Robot Wares

The images in this article are all nicked from eBay listings, I'm afraid to say.

At the height of its powers at the turn of the millennium, Robot Wars was one of the most merchandising-friendly shows on television, and shortly after the third series concluded in early 2000 the BBC duly obliged fans with a set of action figures -- generally referred to as "pullbacks", after the friction motors they used which meant the toys would move forwards on their own when pulled back then released (which would also allow for rotary weapons to really spin as they did so).

These toys came in three distinct waves or phases, but just to be confusing, the first wave was in two halves released over 2000 and 2001. Phase 1A, as we'll refer to it, featured all the House Robots with Hypno-Disc as the sole competitor robot. Each toy came with an accessory, and for these first figures the accessories were based on the popular Pinball trial -- the intention being that when you collected all six toys, you could recreate the entire Pinball arena and have Hypno-Disc run it against all of the House Robots (the accessories were, respectively, a stack of barrels with Dead Metal, a breezeblock wall with Hypno-Disc, the car door with Matilda, tyre targets with Sgt. Bash, the multiball release with Shunt and the see-saw ramp and sphere with Sir Killalot). These figures also featured swappable components not found on the real-life machines -- for example, Killalot's lance could be switched for a hammer. (The spiked back featured on Hypno-Disc from Series 4 onwards was specifically inspired by the interchangeable one included with the toy!)

Phase 1B, released in 2001, added the Refbot to the mix as well as a selection of the most iconic competitor robots -- Chaos 2, Panic Attack, Pussycat and Razer. (Perhaps due to concerns over sales for a less 'fun' toy, the Refbot was not initially sold separately and could only be purchased as part of a multipack with another robot, but was later released individually.) Panic Attack featured the ball and goal from the Football trial, but the other pullbacks had to resort to accessories not based on television such as traffic cones, ramps, and a 'power hammer' which the robots had to try and duck under without getting hit (perhaps not dissimilar to the Sentinel from Series 2). The Refbot was also sold with a battleboard with swappable panels featuring the names of the various robots available as toys. 

There was also a playset based on the Gauntlet from the first two series, which was the only way to get the X-Terminator figure. Several of the first wave pullbacks were extremely fragile -- in particular the mechanism operating Chaos 2's flipper was very prone to breakage -- and thus some of them had rereleases with these parts reinforced. The Razer toy also notably appeared on television as "Razzler", a modified version which took part in the Antweight Championships for robots weighing no more than 150 grams.

The second phase of pullbacks in 2002 comprised three more competitor robots, namely Firestorm, Wheely Big Cheese and Stinger; owing to the robot's design, the last of these utilised a unique 'ripcord' design rather than a pullback motor. The accessories were perhaps getting a bit strained by this point; the ramp provided with the Stinger toy was quite good as it worked well with the ripcord system, but WBC came with a small tower of girders and Firestorm a 'flamethrower' turret which could launch plastic flames.

The very last set of figures, released in 2003 -- shortly before the show left the BBC -- featured the two new Series 6 house robots, Mr. Psycho and Growler, and two further competitor robots, Dantomkia and Tornado (the most notable newcomer and champion of the Sixth Wars, respectively). Unsurprisingly, these toys are by far the rarest and most expensive to get hold of today. The competitors came with spiked blocks and a spinning disc inspired by the similar "Disc of Doom" used in the Series 6 arena (plus a scoop attachment for Tornado), but the house robots featured repeats of the barrels and breezeblocks sold with earlier releases.

A Behemoth toy was planned at some point but never released, and a Diotoir toy was abandoned when the manufacturers determined there was no way to stop children from trying to set fire to it. One other release that was planned was a special arena for the pullbacks to fight in, which ran into a problem -- the thing would be far too big. Blue Peter-style instructions for building your own arena were included in an issue of Robot Wars Magazine, but this perhaps played a part in the creation of the 'Minibots'; small, die-cast figurines also incorporating pullback motors (and, if you were lucky, a moving part or two). These did have an arena playset released (boasting a descending pit, floor flipper, opening and closing arena entry gates and commentary from Jonathan Pearce), as well as a subsequent 'Drop Zone' addon (which included a toy washing machine to drop on robots) and a 'Smash 'n' Crash' playset. 21 robots (all the 'first generation' house robots and a selection of competitors including Dominator 2, Plunderbird 5, Suicidal Tendencies, Wild Thing and, a little ambitiously, Gemini) were released as minibots, which were sold in sets of 2, 3 or 5.

Apart from this one, once I remembered I still had a few of my old minibots knocking around.

Alongside the pullbacks, a fine collection of radio-controlled toys was also released, comprising several house robots and Tornado; all had an 'immobilising spot' which would stop the robot once hit three times, were very sturdily made so you really could fight them with each other, and even boasted functional but (obviously) low-power weapons. The very last range of toys introduced (notwithstanding the releases accompanying the 2016-18 reboot, which hit shelves over a year after the show's cancellation) were the 'Pitstop Kits', which built on the interchangeable components seen in the first toys by having a whole range of swappable weapons and body parts.

The show's move to Channel Five for its seventh and final original series unfortunately precluded the possibility of any more toys being produced in the short window before the show's cancellation (although despite this series champion Typhoon 2 was reportedly still measured for one), as the merchandising rights stayed with the BBC; a shame, as they'd really gotten the hang of making them by that point and the Phase Three pullbacks are all high-quality, durable toys.