Grand Prix Rejects

Because, quite simply, who DOESN'T love Robot Wars?

Robot Wars - or BattleBots for our American friends - was a show on TV where contestants built their own, weaponised robots - and then fought them for our entertainment! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Wars_(TV_series)

One of my favourite robots was definitely HypnoDisc, he always looked like he would win the series but was always unlucky. Series 4, HypnoDisc vs Pussycat - one of the most heartbreaking battles ever

Feel free to discuss your own Robot Wars memories here!

I remember there being a Dutch clusterbot that vaguely resembled a race car: as a result, the team behind it all wore white crash helmets like the stig

pasta_maldonado wrote:Because, quite simply, who DOESN'T love Robot Wars?

Robot Wars - or BattleBots for our American friends - was a show on TV where contestants built their own, weaponised robots - and then fought them for our entertainment! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Wars_(TV_series)

One of my favourite robots was definitely HypnoDisc, he always looked like he would win the series but was always unlucky. Series 4, HypnoDisc vs Pussycat - one of the most heartbreaking battles ever

Feel free to discuss your own Robot Wars memories here!

pasta-maldonado if you were standing in front of me i could hug you. I used to absolutely love Robot Wars shame it was dropped. I own a Panic Attack toy at home. Panic Attack were series 2 champions driven by Kim Davies and it was his driving that got Panic Attack to where they were. Just to show it when he left in Series 7 and brought in a new driver they fell out in the 2nd round of their heat. RIP Robot Wars

Robot Wars was my childhood. Friday night, BBC 2, bloody awesome. Like Pasta, I was a huge Hypno-Disc fan, and I was so upset when he was flipped over by Chaos 2 in the Series 3 Grand Final, being about 4/5 years old at the time.

Chaos 2 becoming the first robot to send another robot out of the arena itself was awe-inspiring. I also remember the Firestorm team, pretty much the David Coulthard/Rubens Barrichello of RW as they'd always be in the semi-finals/Grand Finals, yet would never win the thing.

Shame really that the show started going sour after the 4th Wars.

Meanwhile, in Robogames...

East Londoner wrote:Robot Wars was my childhood. Friday night, BBC 2, bloody awesome. Like Pasta, I was a huge Hypno-Disc fan, and I was so upset when he was flipped over by Chaos 2 in the Series 3 Grand Final.

Chaos 2 becoming the first robot to send another robot out of the arena itself was awe-inspiring. I also remember the Firestorm team, pretty much the David Coulthard/Rubens Barrichello of RW as they'd always be in the semi-finals/Grand Finals, yet would never win the thing.

Shame really that the show started going sour after the 4th Wars.

Firestorm/Hypno Disc: The nearly bots of Robot Wars. And this thread wouldn't be complete without a mention of Razer World and UK champions who with better Reliability would have won so much more. Does that make Razer the Adrian Newey of Robot Wars?

Also why do you think the series lost it's touch after Series 4?

East Londoner wrote:Robot Wars was my childhood. Friday night, BBC 2, bloody awesome. Like Pasta, I was a huge Hypno-Disc fan, and I was so upset when he was flipped over by Chaos 2 in the Series 3 Grand Final, being about 4/5 years old at the time.

Chaos 2 becoming the first robot to send another robot out of the arena itself was awe-inspiring. I also remember the Firestorm team, pretty much the David Coulthard/Rubens Barrichello of RW as they'd always be in the semi-finals/Grand Finals, yet would never win the thing.

Shame really that the show started going sour after the 4th Wars.

Ah yes, the glory days of Friday nights on BBC 2. Robot Wars, The Simpsons and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would all come on...dang, I miss those days.

I was always a Diotoir fan, even though it would catch fire every time I remember the team being quite charismatic; they looked like they were just there for a laugh.

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:

East Londoner wrote:Robot Wars was my childhood. Friday night, BBC 2, bloody awesome. Like Pasta, I was a huge Hypno-Disc fan, and I was so upset when he was flipped over by Chaos 2 in the Series 3 Grand Final.

Chaos 2 becoming the first robot to send another robot out of the arena itself was awe-inspiring. I also remember the Firestorm team, pretty much the David Coulthard/Rubens Barrichello of RW as they'd always be in the semi-finals/Grand Finals, yet would never win the thing.

Shame really that the show started going sour after the 4th Wars.

Firestorm/Hypno Disc: The nearly bots of Robot Wars. And this thread wouldn't be complete without a mention of Razer World and UK champions who with better Reliability would have won so much more. Does that make Razer the Adrian Newey of Robot Wars?

Also why do you think the series lost it's touch after Series 4?

Stuff like the RefBot, which I felt was silly in such a show, the way the arena was tarted up in the later series (I prefered the darker arenas), and also around that time, some teams started spending ridiculous amounts of money on their robots, which took away some, if not all of the amateur charm of the older series. I mean, in Series 7, Typhoon 2 won the championship, and it was a robot built by the bloody Royal Navy, which they wouldn't tell the viewers anything about. Unlike in the older series, where it was like family teams, teams from a garden shed and the odd university project.

Ah well, still good memories.

East Londoner wrote:

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:

East Londoner wrote:Robot Wars was my childhood. Friday night, BBC 2, bloody awesome. Like Pasta, I was a huge Hypno-Disc fan, and I was so upset when he was flipped over by Chaos 2 in the Series 3 Grand Final.

Chaos 2 becoming the first robot to send another robot out of the arena itself was awe-inspiring. I also remember the Firestorm team, pretty much the David Coulthard/Rubens Barrichello of RW as they'd always be in the semi-finals/Grand Finals, yet would never win the thing.

Shame really that the show started going sour after the 4th Wars.

Firestorm/Hypno Disc: The nearly bots of Robot Wars. And this thread wouldn't be complete without a mention of Razer World and UK champions who with better Reliability would have won so much more. Does that make Razer the Adrian Newey of Robot Wars?

Also why do you think the series lost it's touch after Series 4?

Stuff like the RefBot, which I felt was silly in such a show, the way the arena was tarted up in the later series (I prefered the darker arenas), and also around that time, some teams started spending ridiculous amounts of money on their robots, which took away some, if not all of the amateur charm of the older series. I mean, in Series 7, Typhoon 2 won the championship, and it was a robot built by the bloody Royal Navy, which they wouldn't tell the viewers anything about. Unlike in the older series, where it was like family teams, teams from a garden shed and the odd university project.

Ah well, still good memories.

I see what you mean. Thinking about it having just 2 House Robots out from Series 5 onwards took some charm away and destruction too .

Freeze-O-Kimi wrote:
I see what you mean. Thinking about it having just 2 House Robots out from Series 5 onwards took some charm away and destruction too .

Talking of house robots, I always felt sorry for Dead Metal. When there was just 2, he was always forgotten and hardly ever was picked!

Used to watch Battlebots quite a bit back in the day. Still have some VHS tapes of most of the first, and second seasons. I always liked Blade Runner, Voltronic, and Torro.

Hypno-Disc destructive? Son of Whyachi would like a word with you...

IIRC, series 1 was hosted by Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear.

roblomas52 wrote:IIRC, series 1 was hosted by Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear.

It was indeed! Craig Charles took over after that, showcasing his dangly leather jacket!

Does anyone remember Techno Games? It was kind of a Robot Wars spinoff of sorts, basically just putting various robots through different athletic-style events.

Ataxia wrote:

roblomas52 wrote:IIRC, series 1 was hosted by Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear.

It was indeed! Craig Charles took over after that, showcasing his dangly leather jacket!

Does anyone remember Techno Games? It was kind of a Robot Wars spinoff of sorts, basically just putting various robots through different athletic-style events.

1 Quote from Charles that i always remember is how he described Sumo Wrestling

"This sumo isn't about overgrown men wearing nappies"

Regards what East Londoner said about Robot Wars going downhill after series 4, I'm fairly sure that the real shark jump was Robot Wars Extreme between series 4 and 5 - or, should that say - Robot Wars EXTRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEME!!!!!!!!!!! as I'm sure the true pronunciation was intended to be. It's around the time I noticed the crowd was getting ever younger, the show itself was being pitched to a younger audience, there was even a BBC Robot Wars magazine aimed squarely at the under-tens. More and more kids appeared on the teams whose only job was to cry when their robot lost a fight. Then there was the ever-growing prominence of the huge foam hands, Another One Bites The Dust, the chanting and booing... it was becoming more like an American wrestling event than the sporting purity of a boxing match. All show, no substance. Then there was the further problem of the utter invincibility of Chaos 2, which only had to turn up to win. The one small crumb of consolation was the interview with George Francis afterwards... as he explained how he'd built the robot the way he did in his hilariously squeaky voice.

But for three series - i.e. the second, third and fourth, after Craig Charles was recruited and it was given a better timeslot than the original Clarkson series - Robot Wars was absolutely the best way to spend an early Friday evening. I was an undergrad at the time, I'd have come out of a long day of Cambridge-level lectures and lab sessions, or been cracking some tough synthesis problems, and I'd be sitting there with my many housemates with whatever hideous concoction of beans and spam I'd thrown together in the kitchen. Top banana.

Just as East Londoner said, Robot Wars on BBC 2, Friday evenings was my childhood. I was also a massive Hypno Disc fan for reasons I can't quite remember, as well as being a fan of Wheelie Big Cheese (I was 3 and it appealed to my sense of humour for some reason) and Diotoir (mainly because it inevitably ended up on fire ). Don't remember Clarkson presenting it, although that might be because its lost in the mists of my early years.

Razer was inevitably the robot I had an overwhelming dislike for given its ability, and it had those little 'wings' that helped it to right after it had been flipped; in my eyes the bugger was indestructible! I was also slightly scared of Sir Killalot as well; as a 4 year old I had a recurring nightmare of being locked in a small room with an angry Killalot!

Anyone else remember that one fight where all 4 robots ended up ganging up on Matilda the house bot? Oh this is all so nostalgic, makes me want a Werthers Original

It was always funny when Diotoir fought because at least one thing was guaranteed
The first episode I watched was extreme series 1… on Dave

I bathplugging LOVED that show as a child, I really enjoyed the robots like Diotoir and Plunderbird, who were clearly not there to win most of the time, but they had their moments.

As we're all lovers of underdogs beating the top competitors, I have to add Diotoir's finest hour

Series 1 and 2 are on Youtube in full too. Some of the robots, especially in the first series are so hopelessly rejectful. I enjoyed those series a lot, especially with the gauntlet and other events like sumo or football. Don't get me wrong, I loved the destruction, but those other events added a nice bit of variety.

dinizintheoven wrote:Regards what East Londoner said about Robot Wars going downhill after series 4, I'm fairly sure that the real shark jump was Robot Wars Extreme between series 4 and 5 - or, should that say - Robot Wars EXTRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEME!!!!!!!!!!! as I'm sure the true pronunciation was intended to be. It's around the time I noticed the crowd was getting ever younger, the show itself was being pitched to a younger audience, there was even a BBC Robot Wars magazine aimed squarely at the under-tens. More and more kids appeared on the teams whose only job was to cry when their robot lost a fight. Then there was the ever-growing prominence of the huge foam hands, Another One Bites The Dust, the chanting and booing... it was becoming more like an American wrestling event than the sporting purity of a boxing match. All show, no substance. Then there was the further problem of the utter invincibility of Chaos 2, which only had to turn up to win. The one small crumb of consolation was the interview with George Francis afterwards... as he explained how he'd built the robot the way he did in his hilariously squeaky voice.

Ah yes, George Francis...until there were re-airings of RW on Dave a couple of years back I thought he was a woman.

You like underdogs? What about hilarious upsets? Buddy Lee Don't Play in the Street vs. Turbo, Battlebots, Season 2, Middleweight division.

The scores from the old Battlebots website:

Aggression: Buddy Lee 11-4
Damage: Turbo 9-6
Strategy: Buddy Lee 11-4

Buddy Lee wins 28-17

Some of my favorite matches:

Biohazard vs. Vlad in Season 2 - Epic fight for the heavyweight championship.

Mauler vs. Bigger Brother Season 2 - I've never seen someone having all the cards fall the wrong way, and be so stoked about it at the same time!

Biohazard vs. Son of Whyachi Season 3 - Another close championship fight.

T-Minus vs. Sunshine Lollibot Season 3 - So many flips.

Lightweight Rumble Season 1 - Backlash was pretty much in control the whole match.

Heavyweigt Rumble 1 Season 2 - Although Overkill would be my winner. I think Mjollnir deserves infinite improbability fight of the match for hanging in there like that.

Heavyweight Rumble 2 Season 2 - Glad to finally see Voltronic, and Tazbot give Vlad a run for it's money. My winner: Tazbot.

