This is why I love BattleBots!
Tonight's episode of "BattleBots" is again sponsored by Circuit City -- they're with me. Please, Circuit City, I want some time to myself, okay?
First fight, coming up. IceBerg is similar to the season two version of FrostBite. It's got the big plow blade in the front (on IceBerg, it looks like the plow is actuated), and six sets of wheels on the sides. Yes, sets of wheels. There are actually twelve total tires on the robot, six pairs of two tires side-by-side. And, of course, IceBerg has a Team Toad sticker on the front. That's the most important part.
IceBerg's opponent is Phrizbee-Ultimate, which looks exactly the same as it did last time. It has no Team Toad sticker.
Fight robotin' time. Phrizbee-Ultimate's shell begins to rotate very rapidly. IceBerg rushes to the center of the Box... and begins to spin in place. Ooh, talking smack at the start of the fight! This is going to be good.
IceBerg rams into the side of Phrizbee-Ultimate. (I'm sure you're wondering how a puck-shaped robot can have a definable "side." Trust me, if you see the hit, IceBerg hits Phrizbee-Ultimate in the side.) IceBerg's plow is bent a bit, but stays on the robot.
While Iceberg gets reoriented, Phrizbee-Ultimate comes over and hits it in the side. Two of IceBerg's tires go flying clear across the Box!
Ah, but that's why IceBerg has all of those pairs of tires. Ten tires remain on the robot, and all six "wheels" are still touching the floor. IceBerg has only begun to fight.
Phrizbee-Ultimate bounces into a screw base from that hit, and begins to wobble a bit. IceBerg drives back to Phrizbee-Ultimate and starts shoving the spinning robot around with that plow. Phrizbee-Ultimate knocks IceBerg away and narrowly avoids hitting the spike strip. IceBerg comes back for more.
IceBerg heads for Phrizbee-Ultimate, Phrizbee-Ultimate heads for IceBerg. The collision -- IceBerg's plow is torn clean off its body!
However, with that hit, Phrizbee-Ultimate slides across the floor and crashes into the spike strip. The shell stops spinning. IceBerg races to the other side of the box to take advantage of Phrizbee-Ultimate.
IceBerg drives up onto Phrizbee-Ultimate. It gets off, and the two try to slam into one another. Phrizbee-Ultimate is up against the spikes. IceBerg gets behind Phrizbee-Ultimate and pushes it to another wall, into more spikes. IceBerg keeps driving into Phrizbee-Ultimate, determined to not let it spin up again.
A quick ram from IceBerg. Then Phrizbee-Ultimate slowly backs away from the wall. Phrizbee-Ultimate drives back and forth a little bit, looking kind of dazed. IceBerg rams the wall.
Phrizbee-Ultimate drives itself directly underneath a sledgehammer. The hammer quickly falls on Phrizbee-Ultimate's head. Huh, I just noticed that whenever a sledgehammer hits the ground, a couple of strobe lights blink over that general area. I hope none of the builders have epilepsy.
A second hit on Phrizbee-Ultimate by the hammer. IceBerg seems to be having trouble aiming itself. Phrizbee-Ultimate gets away from that hammer. IceBerg pushes Phrizbee-Ultimate into the spikes.
IceBerg backs up for a ram, but forgets that that's where the saws are. The saws pop up, bright sparks are made, and IceBerg is pushed back.
IceBerg goes around the saws to meet Phrizbee-Ultimate again. It wants to ram, but those saws are not making it easy. It pushes Phrizbee-Ultimate from a different angle, Phrizbee-Ultimate gets out from between two spikes, and IceBerg shoves Phrizbee-Ultimate into a screw. Phrizbee-Ultimate drives under the hammer, absorbs a hit, then collides with the other nearby screw.
Phrizbee-Ultimate isn't doing so well right now -- it can't spin and it's not driving very agilely. It kind of moves forward a bit. IceBerg charges and pushes Phrizbee-Ultimate back under the hammer. More blows, more strobe lights.
IceBerg gets itself behind Phrizbee-Ultimate and pushes it into a screw. The screw briefly stops a couple of times as IceBerg shoves Phrizbee-Ultimate against it.
(Hey, I just realized that I never described the new screws for this season. This time around, the "threads" of the screws have small teeth on them to scratch up robots that get pushed into them. The screws are also now shaped so that the left and right sides rotate upward and meet in the center. These two facts will be important very, very soon.)
Now the screw is dragging Phrizbee-Ultimate's body toward the center of the screw. IceBerg is right there to pin, to make sure Phrizbee-Ultimate doesn't get pushed away. Phrizbee-Ultimate's body reaches the center of the screw. The teeth in the screw are beginning to snag against Phrizbee-Ultimate. Phrizbee-Ultimate is getting bounced up and down by the screw...
