and let the robots fight. And please, make the hammers and saws sensor operated so that the jackass hammer nazi doesn't get to pick and choose who gets smashed. That's ridiculous.

  • It's alive [robotwars.co.uk] and kicking [robotmayhem.com].

  • coolio (Score:2, Informative)

    by sixdotoh ( 584811 )
    wasn't it getting kind of old anyway? check out http://www.bestinc.org for some real robot stuff.

  • I can see why (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bravehamster ( 44836 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:43PM (#4240619) Homepage Journal
    I stopped watching Battlebots after season 2. It just wasn't compelling TV. Most of the matches were like watching drunk boxing--A lot of swinging, but little contact. What I think needs to happen is for them to approach it from a whole other angle. The bots must be independent.

    Independent bots would force the bot makers to build navigation systems (to avoid the hazards), target acquisition systems (to find the other bots), decision making (push the bot toward the hazard, or try to flip, or run away and hide until my buzz saw starts working again?).

    Additionally, they should build a better arena and allow all those weapons currently outlawed, like EMP weapons, chemical, flamethrowers, magnetic grapples, swarms of multi-bots, etc. Should be much more exciting.
    • Another idea I saw on either battle bots or a simmilar show is to have different tasks to be accomplished. If the objective is just to pummel the crap out of the other bot, it gets a bit boring. If you have another task (collect balls, hit targets, etc) then designers have to build to pweform that task, and then any pummeling is just a happy side effect.

    • Re:I can see why (Score:4, Insightful)

      by edrugtrader ( 442064 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:55PM (#4240733) Homepage
      ... if you think it looks like drunk boxing when the human is controlling it directly, what do you think it will look like when the human writes a system that attempts to do exactlly what it would do if a human was controlling it directly?

      MUCH MUCH less compelling.

      allow EMP = biggest EMP always win, and TV coverage is impossible.

      chemical = are we to expect the humans will go back into the ring to pick up their bot after it is sprayed with acid?

      flamethrowers i don't have a problem with, just not real exciting.

      i'll just stop there... but i really feel strongly about this, there is a give and take, and the current rules make for good fights. the second someone has a 30 foot flamethrower/EMP, and can beat any bot in 10 seconds, the show is over, and its all about ratings.

      • Re:I can see why (Score:4, Interesting)

        by gnovos ( 447128 ) <gnovos@ c h i p p e d . net> on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @06:01PM (#4240787) Homepage Journal
        i'll just stop there... but i really feel strongly about this, there is a give and take, and the current rules make for good fights. the second someone has a 30 foot flamethrower/EMP, and can beat any bot in 10 seconds, the show is over, and its all about ratings.

        It can't beat the tiny bot that has magnetic feet (for sticking onto the bigger bot) and a old fashioned power drill (for drilling into it's head...). Creativity would make the show interesting when the rules are throw out the window.

    • Re:I can see why (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Exiler ( 589908 )
      Erm? Making them self contained is going to help with the little contact... how? Seriously, have you ever played one of those "robot programming games?" Most of the demos that come with them and everything I saw online was just pretty much a triangle spinning in circles shooting, no matter how much candy you put in the code.
  • Every original program on basic cable with no connection to psychics is to be cancelled.
    • Isn't that the truth?! Maybe I'm just odd, but the cable networks keep cancelling shows I like, and then they turn to publishing other dreck that I can't stand.

      *argh*
  • Hmm, there was talk about this on TiVo Community (a TiVo forum) back in May [tivocommunity.com]. But, from that thread, it looks like the plan might be just to move BattleBots to another network (or so I would hope).

  • BattleBots/RobotWars (Score:4, Insightful)

    by T-Kir ( 597145 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:46PM (#4240642) Homepage

    Even though I never watched BattleBots, I watch Robot Wars in England. I'd have though BattleBots would be more suitable on Discovery or TLC rather than Comedy Central (like Junkyard Wars/Scrapheap Challenge)?

    I'd think that it should have a chance of being picked up by another network, because a series like this that sparks innovation and interest in construction is better for Joe Public rather than Big Brother X (despite the 'socialology' aspect of it), The Mole, etc.