Superheavyweight Rumble Season 2 - Torro just decimated the field.

I'll try to post more.

takagi_for_the_win wrote:Just as East Londoner said, Robot Wars on BBC 2, Friday evenings was my childhood. I was also a massive Hypno Disc fan for reasons I can't quite remember, as well as being a fan of Wheelie Big Cheese (I was 3 and it appealed to my sense of humour for some reason) and Diotoir (mainly because it inevitably ended up on fire ). Don't remember Clarkson presenting it, although that might be because its lost in the mists of my early years.

Razer was inevitably the robot I had an overwhelming dislike for given its ability, and it had those little 'wings' that helped it to right after it had been flipped; in my eyes the bugger was indestructible! I was also slightly scared of Sir Killalot as well; as a 4 year old I had a recurring nightmare of being locked in a small room with an angry Killalot!

Anyone else remember that one fight where all 4 robots ended up ganging up on Matilda the house bot? Oh this is all so nostalgic, makes me want a Werthers Original

Was it that one where Razer ripped Matilda to shreds in an Southern Annihilator final?

YES! I was also a big Robot Wars fan during the first four series, even buying the official magazine and some of the house robot toys. My first internet forum experience was also on the official Robot Wars site. I think I just stopped watching after Series 4 because I was more interested in other things by this stage (hello F1), rather than noticing the declining quality of the show, although I did go to a live qualifying heat for one of the later series. My favourites were Cassius, with its revolutionary self-righting mechanism (I was gutted when it drove into a pit for no reason in the Series two grand final), and my local team Firestorm.

It also inspired me to buy a magazine series called Real Robots for a while, featuring the chance to build your own automated "pet" with various functions (and a true robot, not the R/C vehicles of Robot Wars) - does anyone else remember this?

midgrid wrote:It also inspired me to buy a magazine series called Real Robots for a while, featuring the chance to build your own automated "pet" with various functions (and a true robot, not the R/C vehicles of Robot Wars) - does anyone else remember this?

I do believe I still have my little handmade robot kicking about somewhere- it was the rather round one with see-through grey and blue panels, wasn't it? I remember my dad bought it for me to try and encourage some interest in technical things...thing is, 4 year olds don't tend to have much patience, so he invariably made the whole thing from scratch!

takagi_for_the_win wrote:

midgrid wrote:It also inspired me to buy a magazine series called Real Robots for a while, featuring the chance to build your own automated "pet" with various functions (and a true robot, not the R/C vehicles of Robot Wars) - does anyone else remember this?

I do believe I still have my little handmade robot kicking about somewhere- it was the rather round one with see-through grey and blue panels, wasn't it? I remember my dad bought it for me to try and encourage some interest in technical things...thing is, 4 year olds don't tend to have much patience, so he invariably made the whole thing from scratch!

Yes, it was this little fella:



I think I got up to issue 20 or so before I accidentally knocked it off a table, damaging it quite severely, and deciding not to continue.

Hilariously rejectful robots? Look no further than Psychosprout, from the First Wars. Basically, it was just a remote control car inside a massive green ball. What's even better is that it managed to get through to the second round of its heat. Absolute genius.

I'm also convinced every young boy watching the show was interested in Phillipa Forrester...

East Londoner wrote:Hilariously rejectful robots? Look no further than Psychosprout, from the First Wars. Basically, it was just a remote control car inside a massive green ball. What's even better is that it managed to get through to the second round of its heat. Absolute genius.

I LOL'd silently when I saw that. Reject Gold in my eyes. This is what you were saying earlier about Robots and Teams like this giving the series it's charm before it petered away somewhat

Cynon wrote:You like underdogs? What about hilarious upsets? Buddy Lee Don't Play in the Street vs. Turbo, Battlebots, Season 2, Middleweight division.

The scores from the old Battlebots website:

Aggression: Buddy Lee 11-4
Damage: Turbo 9-6
Strategy: Buddy Lee 11-4

Buddy Lee wins 28-17

Yeah, I was surprised by the result when I first saw it. Another underdog of sorts would be DoAll. A superheavyweight that had one of the most useless weapons ever made for a battlebot. But managed to make it into the championship finals. (Mostly thanks to his opponents breaking down.) It was blown out of the water by Minion, but managed to go the distance in the final round.

