Old B.O.B.

Old B.O.B. is a robot from the 1979 Disney motion picture The Black Hole.

B.O.B. was a battered and outdated robot model, the last of his kind to remain aboard the U.S.S. Cygnus. B.O.B. was working in parts storage when the crew of the U.S.S. Palomino detected the Cygnus hovering on the event horizon of a black hole and boarded to investigate. When the Palomino crew came to requisition parts to repair their craft, B.O.B. met and befriended a similar but more current robot model named V.I.N.CENT.

During a laser-shooting tournament game aboard the ship, B.O.B. commented that one of the robot troopers aboard the Cygnus named S.T.A.R. was partly responsible for his state of disrepair. V.I.N.CENT challenged S.T.A.R. and beat him at the game, winning back some of B.O.B.'s dignity. In gratitude, B.O.B. revealed that the captain of the Cygnus, Dr. Hans Reinhardt, had experimented on his shipmates and turned them into zombies that the Palomino crew had assumed were humanoid robots. B.O.B. helped V.I.N.CENT to save his friends and flee the Cygnus, which Reinhardt planned to pilot directly into the black hole.

During the escape attempt, B.O.B. was damaged by Reinhardt's guardian robot, Maximillian. V.I.N.CENT managed to defeat Maximillian, but B.O.B. was too badly damaged to continue. He bid V.I.N.CENT a fond farewell before his deactivation, remaining aboard the Cygnus as it was eventually swallowed up by the black hole.

B.O.B.'s name was an acronym for BiO-sanitation Battalion. He appeared to have most of the same functionality as V.I.N.CENT, including twin retractable laser blasters in his body and metal "feet" that at one time telescoped from his body. (By the time of their meeting aboard the Cygnus, however, B.O.B. was missing one of his feet and his legs and claws were apparently no longer able to retract.) B.O.B. was assembled by the 28th Labor Force and was originally programmed in Houston, possibly explaining his southern drawl.

The voice of Old B.O.B. was provided by an unbilled Slim Pickens.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu