Danger, Will Robinson!
This toy is freakin’ awesome.
Before we discuss the toy, I’ll tell you a funny story. Back in 1998, I used to bum around a comic book/hobby/toy store at the mall called ‘Collectors Guide to the Galaxy’ in West Hills, California. They had a small location and it seemed like they did great. Eventually, the owner switched to the other side of the mall to an enormous location that was formerly used as a laser tag location. The store experienced a decline in sales, and just had people shoplifting from it and bumming around playing collectible card games.
In an effort to regain excitement from paying clientele, the owner started bringing in ‘celebrities’ to garner attention and bring in shoppers. One celebrity I remember most clearly was an older gentleman who was touted to have played B9, the robot from Lost in Space. As someone with a life-long love for pop culture robots (plus the 1998 movie had just come out, so the old TV show was being aired again on The Sci-Fi Channel), I was intrigued.
I met the gentleman, who then admitted to the crowd that he did not do the voice of B9. He was the suit actor. Now, I’m not trying to dismiss the role of the suit actor. That is a critical role. Hell, everyone loves Kenny Baker, the suit actor best known for playing R2D2 in the Star Wars franchise. But with that role comes legitimate emoting. Something about meeting the suit actor for B9 without the voice who brought ‘Danger, Will Robinson’ to life was, at the time to my teenage sensibilities, a little odd. A little deceiving. But hey– everything is more severe when you’re a teenager.
Back to the toy.
Coming to us from Diamond Select Toys, the popular, best-selling electronic 10″ B9 robot is going back into production. It talks, and will have the same dialogue and sound effects as the prior model. Plus, for those who have the silver edition already, there’s a “retro” style red-and-blue metallic edition, which is what we are showing off above.
B9 is an excellent edition to anyone who either collects pop culture robots (me), or was a huge fan of the Lost in Space franchise. Each B9 figure measures approximately 10″ tall and features real rolling wheels. Packaged in a full-color window box with try-me button. You can pre-order this figure now at BigBadToyStore.com.