I remember watching this a few years back.
and i compared this show to TnT's (what is now Spike TV) battlebots ( i dont remember the exact same title of the show, but it was something like that?)
Battlebots is the BEST
but can someone tell me why was it just gone like that? Its awsome!
Comedy Central didn't know how to market the show... They tried to add too much TnA (carmen electra) and to much Funny (Chris Rocks Brother of all people).
Then to kill th show off completely (after season 5) they moved it to a worthless 7pm Saturday Timeslot.
-Shaggy
There was also a lot of internal politics. This was one of those "doesn't belong on this channel" shows. It got a lot of internal flak because it was not really a comedy show, though they tried to add humorous elements.
Battlebots really belonged on another channel. I was a huge fan, never missed an episode, but felt Comedy Central was the wrong venue.
Basically Comedy Channel canceled the TV contract. According to this web
site
http://web.archive.org/web/20040619094241/http://triviahalloffame.com/tvgeek.htm
(had to edit because the original web site is dead)
this is the reason they
cancelled the show.
"Shortly after [Beat the] Geeks wrapped its second season Comedy Central got
a new head of development for the West Coast," explained Goebel. "She fired
the second-in-command and was therefore forced to cancel all the shows he
developed or pay him for airing them. Those included Geeks and Battlebots.
Since they were canceling two of their three game shows they decided to save
money and cancel Ben Stein, too. Ben's salary was huge, not to mention the
prize budget."
Without all the TV money there was no way to put on the show that everyone
expected.
The full story is here http://www.robotcombat.com/battlebots11.html
>>> Without all the TV money there was no way to put on the show that everyone
expected.
That was the worst part of it all. Battlebots had grown exponentially during it's TV days. It went from 100 entrants for the season one taping to almost 700 in season 5!
Not only were people watching, but hundreds were putting in the extensive time and money to actually compete. But as the above person mentioned, once the TV contract was gone, they couldn't afford to produce any more, they'd grown too big.
It seems robot fighting in the states has taken a major hit on the last couple years. I hope someone steps up soon and changes that trend. It's a great competition, full of adrenaline pumping violence, without the concern of a person getting badly injured. You see a robot getting its guts spilled out? Hit it again!
I agree with all this and then some. Politics disgust me as it is, but TV politics can be just as bad. We not only lost this great show, but another great gameshow (BTG), and quite possibly my favorite gameshow ever, Win Ben Stein's Money. WTF, that was such a great show until Kimmel decided to leave Comedy Central (or his contract was up, whatever) and go to ABC. His brother was almost as funny, but then they finally killed the show with the girl host. WTF, I'm not sexist, but SHE WAS NOT FUNNY.
shareLate response, but thanks for the info, I always wondered what happened to the game shows, I loved Benstein and beat the geeks, especially the episodes where the "rocket scientists" lost, of all peoples. Kinda sad how the internal politics killed 3 great programs.
-The Price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
9/11 happened. People just didn't want to see robots kill eachother. I bet they would now, though.
share9/11 hit me hard and I still loved watching stuff explode.
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Rudy Giuliani for 2008
Is there some kind of petition to sign for BattleBots being brought back?
Like a monkey ready to be shot into space...
The premise of this show is so great, I'm surprised that nobody has picked it up the in the past decade.
shareIt's Back. :) ABC. Third week in June (2015) Updated, still cool :)
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