This post led me down a rabbit hole I wasn't prepared to follow. However, it did result in some interesting information regarding the old Captain Video and His Video Rangers television series. The most important thing to keep in mind is: this set of four Lido Futureman figures - having been posted over the past week or so - were made in 1953 as tie-ins to the DuMont Television Network's Captain Video and His Video Rangers TV series. The series itself was ground breaking in that it was the first episodic science fiction television series. However, finding information on the series, it's episodes, and characters is difficult because when DuMont folded in 1955 (BTW the Captain Video series was still airing when DuMont folded) they dumped a good many of their film archives and documents into the East River in New York!
Enjoy! Opa Fritz
There has been some confusion in the toy collecting world as to what this robot figure was called. On the Toy Soldier HQ website, he is referred to as "Grag". ?????
Okay, type in "Grag" on any search engine and see what you come up with.
Right, I'll bet you came up with: Bupkis. Nothing. Nada, Nichts. Zilch. Why? Because that name is not associated anywhere with classic science fiction. Or modern science-fiction for that matter. Perhaps the name was coined in the absence of reliable information. While several websites covered the TV series robot or the Lido toy, the most comprehensive was
Cybernetic Zoo. The link will take you to the text that follows here:
Posted on November
24, 2015 by cyberne1
"From
the "Captain Video" TV serial, the "I, Tobor" episodes
starting the week of November 2, 1953.
Tobor
(played by 7' 6" Dave Ballard) was a prototype robot designed to be a
tireless worker and indestructible soldier. It bore the inscription
"I-TOBOR" (a reversed image of ROBOT-I) on its chest plate.
Tobor's
body featured a cylindrical manlike form, rockets mounted on its back; an
antenna sprouting skywards from each shoulder; a triangular flap of metal on
its chest containing a lens which shot a death ray; and activation by voice
commands via a pocket-sized device attuned to the vocal frequency of its
controller. Tobor also had giant claw pincers as hands.
Tobor
was originally designed as a force for good in the universe, until Atar, a
villainous female reset the robot's voice circuits to obey only her commands.
Now in control of the powerful robot, Atar set out to conquer the solar system.
Tobor
was finally rendered harmless when Captain Video, matching Atar's vocal
frequency, sent conflicting commands to Tobor and disrupted its circuitry.
Months
later (due to popular demand) Tobor was reactivated but this time under the
guidance of Captain Video's voice. A video monitor was built into his metallic
naval for closed circuit communication.
In
a later episode, an evil scientist stole Tobor's blueprints and created a
duplicate Tobor. A colossal battle of good vs. evil ensued with Tobor fighting
his evil twin.
Tobor
the robot was prominently featured in serial episodes: "I, Tobor"
(1953); "The Return of Tobor the
Robot (1954); and "Dr. Pauli's Planet" (1955).
Sources:
TVAcres and Danefield.com/alpha."
From LIFE magazine
Dave Ballard who wore the Tobor suit
Some ads featuring Tobor
The Merkin Marvel
Dave Ballard – the actor giant.
"Its been said that
Tobor is the first robot to appear in a TV series, beginning the week of
November 2, 1953. It should be noted that the earlier robots from Captain Video
were from a film serial, not TV. To my
knowledge, the Superman TV serial had the first robot – Adventures of Superman:
Season 1, Episode 17, The Runaway Robot (9 Jan. 1953).
Other forums suggest
the reason why the robot is called Tobor is due to a stencil being cut on the
wrong side, hence reversed in its application. As we haven't seen an image of
Tobor with his name emblazoned on his chest, this cannot be confirmed yet.
A different looking
robot appeared in the earlier 1951 film serial Captain Video Master of the
Stratosphere and first appeared in Chapter 3 "Captain Video's Peril".
The 1954 movie
"Tobor the Great" was a different robot as well.
Note:
Mon Jan 18, 2016, Peter Milo contacted me:-
Hi.
I ran across your article regarding Tobor from the Captain Video show. I
remember the first episode quite vividly: The stencil was accidentally reversed
when the name was painted. Hence: I TOBOR
I
also had the good fortune of meeting the entire cast in person and got to see
the actual filming of an episode at the DuMont studio (my dad was a mounted cop in that area and
had many friends along his beat). Al
Hodges was really a friendly individual, as was the rest of the crew. I left
the studio that evening with a bunch of Powerhouse candy bars. LOL
Hi
Peter,
Thanks
for confirming the stencil story. Do you recall TOBOR as having large claws as
hands? Cheers, Reuben Hoggett.
Hello,
Reuben. Thanks again for creating such an informative sight. Tobor had large
pincer claws, which greatly added to his overall menace. A model robot, which
really didn’t resemble Tobor, was used for his space travel scenes. I remember
my friends debating this anomaly; they finally chalked it up to poor
photography in outer space. The
episode with the rock monsters was being telecast on the evening I visited the
studio. I remember being quite surprised by the special effects (a couple
technicians were lying on the floor, pulling ropes). When I glanced up at the
monitor, it seemed that the large rocks were moving on their own. Really cool
stuff. Best Regards, Peter Milo.
Seeother early Humanoid Robots here.
Seeother early Pseudo and Fake Robots here.
Posted in Pseudo Automatons and Robots Tagged
"Captain Video", 1953, 1954, 1955, American, Atar, Dave Ballard,
Merkin Marvel, Merkin Paints, Pseudo Automaton, Texan, Tobor"
In addition, in the book "BLAST OFF: Rockets, Robots, Ray Guns, and Rarities from The Golden Age of Space Toys" by S. Mark Young, Steve Duin, and Mike Richardson (Dark Horse Comics, Inc. publisher. Copyright 2001), the toy is clearly referred to as "Tobor" (see the paragraph on the upper left of the left page and reference the large photo on the lower right of the right page).
Okay. I believe I clearly established Lido's robot as "TOBOR' NOT "Grag". Now on to the toy.
Captain Video faces off against Tobor
I understand that the toy robot doesn't look exactly like the Tobor seen in the TV series but it is after all a toy and among the first television tie-ins. The toy industry still had quite a learning curve.