    • In Canada we have the best of all worlds.

      We get the British Robot Wars on 'Space' (our equivalent to the Sci-Fi Channel), we get the WWE Robot Wars on TNN, and Battlebots on Discovery. TLC also runs both the British and US Junkyard Wars.

      I always wondered if there were more than one "Sir Killalot". Kinda tough to ship him back and forth from London to wherever they film the US Robot Wars.

      • Re:BattleBots/RobotWars (Score:3, Interesting)

        by T-Kir ( 597145 )

        After seeing the US version of Robot Wars, it is the actual UK version but lacking some of the behind the scenes stuff (I think) and with a different presenter (Craig Charles presents it in the UK - he played 'Lister' in Red Dwarf).

        This is 'cos the BBC licences it to different countries (a bit like the TellyTubbies) so they get the original tapes for them to reproduce their own versions, whereas Junkyard/Scrapheap has the same co-presenter (who is also the exec producer) and they do a combination of UK/US filming.

        • I think the first season (or first half) in the US was just replays of the British Wars, but the second half was all new stuff. Different rules too. It was a free for all: Put 6 robots in the ring and let them go 5 rounds until only 1 survives. Elimination by destruction or disability.

          First time I saw the 'Ref Bot'. Was kinda cool too, seeing 3 or 4 robots gang up on who they thought would be the toughest competition.

          I get a laugh out of Craig Charles. Funnier that the guy they had on the first season.

          • That was Jeremy Clarkson - motoring journalist and crushing bore. Craig Charles is a much more suitable presenter for it as he can inject the kind of neon-lit manic enthusiasm that the Robot Wars format demands.
        • After seeing the US version of Robot Wars, it is the actual UK version but lacking some of the behind the scenes stuff (I think) and with a different presenter (Craig Charles presents it in the UK - he played 'Lister' in Red Dwarf).

          A shame they change the host, I'd love to see Craig Charles do it (I'm watching Red Dwarf right now). Unfortunately Cathy Roger has left hosting Junkyard Wars in the US, leaving us with two American hosts... it's just not the same without a Brit.
  • The problem with Battlebots is that it never really grows. It might help if the competitions were geared such that certain familliar bots fight more often. Like a celebrity bot. (Anybody remember Jay Leno's bot? heh)

    I don't have any immediate ideas how they could easily incorporate that into their current system. Maybe they could have teams of bots?

  • You know what ultimatly killed this wonderful show (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WndrBr3d ( 219963 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:48PM (#4240659) Homepage Journal
    These cheap TNN and TNT rip-off shows where people slap a cooking pot on top of an RC car and race around a rat maze with flame-throwers scorching their tires.

    Hosts, which are more than drunken, overweight ex-NASCAR commentators looking to pay for their recently upgraded mobile home.

    It sickens me to see all these cheap K-Mart quality knock-off shows, which cheapen such RAD programming such as BattleBots.

    This kinda crap happens with -EVERY- form of popular TV entertainment. Look at Reality TV for fucks sake. First it was Survivor, -HUGE- hit. Then came Big Brother, Temptation Island, Fear Factor, Worst Case Scenario and a slew of other knock-offs, which have watered down and sucked all the fun out of reality TV.

    I guess basically it all boils down to me being pissed off my TiVo will no longer have robots ripping the crap out of one another. :-D

  • This is why! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:48PM (#4240665)
    1. Too many weapons restrictions

    2. Carmen should never be allowed to say anything

    3. Get rid of the WWF spin crap and treat it like a nascar event.

    4. Battlebots started making corporate deals poisioning the rules further by restricting equipment.

    • You are so freaking correct it pains me.

      No missiles or projectiles?

      No EMP weapons?

      I take more chances mowing my lawn!

      Really- those 'robot' (remote controled thingys are not robots) 'battle' (if crap isn't blowing up or burning and there's no danger of any kind to any thing it's not a battle or war) pretty much suck. I'm dead serious.

