Tobor is ROTOR Spelled Backwards…

Updated on January 13, 2011 By Ken Begg 5 Comments

Wait, ROTOR is ROTOR spelled backwards. Tobor is robot spelled backwards. So that proves it.

Rock sent me this hilarious foreign poster for the film Tobor the Great, which played here in Chicago every year when I was a kid on Family Classics on WGN. It’s a kiddie film, ala the pretty similar The Invisible Boy (which starred Robby the Robot, aka Tobor eht Ybbor, from Forbidden Planet), and not the horror film this makes it appear, although I think Tobor was manipulated at one point by evil commies. Then he stopped attending college, though, and was all right.

Lest you have not seen the film, this rather more aptly sums it up:

By the end, we learn that even a Robot can love. Thanks, Rock!

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  • For Christmas I got a box of about 200 hours of 50s SF shows, and “Here Comes Tobor” is on it. Apparently a TV show after it was a movie. Or something. I started one of them and turned it off after the opening scene has Tobor playing horseshoees with the kid.

  • P Stroud

    I remember seeing this on TV and being so disappointed when I was a kid. Why couldn’t TOBOR have done something neat like tearing Johnny limb-from-limb or destroying LA City Hall? Instead it was some sappy kid’s movie that pleased no one. My parents thought it was stupid and we kids wanted to see carnage dammit!

  • TongoRad

    I’ve had this disc in the house for a while now (it was thrown in an order I placed, as a freebie) and haven’t watched it yet- probably waiting for the day that I had sufficient beer and/or single malts handy. It looks like that might take a while.

  • Rock Baker

    You’re welcome, Ken, glad you enjoyed seeing this poster as much as I did!

    What’s the matter? Can’t digest something sweet? It’s a movie about the love between a child and his grandfather. Replace the robot with a dog and you’ve got a Lassie movie, or the B version of one.

    Tobor did knock over an electric fence, oh, and a bookcase! Thrilling stuff, you see… Um, he took a swing at a guard, and helped beat up some gangsters…Hey, he ripped a car apart while it was trying to run him down! That’s pretty exciting…

    Here Comes Tobor was filmed shortly after the film, using the same props. The pilot didn’t sell, probably because it was obvious the Tobor suit wasn’t built to do a whole lot other than walk around and push down doors. That, and it wasn’t a very good show… Neat to see a proposed pilot built around a 50s science fiction flick, though. That alone gives it a certain screwball charm.

  • TV’s Grady

    “Tobor is ROTOR Spelled Backwards…”

    This is their kingdom!!!