Bob Block followed up his popular children's comedy 'Pardon My Genie' with this show, also made by Thames Television. The story goes that he got the idea after losing his temper because of deadlines. "What do they think I am?", he raged: "A robot?".
John Clive ( the voice of 'John Lennon' in the 1968 film 'Yellow Submarine, and now a successful author ) took the lead as 'Robert Sommerby', an eccentric inventor who lives in the country with his Aunt Millie ( Doris Rogers ), and a number of robots, one of which - 'Katie' ( K.T. ) - is silver, talks like a child, and has a propensity for walking through doors without opening them ( in one episode, he fell in love with a gas cooker ). Others include the sarcastic Eric ( Nigel Pegrum ) and Desiree ( April Olrich ), the latter programmed to breathlessly declare her undying love for every man she meets. A sinister foreign type called 'Marken' ( Leon Lissek ) wants Sommerby's secrets, and hires incompetent private eye 'Gimble' ( Richard Davies a.k.a. 'Mr.Price' of 'Please Sir!' ). In the second season, David Pugh replaced him as the equally useless 'Plummer'.
Nigel Pegrum was familiar to children through 'Sing To The Animals' and a pair of guest appearances in 'The Tomorrow People'. Future 'Magpie' presenter Jenny Hanley was 'Angie', Sommerby's fiancée ( who was kept in the dark about his robot project ). Christopher Biggins and the seventh 'Dr.Who' - Sylvester McCoy - appeared too. The humour largely came from the robots' attempts to pass themselves off as humans. In one instalment, Katie got on a bus, only to leave his hand behind when he got off. In another, Eric experienced overheating, forcing him to walk around town with a bag of frozen peas against his head. Two seasons were made. The comic possibilities of robots was later explored in 'Red Dwarf'.
John Clive ( the voice of 'John Lennon' in the 1968 film 'Yellow Submarine, and now a successful author ) took the lead as 'Robert Sommerby', an eccentric inventor who lives in the country with his Aunt Millie ( Doris Rogers ), and a number of robots, one of which - 'Katie' ( K.T. ) - is silver, talks like a child, and has a propensity for walking through doors without opening them ( in one episode, he fell in love with a gas cooker ). Others include the sarcastic Eric ( Nigel Pegrum ) and Desiree ( April Olrich ), the latter programmed to breathlessly declare her undying love for every man she meets. A sinister foreign type called 'Marken' ( Leon Lissek ) wants Sommerby's secrets, and hires incompetent private eye 'Gimble' ( Richard Davies a.k.a. 'Mr.Price' of 'Please Sir!' ). In the second season, David Pugh replaced him as the equally useless 'Plummer'.
Nigel Pegrum was familiar to children through 'Sing To The Animals' and a pair of guest appearances in 'The Tomorrow People'. Future 'Magpie' presenter Jenny Hanley was 'Angie', Sommerby's fiancée ( who was kept in the dark about his robot project ). Christopher Biggins and the seventh 'Dr.Who' - Sylvester McCoy - appeared too. The humour largely came from the robots' attempts to pass themselves off as humans. In one instalment, Katie got on a bus, only to leave his hand behind when he got off. In another, Eric experienced overheating, forcing him to walk around town with a bag of frozen peas against his head. Two seasons were made. The comic possibilities of robots was later explored in 'Red Dwarf'.