      .
  • I always thought that battlebots was kind of dumb. I mean, at first it was interesting because it was new, but after it's newness wore off, it got very boring. Most people won by flipping their opponent over. I could enter a hampster in a ball and stand a chance. (Mutated, ill-tempered hampster, of course).

    All I'm saying is there really was no battle. It ought to have been last robot to move, or until surrender. I mean, where were the hydraulic crushers, or the high power lasers. Or anything really. Something that can be damaged by a good kick doesn't deserve to be called a battle bot.

  • This cancellation was inevitable, because Comedy Central never made up their minds whether BattleBots was a comedy or a sport. They edited the hell out of the tournaments in order to highlight the most outrageous and destructive moments. However, in the process the tournaments lost all of the long-haul drama that made them so compelling as a sport. The end result was a neverending series of way cool but essentially irrelevant explosions.

    Frankly, I'm surprised BattleBots lasted five seasons. That makes it Comedy Central's third longest running original program, behind South Park and The Daily Show.

  • i loved watching the robots fight, people losing thousands upon thousands of dollars as sparks flew up and metal launched across the "battlebox"

    but the commentary gets worse and worse. the last episode i saw, they nearly had carmen electra perform soft-core porn.

    i'm sure they did focus groups. but people in focus groups are going to see fire and say good and see the crap they aired and say good, just for the joke of it. there are some things that if you show them, even if they suck, people in certain age groups (even if they honestly don't like it) jokingly cheer.

    to recap:
    from an hour of deadly fighting ... to ...
    30 minutes of [you know what]

    give me back my chainsaws and my mental patients!!!

    and for god sakes, stop interviewing gary coldman!!!

    then i'll watch again.

    (since it seems relevant via demographics, i'm 15, male)
  • How is this a sport?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @05:53PM (#4240725)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I used to think the way you do, that RobotWars was great, and Battlebots a pale imitation. Two things changed my mind.

      First, discovering something of the history [robotcombat.com] behind the two. Battlebots was originally called RobotWars, but a promotion company stole the name and sold it to the Brits.

      Second was watching them head to head one night. The RC "bots" on the show called RobotWars are pathetic, wimpy little things compared to the monsters on Battlebots. They have prettier paintjobs and grillwork, combined with "weapons" that can barely scratch tinfoil. If "functional" and "actually able to cause real carnage", and "shredded steel plate flying through the air" are "simple", then give me simple any day.

      That said, the Comedy Central coverage of the Battlebot events is pretty bad, and getting worse. I'm a huge Craig Charles fan, and would rather listen to him than anyone who has ever worked for "Comedy Central Sports". But dismissing Battlebots because the coverage is lame is like dismissing the Olympics because NBC is lame -- it's missing the point. I think that Comedy Central dropping the show may be the best thing that could happen to the show.
      • The problem with all that is that they only ever feature three matches on battle bots... for a grand total of about 9 minutes of the show. The rest of it is the "coverage" that you admit is horrible and i'd say is *REALLY REALLY* horrible.

        To improve the show, i'd nix almost all of the coverage and 'get to know 'ya' stuff and offer more construction details and a LOT more actual robot combat with better commentators.
      • > If "functional" and "actually able to cause real
        > carnage", and "shredded steel plate flying
        > through the air" are "simple", then give me
        > simple any day.

        Umm.. HypnoDisc?

        Umm.. the current UK series has a flipper which threw the opposing bot into the safety glass and out of the arena FROM THE CENTRE OF IT?
  • it actually took comedy central out of my rotation when 'scanning' for something to watch. Except for South Park at 10 wed., it was nothing but decade old SNL re-runs and BattleBots. I'd be more likely to find something entertaining on QVC.

    They weren't robotic, and hardly battled. They didn't have any 'weapons', anything interesting to see. Just oversized remote control cars smashing into each other.

    The concept of robots fighting each other with crazy weapons is good, the reality a la this show, was a bore.

    I saw something (didn't catch the beginning) on the Discovery Channel (?), which was a special that had two submarines 'battling' in a swimming pool. It was some university team vs. the naval academy. One of them had a 'boomstick' which used .22 cal shells to shatter things, the other had an oxygen torch. The "house bot" had big hydraulic pincers.

