The History of The Mighty Orbots: Sued Out of Existence By The Gobots

no one owns the concept of a bunch of robots combining to form a larger super robot or the themes of family and teamwork derived through the mechanical process of robots physically joining together to overcome an obstacle or fight other robots these ideas have been around for decades as part of many different brands and while they do inspire each other it's hard to suggest that any one of them outright copied any one of the others legally there is some squishiness with respect to inspiration omage tribute or even simultaneous invention squishy though it may be with enough money and the threat of prolonged legal action even that squishiness can be lethal hi I'm dan Larson and this is the history of the mighty robots [Music] the mighty orbits not to be confused with orgas orbits or the mighty roy orbison is a 13-episode animated series that originally ran Saturday mornings in the United States on ABC from November to December of 1984 are you calling a cootie Queen you lit liquor it was developed as a joint production between Japanese animation studio TMS entertainment and American producers intermedia entertainment it was an original creation utilizing the look tone and feel of many Japanese animated series but intended for the American audience who had had a bad case of Japanese robot fever and the only cures were more Japanese robots or abstinence the mighty robots are a group of sentient robots that can combine to form a giant super robot also called mighty orbits see the group of mighty orbits plural is called the mighty orbits and also the combined super robot is also called mighty orbits like if you said hey can I have some mighty orbits I would say do you want them separate or combined you would say yes please Rob Simmons the main human character is also the inventor of the mighty orbits he plays a Clark Kent Superman role within the world of the show on the surface he's a mild-mannered robot designer but when duty calls he served the Galactic Patrol as commander of the mighty orbits with the sole authority and ability to summon them to battle in defense of her see the 23rd century where this story takes place is a time of robots and aliens and destruction and terror kind of a good news/bad news thing the Galactic Patrol serve as the defenders of the United planets against the evil forces of shadow and their leader Lourdes Umbra not to be confused with Ambrose or hombre he's a giant cyborg an ik computer depicted as a 5v jellyfish kind of faced with a gravelly voice short temper and despite his protestations a high tolerance for his plans being thwarted by the heroes the mighty orbits roster includes feisty Ono who serves as Rob's sidekick and co-pilot as well as the heart of the giant combined robot mighty tor is the brute strength of the group and also the torso and head in combined mode versatile bort is like a Swiss Army knife if you will like I don't want to say that he transforms per se for legal reasons but he does have the ability to shift shapes beyond his function as a leg of mighty orbits elusive boo can manipulate energies to create force fields or turn invisible she is joined by Bo the master of the elements as the two arms on the team while crunch the metal muncher finishes things off as a voracious energy converter leg and back up power source or BOTS is an anagram of robots but also of brutes brutes was the working title when the pilot episode was shopped around to see if there was a network interested in picking it up for syndication the six minutes short is very close to the finished product with most of the details in place the brutes collectively combined to form super brutes not to be confused with brutes Campbell Bruce Wayne or brutes box Lightner once the show is sold the details fell into place and the name was changed to the mighty Orbitz and coincidentally enough it premiered the same month as transformers and the classic five lion form of Voltron called Voltron the mighty robots was created by Barry glass and written by Buzz Dixon Michael Reeves and Mark Scott Zachary and others several writers with a combined portfolio that includes just about every animated series created between 1980 and 2000 especially if it involved toy based products it was directed by Osamu Tezuka who had television and movie credits that go back to the 1960s including but not limited to Astro Boy Lupin the third the original Frosty the Snowman guy King Rainbow Brite and Bionic six his work his style would influence generations of animators the mighty robots had one of the most memorable theme songs by design composers Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker also worked on gummi bears the Real Ghostbusters Pirates of Dark Water Captain Planet Bionic six and lots of other stuff a lot of industry veterans from both the United States and Japan came together during the my life to help make it visually and narrative Lee different to make the mighty orbits into something more substantial than what was already being shown on a regular basis for Super Robot Fair on American television this wasn't a show cut together from previously existing footage repackaged for American audience the way fellow combiner beast king go lion in japan became Voltron in the US and it wasn't merely a superficial instructional series of commercials designed to sell toys disguised as entertainment like transformers because unlike both of those shows there was no toy line to be sold the Mighty orbits the so itself was the product for sale [Music] Oh [Music] and if that was the end of the story just some talented creative people making an original show about a boy and the combining robots he invented all saving the world together maybe there's two seasons