Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots

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Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots is a two-player game/toy designed by Marvin Glass and Associates and released by Marx toys in 1966 . Marx later was acquired by Tyco Toys, which was acquired in 1997 by Mattel, Inc. It is currently marketed by Mattel.

Each player takes control of either the red robot (the "Red Rocker") or the black robot (the "Blue Bomber"), both of which are standing on a platform reminiscent of a boxing ring. By pushing buttons on a pair of joysticks at the base of the platform, players make their robot punch at their opponent's robot. If a robot's head gets hit with the sufficient force at a suitable angle, its head will pop up, signifying that the other player has won.

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots has enjoyed far-ranging success in the United States, selling in the hundreds of thousands and becoming something of a minor pop-culture phenomenon. The game was also available in the United Kingdom during the 1970s, where it was sold under the name Raving Bonkers.

Marx Toys also released an updated version of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots called Clash of the Cosmic Robots in 1977. It featured robots of a more space-age design, likely inspired by the science fiction influences of the time.

For a period of time in the mid 1990s the blue robot was changed to a darker shade of blue and given a head more like that of Robocop. The red robot was changed to a grey (Though the instructions referred to him as "silver") color but retained his classic head. Their respective names were changed to "Bolt Crusher Bob" and "Gear Grinder Greg". Aside from the cosmetic changes the game remained the same.

In 2000, a reissue of the classic version was developed by Mattel, at approximately half the size of the original model. In addition, an action figure line, a PlayStation game, electronic handhelds, a head-to-head plug and play and bobble head dolls have been recently introduced. The PlayStation game was Rock'em Sock'em Robots Arena, published by Mattel Interactive, and was developed by Paradox Development using their successful game engine from the Wu-Tang video game. The video game and action figure lines represented a newer, updated version of the robots, whereas the reissued game and licensed products all were based on the original Red Rocker and Blue Bomber characters.

In the new GameBoy Advance game, more robots were added, including: "Yellow Yahoo", "Brown Bully", "Orange Oppressor", "Silver Stretcher", "Purple Pyro", "Green Grappler", "Pink Pummeller", and the "Black Bruiser". The game was also made into a mobile phone video game by Oasys Mobile recently.^[1]

[edit] In Popular Culture

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In the Season 1 episode "Along Came Joey" of Hawaii Five-O, the gambler Nick Morgan is seen playing the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots toy. At the time, the toy was a relatively new phenomenon. The toy was probably included in the episode because the story revolved around the death of a young boxer.

Beavis and Butt-head saw a game during a Primus video. Beavis encouraged one robot to kick another one in the "nads". Beavis also stated that he puts makeshift nads on all his robots, using glue and raisins.

In the 1998 episode of The Simpsons titled "Simpson Tide", when Homer joins the Navy, Marge expresses her concerns for Homer during upcoming war games, who laughs and says "How could a game ever hurt me?", before reminiscing to a time he put his head in between the two robots and beat himself up with him saying "Damn you, Rock-em Sock-em Robots! Can't we all just get along?" Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots were later parodied in the episodes "Hungry Hungry Homer" and "Fat Man and Little Boy". In the latter episode, they are called "Sock-Em Knock-Em Cyborgs". Another episode had two mafia guys playing the game with one of them saying "you knocked his block off!"

In the 1999 Futurama episode "A Fishful of Dollars", Fry gives Bender an "antique robot toy", but when one robot's head gets knocked off, Bender is horrified.

In the 1999 Pixar animation film sequel Toy Story 2, the main toys are searching in 'Al's office' in 'Al's Toy Barn' for Woody. A character, Slinky Dog, comes across a set of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots and asks them if they had seen Woody(Slinky describes Woody as 'a cowboy doll with a bad arm'), only for the two to argue about who was being asked, and fight, with the blue one defeating the red one.

In the TV series Beast Wars Transformers, Rhinox and Inferno fight in a manner like the game. Rhinox wins and is knocked out by Megatron, Inferno's head is pushed back down by Megatron.

In Family Guy Peter Griffin mentioned Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots as one of the games the kids play.

In Much Music combat zone used to have the toys as a logo.

The robots appeared on MADtv in a COPS parody called ClOPS.

Towards the end of Sierra's Space Quest III computer game is an arcade sequence called "Nuke 'Em Duke 'Em Robots" and featuring two gigantic boxing robots very reminiscent of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em.

A life-size version of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots was brought to Burning Man in 2003, 2004 and 2006

On an episode of Home improvement Tim had a wedding cake with Rock'em Sock'em Robots shaped like a bride and groom on the top.

In a Saturday Night Live skit a Bratz doll was hitting a Barbie doll and saying "I'll knock your block off"

In the 1999 episode "Moon Zero Two" of MST3K, Joel plays Rock'em Sock'em Robots with Servo and Crow.

In the 2001 episode of Friends titled "The One Where Rachel Tells..." (episode 3 of season 8), Joey and Phoebe are shown playing this game.

The band Tenacious D also sings about Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots on their 2001 debut album on the track "City Hall."

In the 2002 movie Santa Clause 2 a scene features Scott Calvin giving adults in the faculty Christmas party the presents they wanted. One of the adults gets Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots "in mint condition!" and is seen playing with them when everyone is playing with their presents.

In the 2002 Reese Witherspoon movie, Sweet Home Alabama, the two romantic leads have a makeshift wedding reception at the very end. The bride and groom dolls from the top of the wedding cake are replaced with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, to signify how often the two fight.

They are also seen in the 2004 Pixar animation film The Incredibles on one of the shelves inside Mr. Incredible's office, in the lower left corner on the middle shelf.

In the 2005 movie Robots Rodney has a poster on his wall, "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em IV Red vs Blue"

In the 2005 movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", the character Mike Teavee is seen in the ring being punched by both Rock'em Sock'em Robots after being shrunken down and trapped in the television.

In a 2006 Dodge TV commercial, a life-size Blue Bomber defeats the Red Rocker, then unsuccessfully attempts to destroy a red Dodge Ram by punching the grill before knocking himself out with the force of his final punch. This was part of a series of ads, with Dodge licensing the characters for use from Mattel.

In the Nickelodeon show, "Zoey 101", two characters were seen playing each other with them.

In an episode of "That 70's Show", Hyde and Kelso take a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots set from a church bingo game, and are later seen playing with it, until Kelso loses repeatedly and storms off.

The robots are featured on the shelf of Stephen Colbert on his show "The Colbert Report" as an oblique reference to the red state/blue state political philosophy. Stephen Colbert played a match of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots on his tv series against Gary Kasparov and won on October 17, 2007[1]