    The navy 'robot' was completely demolished. They didn't simply bonk into each other for 5 minutes. All their hard work was destroyed.

    That should have been how BattleBots worked. Rather than running around bonking into each other but having no actual damage happen.

    It just wasn't a very good show. Maybe ESPN2 will pick it up. I saw them run live coverage of a 'Magic: The Gathering' tourney.

  • TechTV! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by McSpew ( 316871 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @06:03PM (#4240798)

    If ever there was a network born to show BattleBots, it's TechTV. Something tells me the budgets wouldn't be as high, but that might be a good thing. There wouldn't be as much impetus to tart the show up so much just to draw in the viewers required to pay back the budget.

    Personally, I liked the original Robot Wars UK show the best. I did think the house robots had a little too much direct impact on the outcome, but I liked the concept of having qualifying rounds where the bots had to overcome challenges, followed by the individual combat rounds.

    Maybe what's needed is some new thinking, like team robot combat. Maybe a capture-the-flag sort of thing. You could have robots optimized for offense and defense, which might add some interesting twists to a show. The problem would be that the costs to assemble an entire team of robots would be drastically more than for an individual robot or two.

    • If TechTV picks it up, that would mean the end of them airing BBC's TechnoGames, which is basically just a collection of school projects made by elementary school students. Two birds with one stone.

      Then again, the female host is certainly appealing..

  • Sorry to see it go. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jamuraa ( 3055 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @06:03PM (#4240804) Homepage Journal
    While the genre might be contested over as to it's worth, this show was the best show in the genre. I have watched in vain the other robot shows and noone gives the same 'feel' as this one does. Mabye it's because they don't treat it like wrestling [robotwars.com] or like trick dog shows [robotica.com], but they actually attempt to make it SEEM more like a sport. That said, being the cream of the crop of a horrible crop isn't something that comedy central is going for. I am actually surprised, because they seemed to prominently advertise it for a while (at least when I had comedy central). Not that it got good ratings or anything.
    One thing that is missing from this show: a variety of weapons. The weapons shouldn't be limited, this just makes the teams stagnate with their wedge [battlebots.com] or flipper [battlebots.com] or spinner [battlebots.com] designs. The truly [battlebots.com] original [battlebots.com] bots just aren't seen anymore because they get beaten to shreds by the people who make the old, tired, (albeit successful) designs. I think allowing for more weapons will add variety to the field.

    We can only hope that ESPN picks this up.. then they'd have something to show on ESPN2 that's not jocks having a pissing contest [strongestman.com].

  • I liked the idea at first, but all the flashy crap started to turn me off. The silly metal music, idiot hosts, and stereotypical "hottie" girl talking to the awkward speaking robot builders was just starting to get on my nerves. If they had only done it more like Junkyard Wars I would have probably tuned in more often. Taking more time to get to the "tech" side of bot-building. But I guess geeks are too small of a crowd to cater to on TV right now.

    Besides, I can hardly call those things "robots." More like RC death machines. When I think of robots, I think of more autonomous machines with some built-in intelligence. To me that would have been way more intersting to watch. Although, I guess watching some poorly programmed bot drive along the side of the ring the entire match might get boring. Oh well. Something like that.

    TLC has a new show starting soon that may be intersting to see. With the original girl host from Junkyard Wars and, I think I saw him, Henry Rollins. I guess we'll see.

  • Wha .. If that's a joke, I don't get it.
  • I'm glad they canceled the show...It wasn't funny. I go to Comedy central for shows that are funny, like standup routines, southpark, the daily show. Battlebots just didn't belong.

  • Please not on TLC... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OneFix ( 18661 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @06:11PM (#4240867)
    BattleBots does not belong on TLC ... they already tried it...it was called Robotica!!! But, what we should really be getting behind are the shows like Junkyard Wars.

    As I'm sure others will point out, these were generally nothing more than glorified remote controlled cars. The truly inovative bots were few and far between, and most of them were either designed as a "wedge" or a "flipper".

