The silent automaton lumbered closer and closer. Its arms flailed wildly towards me and, caught in a blind panic, it threatened to crush me like tinfoil. I realised that employing a robot pilot for the Mothership that was reliant on human emotions to control it was perhaps reckless. Kidnapping a mental patient and using him to power the robot may have been more so.
Just as I feared I had taken my last breath, the robot vanished in a flash of light. As Gort's disintegrator beam powered down, he deadpanned, "why don't you let me deal with the HR from now on?" I nodded feebly.
Some killer robots are born to greatness and some killer robots have greatness thrust upon them. While Gort, Robbie and company have always enjoyed the limelight, some automatons have been lost to obscurity. Once such forgotten tin hero is TOBOR The Great.
TOBOR (whose name must always be written in capitals) is the creation of Doctor Nerdstrom and his partner Doctor Young-Strapping-Chap. Working from Nerdstrom's Hidden Fortress... uh... stately home, the pair create TOBOR as a substitute space chimp to discover what extremes mankind would be put through when rocketing between the stars. Along for the ride are Nerdstrom's daughter, Miss Sexywidow and her irritating child, who is so despised by all that they refer to him merely as "Gadge".
"TOBOR is powered by emotions, requiring someone to wear a headset and think happy thoughts in order to operate him."
TOBOR is somehow powered by emotions, requiring someone to wear a headset and think happy thoughts in order to operate him. Thinking bad thoughts while wearing the headset makes him punch people. Nerdstrom and Young-Strapping-Chap use this method to set a trap to try and kill Gadge by shoving him at TOBOR while thinking about how much they'd like to ring his neck. Unfortunately, the ploy is unsuccessful.
They have little time to come up with another plan to 'accidentally' rid themselves of the annoying child as the house is attacked by COMMIE SPIES! Despite arming Gadge with a BB gun and sending him out against the attackers, the unkillable child still manages to survive. By this point, Nerdstrom has had enough and decides to pack in the child-murdering game in order to become a SUPERHERO! He has his manservant fashion the control device for TOBOR into a working byro and the worst excuse for a hearing aid ever.
Nerdstrom has no time to don his new SUPERHERO costume, however, before he is kidnapped by the COMMIE SPIES. Even though the COMMIE SPIES offer to torture Gadge with a blowtorch, Nerdstrom still refuses to give up the secret to controlling TOBOR. Instead, he manages to con the COMMIE SPIES into letting him put on the control device and summon TOBOR to the rescue with Young-Strapping-Chap and his Kato-like fisticuffs in tow. The film ends with TOBOR flying off into space to kick COMMIE ALIEN ASS! We salute you, mighty TOBOR, hero to a B-movie generation.