East Londoner wrote:Hilariously rejectful robots? Look no further than Psychosprout, from the First Wars. Basically, it was just a remote control car inside a massive green ball. What's even better is that it managed to get through to the second round of its heat. Absolute genius.

I'm also convinced every young boy watching the show was interested in Phillipa Forrester...

Psychosprout the GOAT. Surely the robot that lost in the gauntlet in that heat deserves ROTS.

And yes, I was incredibly interested in Phillipa Forrester, obviously.

I may have to watch an episode on Youtube when I get the chance, probably the one with Psychosprout.

East Londoner wrote:I'm also convinced every young boy watching the show was interested in Phillipa Forrester...

Oh. My. Goodness. How on earth did I forget about HER?!

dr-baker wrote:

East Londoner wrote:I'm also convinced every young boy watching the show was interested in Phillipa Forrester...

Oh. My. Goodness. How on earth did I forget about HER?!

*cough* Baker's Law *cough*

Anyway, I did check out Psychosprout's heat, as it had to be done. Interesting group of robots. Oh, and Psychosprout could not have had a worse trial to have, as you'll see if you check out part 2 below.

Wharthog - Pretty basic, very rejectful as you'll see why.
Bodyhammer - Looks pretty decent for a 1st series entrant.
Torque of the Devil - Looks like a cheap imitation of Matilda.
Reali-T - Looks like an alien spaceship with spikes. Not bad though.
Full Metal Anorak - Similar to Wharthog, except more manoeuvrable, and had an interesting weapon.

Here's the episode

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Robot Wars is probably my favourite TV show of all time. I was obsessed with it, and to an extent, I still am! I've watched every episode of the UK Championships, Extreme, the World Championships and the Dutch Championships, along with a fair bit of Battlebots. I would spend a lot of time making robot designs out of Knex and I claim that I came up with the idea of Son of Whyatchi before the makers did! I had a robot with a spinning "cage" (an eight armed thing that looked a bit like the fairground swing carousel if the seats were tethered together) called Snowflake.

Anyway, it is noticeable how the quality of the series went down. It was a bit of a joke when Tornado, basically a box on wheels, beat Razer to win Series 6 (using a legal, but certainly not in the spirit of the rules, frame around the robot meaning it couldn't fit in the pit), and then in Series 7, flexing the rules (Typhoon destroying the area side wall so that the fight would be restarted, then being allowed to get up to full spinning speed upon the restart) so that a pushbot (this time, Storm 2) couldn't win. Nonetheless, there were still some amazing robots in later series, Typhoon was good as was Storm 2 (Tornado with twice the power); Tough As Nails, Tsunami, Gravity, Terrorhurtz, X-Terminator, 259 and S3 (which can be seen in a museum at Ironbridge!) were ones that stood out as well.

These will forever be my 2 favourite moments:
Robot Wars - UK flippers are better than US flippers
Battlebots - US flywheels are better than UK flywheels

watka wrote:Robot Wars is probably my favourite TV show of all time. I was obsessed with it, and to an extent, I still am! I've watched every episode of the UK Championships, Extreme, the World Championships and the Dutch Championships, along with a fair bit of Battlebots. I would spend a lot of time making robot designs out of Knex and I claim that I came up with the idea of Son of Whyatchi before the makers did! I had a robot with a spinning "cage" (an eight armed thing that looked a bit like the fairground swing carousel if the seats were tethered together) called Snowflake.

No kidding! I made my own Son of Wayachi replica with my Legos, as well as some other battlebots. Most of the time, pieces would fly across the room from the impact, but it was good fun!

DOSBoot wrote:

watka wrote:Robot Wars is probably my favourite TV show of all time. I was obsessed with it, and to an extent, I still am! I've watched every episode of the UK Championships, Extreme, the World Championships and the Dutch Championships, along with a fair bit of Battlebots. I would spend a lot of time making robot designs out of Knex and I claim that I came up with the idea of Son of Whyatchi before the makers did! I had a robot with a spinning "cage" (an eight armed thing that looked a bit like the fairground swing carousel if the seats were tethered together) called Snowflake.

No kidding! I made my own Son of Wayachi replica with my Legos, as well as some other battlebots. Most of the time, pieces would fly across the room from the impact, but it was good fun!

I think I tried to make a Diotior when I was little. I mauled a stuffed animal to make it!