    I'm not saying that shows like this shouldn't exist or even that it doesn't take know-how to build them, it's just that most of the ideas have been done over-and-over again...anyhow, I'ld call 5 years a pretty good run for most any show...I mean how much longer can you really go until there's nothing new being done. I actually think we're there now, we just didn't realize it till now.

    You might get something as a Saturday Morning show on one of the networks, but I wouldn't count on it.

    Here's a question...why can't the contests continue without a TV Show? I mean, anything that I'ld actually term as a sport should be able to survive without prime-time television coverage. And if it honestly holds such a large "geek" audience, then companies like IBM, Dell, and Apple should be scrambling to sponsor events and bots...

    On a side note, I personally enjoyed the shows, but like most ppl thought it was out of place on CC.
    • Like you said, every robot seemed to boil down to either a wedge or a flipper. The show killed itself via restrictions that ultimately only produced these two forms. The robots rarely did much to each other because of this and the controlers had such shitty control you had to wonder if they ever tested their robots before coming on the show.

      They have to start allowing projectiles and chemicals. Base the show out at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in a concrete bunker/sound stage with remote cameras and allow for some real robot wars.
  • I never really liked BattleBots.. The hosts of the show were way too cardboard-ish (or football-ish, or something) for my tastes. I've enjoyed TNN's Robot Wars much more, even though it's hosted by an ex-wrestler (so I'm told.. I was never into wrestling, so I don't know). Even with what TNN has done, I think it could be much more entertaining.

    Somehow, it just seems like this is a sport by and for regular people, so it's really weird to see clean-cut jocks and dressed-up chicks talking to Joe Blow from down the street. BattleBots has way too much cognitive dissonance going for my tastes, I guess..
  • Battle bots was a mole on Comedy Central, which is about the only chanel I watch, after HBO.

    First of all, the robots went from beautiful works of art, to awful construction equipment:
    I don't want to see a miniature tank, with an axe mounted to its top. The "robots" where
    nothing more than evil looking lawnmowers.

    They should not have rewarded the most destruction resistant robot, but the most technically
    advanced. The idea of a "fight" is simply flawed, and reeks of testestrone driven, cheap male
    entertainment.

    Speaking of male entertainment, carmen electra has no business in a friken bot fight.

    I would pay $$$$ to see autonomous robots, put into a "maze" and let them discover their
    own exit paths. It would also be a great idea to encourage alternative robot designs, not just
    wheels and tank chains, I wanna see snake like bots, flying bots, swimming bots, you could
    also explore alternative sources of energy, instead of just relying on batteries; give boneses
    to bots which power their onboard computer with sun lights, etc.

    There is alot one could do with robot building skills, instead of investing resources on how to
    build the next destructive machine. They could cut down on the weight too, some of these beasts
    weight as much as 500 lbs.

    • They should not have rewarded the most destruction resistant robot, but the most technically advanced. The idea of a "fight" is simply flawed, and reeks of testestrone driven, cheap male entertainment.
      And that is exactly the point.

      I like testesterone driven, expensive male entertainment.

      I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars to build a cute gee-whiz "technologically advanced" robot. I am am planning to spend thousands of dollars to build (and test, and repair) a semi-autonomous fighting robot that I can pit against other similar devices.

      There is alot one could do with robot building skills, instead of investing resources on how to build the next destructive machine. They could cut down on the weight too, some of these beasts weight as much as 500 lbs.
      Yeah sure -- and there is a lot one could do with automobile tuning skills, instead of investing resources to build the next rubber-burning nitrous-powered drag racing machine. Sure, I could have spent the $5K to convert my car to electric power...

      But you know what? For many people, big/powerful/fast/dangerous hardware is FUN.

      Speaking of male entertainment, carmen electra has no business in a friken bot fight.
      Okay, on that point I agree with you 100%. They should have gotten Cathy Rogers (Scrapheap challenge, aka Junkyard Wars), or some other photogenic female with a three-digit IQ.
  • that was the most boring show i have ever seen. A bunch of stupid little radio controlled buckets of steel hitting each other. Oh my the drama. I would rather sit and stare at a wall. Or watch fletch...
  • Battlebots was good when it was a once-a-year geek-a-thon, not a show on all the fucking time w/the same boring, old, shit.