maybe there is a toy line from Mattel who did acquire the master toy license maybe there's a live-action series in development now today and we're all talking about how it could be cool if they can at least get the emotional beats right in 1985 while reruns of the initial 13 episodes of the mighty robots were still airing on ABC Tonka the company that owns the Gobots took TMS entertainment to court for what it alleged were false designation of origin trademark infringement unfair competition and deceptive trade practices Tonka believed that the name the mighty Orbitz was too close to their trademark branding gobots mighty robots mighty vehicles Tonka asserted that TMS entertainment was aware of the existence of Gobots branding in 1984 before the cartoon aired and that subsequently this was a calculated move by TMS to take advantage of the value already built up by the Gobots brand since its debut a year prior in 1983 a bold claim for sure coming from Tonka a company whose entire brand was built on the value already built into toys licensed from Japan Gobots were known as machine Robo before they were imported and repackaged for the US market but that gave Tonka extra motivation to fully protect their brand in court even if the argument was a bit squishy Tonka based out of Minnesota asserted that each viewing of the mighty Orbitz cartoon by individual members of the audience nearly 700,000 instances constituted an infringement of their rights to which day Tonka would do compensation in some form they believed that if this was the case for their state then surely it was the case for every other state that Gobots were being sold in Tonka was already facing the threat of losing market share to the incursion of Hasbro's popular transformers match boxes release of Voltron and others if they could stop one of the competitors with a cease and desist and maybe tack on some damages they might survive the rising tide of changeable robots spoiler alert [Music] were the mighty robots in anyway derivative of the Gobots robots the gobots did have a combiner called puzzler but that wasn't released until 1985 after the mighty orbits aired but beyond providing themselves protection for the launch of puzzler Tonka might have been thinking more strategically the entire line of Tonka Gobots products depended on machine robo items licensed from a company called poppy which had recently been acquired by bandai it is possible that Tonka was interested in licensing other items from bandai like a six robot combiner called god mars that looked an awful lot like the mighty orbits god mars aired in japan in 1981 in 1982 it was the story of a baby named mars who was sent to earth by an evil emperor to grow up amongst humans but then one day fulfill his destiny as the pilot of a robot called gaia that was actually a bomb with the power to destroy the entire planet to protect him Mars's father sent five other robots to earth that he could utilize to combine with his robot gaia into a planetary defender called god mars while he worked for the elite Earth Defense Force called crasher squad squishy argued as it was the action by Tonka was enough to deter Mattel from pursuing the release of any product while potential additional litigation loomed Mattel produced a prototype that wasn't a repaint of Bandai's god Mars figure but it was really really close if Mattel had been able to acquire the license to the god Mars toy a deluxe mighty Orbitz toy probably would have just been a repaint or reissue of God Mars in a mighty Orbitz box ultimately TMS entertainment settled the suit out of court while ratings were okay the mighty Orbitz didn't have the strength to take out timeslot competitors The Muppet Babies and The Smurfs no one at TMS intermedia ABC or Mattel were interested in what could be an expensive fight against Tonka it was better business to simply move on there were a few unlicensed items released around the world including a tiny robot called Oh bot in Korea as well as a deluxe god Mars figure in China with mighty Orbitz packaging a very rare piece that offered a glimpse into what might have been if the licensing worked out in favor of TMS and intermedia the entire mighty robot series all 13 episodes were released in 2018 on DVD and can still be found on for various retailers if you're a longtime fan of the mighty Orbitz or you're just discovering them today right this moment don't hold your breath for anyone doing anything else with the license as long as Warner Brothers still owns it people who remember god Mars Gobots and trademark law still live and walk among us thanks for watching please hit like hit subscribe if you're not already a subscriber thank you very much to those of you who already are check out our new merchandise available right below this video if you're in the position to help the channel grow please visit our patreon at patreon.com slash toy galaxy share this video and a very special thanks to Josh B from collection DX for helping out with photos of some of the unlicensed items and lots of other stuff if you're not familiar with collection DX it is one of the most comprehensive archives of robots import toys Japanese stuff all kinds of things 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Channel: Secret Galaxy

Views: 222,114

Keywords: mighty orbots, history of mighty orbots, mighty orbots intro, mighty orbots theme, mighty orbots toy, mighty orbots cartoon, gobots, gobots toys, gobots cartoon, machine robo, gobots puzzler combiner, gobots puzzler, 80s cartoon, saturday morning cartoons, saturday morning cartoons 80s, forgotten 80s tv shows, forgotten 80s cartoons, toy galaxy, history documentary, gobots lawsuit, toy galaxy gobots

Id: envqBtdvU0w

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 07 2019