BattleBots
| BattleBots | |
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| Genre | Sports television |
| Created by |
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| Directed by |
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| Presented by |
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| Starring |
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| Narrated by |
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| Composer(s) | Vanacore Music |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 7 |
| No. of episodes | 108 + 1 special (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
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| Editor(s) | Jonathan Siegel (2015–) |
| Running time | 30–60 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Whalerock Industries BattleBots Productions |
| Release | |
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| Original release |
Original series: August 30, 2000 – December 21, 2002 Revived series: June 21, 2015 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
BattleBots is an American competition television series. Competitors design and operate remote-controlled armed and armored machines designed to fight in an arena combat elimination tournament. For five seasons, BattleBots aired on the American Comedy Central and was hosted by Bil Dwyer, Sean Salisbury, and Tim Green. Comedy Central's first season premiered on August 30, 2000, and its fifth and last season ended on December 21, 2002.
A six-episode revival series premiered on ABC on June 21, 2015, to generally favorable reviews and ratings. Additionally, ABC renewed BattleBots for a seventh season, which premiered on June 23, 2016.
BattleBots is an offshoot of the original American version of Robot Wars, the brainchild of Marc Thorpe. Robot Wars had financial backing from Sm:)e communications, a New York record company. The Thorpe/Sm:)e partnership broke up in 1997, starting many years of legal wrangling between Thorpe and Profile Records (the former Sm:)e communications). Profile licensed Robot Wars to a UK production company and Robot Wars ran for seven years as a popular television program in the UK.
The robot builders left behind in San Francisco formed BattleBots, Inc. and began a series of competitions. The first was held in Long Beach, California in August 1999 and streamed online, attracting 40,000 streams. Lenny Stucker, a television producer known for his work on telecasts of professional boxing, was in attendance, and showed interest in being involved with BattleBots—believing the concept of robot combat was "hip" and having shown an interest in technology. Stucker made changes to the competition's format and presentation to make it more suitable for television, including elements reminiscent of boxing (such as a red and blue corner) and shifting to a single-elimination format. The creators tried selling the competition as a television series to networks such as CBS, NBC, HBO, and Showtime—but they failed to understand the concept of the program or take it seriously. A second event was held as a pay-per-view in Las Vegas in 1999; the PPV was in turn, used as a pilot to pitch the show again, with a higher rate of success.
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Wikipedia