    I was excited to see the tournament on /. and other places on the 'Net once a year. It was fun. I got to see a lot of ingenious designs, etc. On TV it was crap (especially when that fat fuck from late night TV had one w/his face on it, fan or not, it was lame).

  • Bill Nye (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ELCarlsson ( 570500 )
    It was all over when they got rid of Bill Nye. You gotta love the "Science Guy"
  • The problem is that lately the comedy channel seemed to be trying to turn the show into a vehicle for Carmen Electra and the hosts and only having breaks from this for actual robot fighting.

    While Carmen is nice eye candy, having commentators that are making more inane comments than Dennis Miller ever did is too annoying for most people, and this probably caused the kill off.
  • I know its not 100% on topic, but Farscape has also been cancelled. When the "best sci-fi show" on television on a Sci-fi only network can't make it, what hope is there for finding quality televsion anywhere?
    • No kidding dude.....why the hell is Sci-Fi cancelling their 2nd highest rated show? (behind SG-1 I believe)

      We can only hope that someone else picks up Farscape....I'm going to be awfully sad if they don't.

  • well, i guess we'll ahve to start watching robot wars or robo challenge or depth charge or...

  • Far too "orderly" combat (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pla ( 258480 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @07:10PM (#4241285) Journal
    The idea of making a machine to go in their to kill other machines sounds really cool. Hell, for the first two seasons, I watched it religiously, making it one of only two shows I watch regularly (the other, South Park, only having like 4 new episodes every six months anyway, so not all that time consuming).

    However, by the third season, I (and I think *most* people) started realizing the choices of possible machine types, as limited by the extensive rules, made every "new" combat nothing more than a replay of something I'd already seen, with a new paint job.

    Even now, I would start watching it again, if they ditch 90% of the rules. As long as a bot won't explode (and even "small" explosions, such as their 3" thick plexi cages would contain, seem alright), no holds barred. Flying bots? If someone can make them, good luck. Projectiles? Yup. Fire? Yup. Electricity? Yup. Entanglement? Again, Yup.

    Make it a *real* contest of who can build the better bot, rather than who can build the better table-saw-or-jackhammer-on-wheels, and it would become interesting again.

    I want to see REAL robot destruction. I don't want every match to end with one bot immobilized, mildly injured from a battery wire breaking, or its antenna clipped, or havings its wheels chopped off. I want sparking circuit boards, small explosions, the smell of ozone (well, okay, the home viewer couldn't enjoy that part), chunks of metal everywhere, etc.

    Until then, I don't even care if Carmen starts hosting it nude. It has completely lost its "newness" appeal.
  • If SRL [srl.org] had been behind BattleBots, it would have been as cool as Hell, rather than lamer than shit.

  • Keep battlebots alive?

    Hey man, battlebots were already around before Comedy Central decided to turn it into a tv series. Battlebots is an independant organization, that will likely return to its hobbyist roots, and be better off than it was before.

    The mantra is not so much "keep battlebots alive" as it should be "free battlebots".

  • How will the cancelation of one robot fighting series preclude the end of all mechanical combat sports? I think we can all agree that back-to-back-to-back-to-back battlebots episodes lead to an early death by overexposure, not a failure in the premise of the show. I'm sure as long as monster trucks hold some sort of "rally" somewhere, and giant transforming tractors spit fire, there will be exhibition competitions of remote-controlled (and autonomous) creations dueling it out. Even if they aren't always televised, they will continue to exist. And with the removal of the stagnant Battlebots from the running, maybe we will see some real innovation. Or at least someone will bring back the fun.
  • The 'bots can live in peace, sing music in the sun and put flowers in their hair.

    Wouldn't it be a wonderful world when every battlebot in the world would stand together in a line holding hands, grapplers, chainsaws, hammers etc and sing Kumbayaya.