IceBerg pushes. Phrizbee-Ultimate's body gets caught on the screw and begins to ride up. IceBerg keeps pushing. Phrizbee-Ultimate goes up the screw, tips onto its side, then rolls out from between IceBerg and the screw to land on its head. That's the end of Phrizbee-Ultimate.
IceBerg drives into Phrizbee-Ultimate's blue square and slowly rotates, proclaiming its victory. Here comes the countdown... Phrizbee-Ultimate is gone. Michael "Fuzzy" Mauldin is understandably excited by this knockout.
Carmen talks about ice cream, some sponsored replays, then a post-fight interview. I'm trying to think of something funny to say, but all I've got are a bunch of stupid jokes playing off the name "IceBerg." So I'll just congratulate both Fuzzy and Brian Nave for a good fight that got me so excited, I leapt out of my chair. Man, if I ever attended one of these competitions in person, my head would probably explode.
Commercials. Then we see the "pit girls" playing with Donald Hutson's face. Worse yet, they force him to look into a mirror to view their hands as they attempt to mangle his flesh.
Hey, Donald Hutson... what are you going to do now that you're a BattleBots champion? "I'm going to Legoland!" For this segment, Donald has visited the MindStorms exhibit, where children build their own robots out of Legos that they can program and then control by radio. Donald shows off his miniature Diesector that he built out of Lego pieces, and of course, it looks cool. It's even got the two working hammers on the sides! Since this is on Comedy Central, they try to play up the comedy aspect of Donald beating up the non-fighting robots built by the little kids, but I just want to stare at the Lego Diesector. Or at least see the Lego Diesector actually tear apart one of the kids' robots -- then we'd have the best of both worlds.
Time for the real Diesector to get in a fight. It'll face Final Destiny, which, as we learn, was designed with defeating Diesector and Toro in mind. Ooh, this is going to be a good one, too.
Diesector has been modified for this fight. Naturally, they've removed the hammers, since those would just get torn off by Final Destiny's spinning bar. They've also replaced the tail with a metal plow, similar to the one that Tazbot wore in last week's episode. But the most interesting addition is found in the two metal pipes that have been added to the upper jaw. The ends of the pipes have been cut off at an angle, so when the jaws are in wedge formation, the pipes ride the floor and get under opponents. But can they get under the skirt of Final Destiny?
Pay attention, 'cause it's robot fightin' time. Diesector heads straight for Final Destiny. Final Destiny is quick in getting its bar spinning. Final Destiny approaches Diesector. It bumps into the metal pipes, then the skirt hinges up to rest on them. This starts to knock Final Destiny off-balance. It starts to wobble, and with some help from Diesector lifting its jaw, begins to dance!
Final Destiny lands on its wheels and starts spinning the bar again. Diesector still hasn't lowered the jaw, and appears to take a couple of glancing blows from the spinning bar. Diesector puts the metal pipes back on the floor and gets under Final Destiny's skirt again. Once again, Final Destiny is off-balance... it starts dancing... and tears off one of its own skirts!
Now Final Destiny is down to five skirts, and one of them isn't fully attached to its body anymore. Diesector tries to get under again, but begins to go up the skirt, so it backs off. On the next try, Diesector gets underneath, and Final Destiny does a smaller dance. The bar stops spinning.
Diesector gets under the back of Final Destiny and starts to push it into a screw, but then doesn't. Final Destiny gets hit by a saw.
Diesector tries to drive toward Final Destiny, but its pipes get stuck in a killsaw slot. Diesector backs up and tries again, but gets the same result. It gets away before the saws appear, though. Final Destiny gets the bar spinning, but halts it against the base of a screw.
Diesector moves back to the center of the Box. Final Destiny follows, spinning its bar again. Diesector runs into Final Destiny's side, knocking Final Destiny a little off-balance. Diesector drives up a skirt, and both robots are hit by a saw. The saw knocks Final Destiny off-balance again... and Final Destiny tears off another one of its skirts!
Diesector pushes Final Destiny over some saws. It then gives chase to Final Destiny, finding it easy to cram its jaws into the space left by Final Destiny's missing skirts. Final Destiny is placed over some more saws, which create sparks on some of the remaining skirts.
Final Destiny escapes to the center and starts spinning the bar. Diesector wedges under the loosest skirt, the skirt rises to the level of the bar, and that one is torn off! Final Destiny now only has skirts on half its body.
Diesector rams itself underneath one of the three attached skirts. That knocks Final Destiny off-balance again. Final Destiny dances... and lands on its head! That is the end!
Diesector moves near the center of the Box and majestically opens its jaws in victory. Beautiful.
Oh, man, that was a great fight. That is what BattleBots is all about. I'm going to go ahead and proclaim this to be my favorite fight of the season.
