Robot Commando commercial ( Ideal 1961 )

The first mecha.

Can you imagine what would happen if he had the EARLIEST voice recognition command?

Left!
*fires missile into your eye*
Dammit! My eye!
*Laughs at your human concept of pain*

Some of the other writers are correct. The original controller simply had closely aligned metal plates in the mouthpiece. You blew into it to make contact, after you preset what you wanted to robot to do. There was actually litigation against Ideal for this misrepresentation. I will post a video shortly of my restoration of this piece, with additional details on the lawsuit. So, there is no voice recognition. This is still a very fine toy, and repairable if you have the nerve!

I just restored mine after a gear broke inside and the rocket and ball firing actions would no longer work. I just got it working yesterday, July 13th 2009. I had a new gear made, but had to drill out the rivets and take the whole thing apart. I ended up keeping the original controller intact but I fabricated a new controller and cable. Most of these now are stiff and the controllers are broken. So I kept mine for display and have an ugly, but working, control box. The robot now works!

Crazy-eyed slap-fightin' Sum'beeyutch!

why was it LAVENDER?

The RC in this old teevee ad was a prototype.. note the pale lavender body and transparent parts.. if it still exists somewhere, it'd be worth a freakin' fortune!.. the Designer / inventor was Marvin Glass, who also designed Garloo, Odd Ogg, a mechanical lion, dog, and other huge, battery-op plastic toys for Ideal in the early 1960s..

There are plenty of them on eBay.. working and not working.. expect to pay anywhere from $150.00 to $900.00, depending on condition, working or not working, if it comes with the balls and rockets, cosmetics, and if it has the original instruction sheet and box.. the empty box ALONE sometimes sells for $200.00.. since most of them were thrown out.. some guys make a hobby of restoring broken ones and re-selling them.. just do an eBay search.. you'll find some for sale ALL the time..

Robot Commando didn't have ANY kind of voice recognition.. the wired remote control has a dial.. you'd turn the dial to "turn left" "turn right" "forward" "fire rocket" "fire missile" and then shout the command into the mic which was nothing more than a thin metal plate that made contact with a pin behind it.. you could simply blow into it instead of speak.. then, dep. on where the dial was set, he'd do what you "commanded".. I have a MINT working RC 10 feet away from me.. $10 or $20 in 1961

Interesting hr...still, its a pretty smart idea for the non digital age