I propose we name this thread 'The Diotor Robot Wars Thread'. Diotor more than any other robot captures the reject spirit of this site in that it was just made to be burnt alive. And occasionally it would score some great wins. I remember how Sgt. Bash was always conveniently picked to go in the area whenever Diotor was fighting.

Though even Diotor would be outdone later on by Granny's Revenge. A gag robot that was literally made and entered to be destroyed. She didn't even have a weapon. And she even took that stupid Refbot with her when she inevitably fell down the pit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7z-UVK_SJM

Put me down as another that thinks the series lost its charm from the 5th wars onwards. Particularly when they tried to out Sir Killalot, Sir Killalot with Mr. Pyscho and Growler (read 'Not Matlida'). Then we also had to put up with some rather unlikable teams in Tornando and Typhoon 2 who both won their championships by bending the rules. And who remembers Bigger Brother with that obnoxious little bathplugger Joe Watts that was always shoved down our throats. Always hated them even before they got in the way us finally seeing an epic Razor vs. Hypno Disc Final by sheer luck.

Speaking of Hypno Disc, they are the true pioneers of the finger celebration that a certain German is now so well known for. When I first saw them waggling their fingers around, I could have sworn they were flipping their opponents the bird, which was made all the more funny considering they had just devastated their opponent.

Another reject effort, was Naplam which always looked like it was cobbled together at the last minute and frankly looked like it was about to fall apart at any second, they would even return in the next series with damage from the previous year still visable. Essentially the Andrea Moda of Robot Wars yet they always somehow found their way quite far into the competition. I think they even made a semi final once.

Samster wrote:I propose we name this thread 'The Diotor Robot Wars Thread'. Diotor more than any other robot captures the reject spirit of this site in that it was just made to be burnt alive. And occasionally it would score some great wins. I remember how Sgt. Bash was always conveniently picked to go in the area whenever Diotor was fighting.

Though even Diotor would be outdone later on by Granny's Revenge. A gag robot that was literally made and entered to be destroyed. She didn't even have a weapon. And she even took that stupid Refbot with her when she inevitably fell down the pit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7z-UVK_SJM

Put me down as another that thinks the series lost its charm from the 5th wars onwards. Particularly when they tried to out Sir Killalot, Sir Killalot with Mr. Pyscho and Growler (read 'Not Matlida'). Then we also had to put up with some rather unlikable teams in Tornando and Typhoon 2 who both won their championships by bending the rules. And who remembers Bigger Brother with that obnoxious little bathplugger Joe Watts that was always shoved down our throats. Always hated them even before they got in the way us finally seeing an epic Razor vs. Hypno Disc Final by sheer luck.

Speaking of Hypno Disc, they are the true pioneers of the finger celebration that a certain German is now so well known for. When I first saw them waggling their fingers around, I could have sworn they were flipping their opponents the bird, which was made all the more funny considering they had just devastated their opponent.

Another reject effort, was Naplam which always looked like it was cobbled together at the last minute and frankly looked like it was about to fall apart at any second, they would even return in the next series with damage from the previous year still visable. Essentially the Andrea Moda of Robot Wars yet they always somehow found their way quite far into the competition. I think they even made a semi final once.

I agree about Napalm. They should have really fallen at the first round of every series they entered yet in a miracle Science is unable to explain never did. Still at least they proved Girls were able to fight in the series.

Also don't forget The team that ran Diotor had a bot called Nemesis for series 1 and 2 before Diotor was born in series 3. Didn't Diotor always hand out parts of their fur for other teams to decorate their bots in?

13 years after it was last updated, Diotor's website is still up on the interwebs.

Anyone remember Mortis, the most hated robot of the early series? I think they knocked Napalm out of the Series 2 semi-finals, making them even more hated than they already were.

I went to school with one of the people who controlled Pussycat in the later series, remember him bringing it into a lesson with the mini robot katnip and being amazed how large they were in real life and how sharp the blades on the saws actually were.

Ah, all sorts of memories from my youth here! Like most people who followed the show I was a Cassius fan, was gutted when it was beaten by Panic Attack in series two's final (I've wondered about that one since - as Panic Attack was competing for charity was there an incentive to let it get as far through the series as possible?)

I actually used to enjoy the Gauntlet and other challenges, mainly because they showed off the driver's skills and intelligence rather than just smashing seven bells out of each other wrestling-style. Still, wanton destruction is what the masses probably wanted.