Post-fight interviews. A clever strategy wins over brute strength.
Ah, but all good things must come to an end. Which means more filler. Carmen narrates a list of what's "in" and what's "out," mostly punning off of robot names. As an example they didn't use... In: Sallad. Out: Soup. Stuff like that. Not entirely unfunny, though, and it killed 35 seconds.
Commercials.
Hide the children and yourself, it's again time for Primal Lessons with Professional Electra. Here's the entirety of her lesson: There are four weight classes, each with a specific maximum weight. Builders do things to make sure their robots meet or are under that maximum weight. Got all that? Next week the lessons get really difficult.
Now we'll move to the middleweights. El Diablo versus Ankle Biter. We're told that this isn't the first time these two have met -- in season two, El Diablo KO'ed Ankle Biter. This is a grudge match.
El Diablo has replaced its drum with four kind-of-thresher-like disks. Ankle Biter's weapon is now a disk with four teeth. Of course, in these situations I'm talking about metal disks -- not compact discs, discuses, or sections of the spine.
How about some robot fightin' time? For a few seconds, both bots scurry around, looking for a good position to attack from. El Diablo makes the first move, initiating a weapon-to-weapon collision. Sparks, no noticeable damage.
Ankle Biter attacks El Diablo in the side, bouncing it a couple of times. In the next head-to-head collision, Ankle Biter's disk breaks El Diablo's right tread, which instantly flies off the robot. That can't be a good thing.
El Diablo starts spinning in place. Ankle Biter continues to attack, with more sparks produced as disk meets "drum." The drum then comes into contact with one of Ankle Biter's big tires, which bounces Ankle Biter up into the air and onto El Diablo's body. As Ankle Biter lands, its disk puts a gash in El Diablo's left tread. Ankle Biter then lands on the floor.
Ankle Biter attacks El Diablo's rear. As it does so, El Diablo drives forward. The left tread snaps and falls off. That also can't be a good thing.
El Diablo is spinning its wheel-things, but they don't touch the ground, making motion very difficult. Ankle Biter celebrates by doing a couple of victory spins. With the forces from that spinning disk, Ankle Biter nearly flips itself over (or onto its rear!) as it spins in place.
It looks like Zack Bieber wants to see his robot get destroyed. However, Ankle Biter has powered down its disk, and uses the remaining seconds during the countdown to just push El Diablo over the saws. El Diablo is counted out. So now these two robots have one victory each against the other. We need a tie-breaker fight!
That was a short segment. They're already going to commercial.
No, wait. Before the commercial, it's another Carl the Mascot segment. He walks around and bothers random people on the streets of San Francisco. See, it's funny 'cause they're not you and they're expressing the natural uncomfortable reaction anybody would express in this type of situation. If Carl the Mascot was British, I'd swear this was an ad for "Trigger Happy TV."
Commercials. Hey, look! I believe it's the first commercial ever that's specifically targeted toward viewers of "BattleBots!" ITT Technical Institute put together a 30-second spot showcasing Final Destiny, since that robot was built by students at that college. The idea, of course, is to encourage you to attend ITT Tech so you also can build deadly robots (only the fine print at the end points out that the creation of Final Destiny was an extra-curricular project). The targeted commercial is pretty nifty -- at least I actually care about what I'm watching. Plus, the commercial contains clips of fights from the prelims, which made me rewind the tape a few times and watch it frame-by-frame. However, it's clear that ITT Tech does not teach English, as they use the wrong form of "its" in two of their graphics screens.
Back to the show. Zack assures Tony Rock that he will rebuild El Diablo (all he has to do, really, is put two new treads on).
I've noticed that the picture of robots fighting that can be seen behind Tim keeps changing between episodes. Last week, it showed Death By Monkeys. This week, we can see OverKill in there. Next week I'm hoping for Ra.
Recaps. Fuzzy didn't expect IceBerg's plow to become detached like that. And then... an amazing moment! Brian "Spinners rule!" Nave is forced to say, on camera, that pushy bots rule. He actually said it! Listen!
The episode ends soon after that. You know, having Final Destiny represent ITT Tech like that was a good idea, although a bit of an obvious one. I'm waiting for the day when popular BattleBots begin lending their names and likenesses to more commonplace products...
Phrizbee floor cleaner -- it pushes the dirt to the sides for easier clean-up
Ziggo weed whacker -- just grab the convenient handle
Tentoumushi headwear -- also accentuates the shoulders
Hazard garbage disposal
Blade Runner metal detector
Mauler cat food -- comes with its own unique lid
Tazbot-brand honey
Vladiator wall-mounted air freshener -- press the lifting plate for a burst of tropical scents
Son of Whyachi crib mobile -- babies love it!
Little Drummer Boy shoe buffer