Robot B-9, R.I.P.
Well, more specifically Bob May, the guy inside Robot B-9 for the duration of the popular Lost In Space show (not the shit-tastic 1998 movie). May died yesterday of congestive heart failure at the age of 69. From Yahoo:
“He always said he got the job because he fit in the robot suit,” said June Lockhart, who played family matriarch Maureen Robinson. “It was one of those wonderful Hollywood stories.
He just happened to be on the studio lot when someone saw him and sent
him to see Irwin Allen about the part. Allen said, ‘If you can fit in
the suit, you’ve got the job.”
He was apparently quite the smoker.
Lockhart said May wore the suit for hours at a time and learned the
lines of every actor in the show so he would know when to respond to
their cues. Because it wasn’t easy to get in and out of the suit, he
kept it on during breaks. “He was a
smoker,” Lockhart remembered. “From time to time (when he was on a
break), we’d see smoke coming out of the robot. That always amused us.”
I’ll tell you this–Will Robinson is totally fucked without his mobile danger alarm.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.