    Now that peace has a chance we should embrace this oppurtunity to make this planet a better place for Humans and 'Bots alike. Let the barbaric killing for amusement stop and these simple machines rove around the fields of daisys like they where meant to.

  • i've been to a taping, (Score:2, Informative)

    by ZaBu911 ( 520503 )
    I've been to a battlebots show, live. Yes, fellow slashdotters. You could envy me. But you probably wouldn't want to.

    It SUCKS. It takes maybe 45 minutes in between rounds to set things up, you get to see a 3 minute fight, and you don't even get to stare at the hot announcers. Plus it's not a great place to pick up chicks. No wonder it was so easy to get our robotics club tickets...

  • Battlebots is pretty good - if you have a TiVo (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jlower ( 174474 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @08:00PM (#4241608) Homepage
    That way, you can watch a 30 minute episode in about 10 minutes, skipping all the commercials and filler.

    I see a lot of comments about how it wasn't innovative and didn't evolve but I think it did. And even though more fights were boring than not, when there was a good fight, it was really cool. Even though the show had the 'feel' of Pro Wrestling, I never thought the fights were pre-determined - don't see how they could have been.

    I hope some other network picks it up - I would miss it.
    • Amen to that! I just watch the fights. My GF and I love the show. I watched that horrible rip-off once w/ the wrestling guys -- I doubt a single one of those robots would have survived a round in BattleBots...

      I wish that they would have allowed more variety in the weapons... perhaps it is something they will think about in the future (if it survives)...

  • ARGH! (Score:2, Informative)

    by tuxlove ( 316502 )
    I've been to the last four Battlebots season events, and they were a lot of fun. It definitely ruins the TV show for you, because TV cannot come close to the live event. It's truly sad that they're having problems. I will miss it incredibly if they can't defibrillate it somehow.

    That said, it was clear from the last event that Battle Bots is on its way out. The robots are getting stale, and the rules surrounding robot design and weaponry are too restrictive. There were few, if any, innovative robot designs this last time. Mostly the same old robots you see each season, or knockoffs of existing robots. They even had to cancel the customary rumbles which take place after the finals (and even had to cancel the last half of the last final), because they were shut down by the San Francisco FD after one of the robots started ripping holes in the battlebox and spewing metal projectiles into the audience. We were rather disappointed at the whole thing, and decided to only see the last day of competition next time (it takes a weekend for them to do all of the filming). Looks like there may not be a next time.

    Seems like it will take a bit of work to resurrect the show. Not only will they need to get a new sponsor, but they'll have to spice it up somehow to get better robots. They will also need a better battlebox...
  • How does killing the show translate into killing robot fighting? IIRC there are several groups popping up that fight robots in the street, parking lots, a variety of locations. I know when I was in university there were a lot of people who were talking about this and building bots - there are already lots of organizations looking at other robot sports, like robot soccer and AI kart racing.

    YMMV.

  • Blessing in Disguise (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TeamRV ( 607954 )

    Hey Folks,

    Cool to see that BatttleBots has made the Slashdot news :)

    My name is Jon Autry, I have competed at two of the BattleBots competitions, and at several smaller regional competitions. I have been building bots now for close to two years: http://www.robot-village.com

    Here are a few comments from a BUILDERS perspective: (these comments and thoughts are my own, and in no way reflect the opinion of BattleBots INC. or any other builder)

    As a competitor at BattleBots, I had mixed emotions when I heard that CC had decided NOT to extend their contract.

    I remember hearing the first commercial for BattleBots on Comedy Central. I thought: "Sweet! That sounds like it will ROCK!" but I was also confused as heck as to why in the world Comedy Central would be picking up the program?! Hey, I didn't really care at the time... I just thought the idea of seeing machines fight was awesome, and would take it any way I could get it.

    After watching a few episodes, I was addicted to the show. All I could think about was: "What kind of bot would I build?!". I went along like this until I finally decided to try MY hand at fighting robots.

    It took me nearly six months to make my first bot, and I can tell you that I learned more in those six months than I did in High School. You cannot appreciate the time, work, and research that goes into making one of these robots, until you do it yourself. The science and physics involved in engineering one of these machines needs to be focused on more, (IMHO) instead of "dumbing the show down".

    After attending my first BattleBots in Spring 2001, I couldn't wait for the new season to air on CC. However, after seeing the competition live, watching it on CC only made me frustrated. Here are a few of my "gripes" with the way CC presented the show:

    • For some reason, it seemed that Comedy Central did not even SHOW a good portion of the great fights that took place. Instead, a lot of fights featured to pushy bots that meandered around the box with little contact. I know when I first tuned in to watch robots fight, this wasn't what I had in mind... :) Trust me, there is MORE than enough trashing and thrashing to fill an entire episode each week through an entire season. But for whatever reason, the powers that be chose not to show more fights / less BS.
    • The sounds are fake. It blows my mind that they don't try to capture the REAL sounds from the fights. You can't appreciate how ridiculous some of the sounds are, until you hear the REAL sound of a screaming 2-stroke internal combustion engine in a robot. Or the sound of "The Judge" warping plates in the BattleBox floor with its pneumatic hammer from hell. Sounds is just TOO big a factor to fudge it up...
    • Prostitutes and profanity have NOTHING to do with fighting robots. Bill Dwyer ROCKS though. That guy is sincerely into the robots, and does a fine job commentating (IMHO). The rest of the "talent" just distracts you from what I would think people are tuning in to see: robots get ripped to shreds by other robots.
    • Too much talk, not enough breaking bots. More fights, more fights, more fights...

    Those are a few of my main beefs with the way the show is presented. I have to give CC props for picking up the show in the first place though, otherwise I don't think that I would be building bots now. But I think that they will do more for the "sport" (or whatever you want to call it) by letting it go, than they ever did by picking it up in the first place.

    If and when the show is picked up by another network, I hope the focus shifts more to the competition, and away from making it into a circus.

    Just my opinion...

  • Every time I turn on Comedy Central, there's either a crappy 80's movie starring a Wayans brother or that annoying news spoof (aka Dennis Miller rip) on.

    I think Comedy Central kills alot of shows due to bad scheduling. I used to watch Ben Stein and then they shuffled it around. I watched Battle Bots when I was home and it was on (rarely). I certainly try with all my might to watch the Man Show, but its just on at a bad time.
  • They say they can't hold due to no funding from comedy central. Well how much do they need? I mean crap if its a measly 50K then that shouldnt be that hard to raise.

  • I'm an avid BattleBots fan. Every week a new episode airs, I'm planted in the chair with my beer and popcorn. Unfortunately, the show is losing it's appeal. I enjoy watching the fights. It was great during the second and third season when they would air back to back episodes, because I could count on seeing up to eight fights in a night. This limited the chance of seeing some wedge weenies bumping around and increased the chance of a couple of spinners knocking themselves silly.

    I think the show started to go bust when they went from two commentators and an interviewer, to a team that rivals professional baseball coverage. Do we really need this many people to host the show? Season 5 is by far the worst in this respect, with plenty of Carmen dancing in tight shirt and short skirt, and Tony Rock being Chris Rock's brother. The builders do not make good interview subjects, and the interviewers are even less apt in their role.

    To get more viewers, they need to show more fights, and less talk. The big attraction for me is to see machines that are not quite fully controllable ripping each other apart. Fully armored wedges are no fun to watch, but the point system can be adjusted to insure that these bots don't win. The best fights are usually the lightweights, as the power of the machine surpasses the ability of the driver to control it, and the low weight means little armor. Spinners are great fun (Ziggo!), especially when they fight each other. Spinners are even fun when they malfunction, as they tend to tear themselves apart when they become unbalanced (Mauler, Son of Whyachi). Flippers are entertaining as well(Toro!). I'm sure that the builders will continue to come up with more ideas on how best to wreck the opponent. I think the current set of limits on weapons are not hampering the builders either. In fact, I think the limits are fair. How much fun is it to watch one machine douse the other in water? About as much fun as the dunk booth at the county fair. The show needs to go back to a four fight format. Get rid of the useless interviews, prancing, and posturing.

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