What I want to know is, how did the robot point to the correct answer? Assuming it isn't really magic but more likely magnets, how did it work? It looks like the base of the robot has to be slotted into the question area. Is it turning a pulley? Has anyone got a photo of what lies beneath the board?
The Robot we know so well wasn't the only quiz master. Here's an altogether different figurine from a Spanish version of the game, posted here courtesy of Willy Mertens at Board Game Geek. (Thanks, Willy)
I had a the version of this with the green droid in it. I cant recall the exact mechanics of the game, but the robot has a magnet in his base and i think that its works like a compass, relative to the placement of the question and answer.
ReplyDeleteits worth tracking down the older Merit version with said robot in, he's the same scale/plastic as the Tudor Rose spacemen and a very distinctly robotic design! In fact im wondering if ive still got mine somewhere now...
ReplyDeleteI must admit I would like one the the robots. There is something about them ...
ReplyDeleteThe way it worked was, you put the robot in a hole in the middle of the "Questions" side of the board, engaging the "v"-shaped key in the circular base of the robot with the slot for same in the hole and turned him to the question, which turned a ring in the hole at the same time. I guess this turned a magnet underneath the mirror. I mainly assumed the robot was on a little flying ant-grav platform, and used him just as a character for my 54mm SF games!
ReplyDeleteGrif
Oh, by the way, the alternate robot in your pic is very like a walking robot that I saw in an old antiques magazine, who had a semi-transparent body showing the "works" and a fairly-human-looking head in a space helmet. I think he was supposed to be a spaceman, not a robot, after all, why does a robot need a space helmet? ("Hey, looka me - I'm wearing a helmet just like an organic!") The box art showed an expedition that had landed on a Martian moon, with a Von Braun Mars ship in the background which had ditched the wings needed for a Mars glide landing and had the return-to-Mars-orbit rocket cranked upright - Klono only knows why!
ReplyDeleteGrif
There's Mickey Mouse version of the magic robot game too. Mickey answers the questions in the same way.
ReplyDeleteToad, the alternative robot shown is, I'm pretty sure, the Dux Astroman, a famous German toy robot and a thing of beauty. Which came first I don't know, bot or game?
ReplyDeleteDeffo the Dux astroman came first. The green merit robot came about 1960, but the Spanish version would have been much later. Dux was a late fifties or early sixties robot
ReplyDelete(nods) I was wondering about the helmet, Griff. But then I though he looks too angular and robotic to be a human. (shrugs) Maybe he's some kind of mixture?
ReplyDeleteDux Astroman? Never heard of it before. Thank you, Woodsy.