T-Bob

T-Bob is a robot from the animated television series M.A.S.K.

According to the storyline, T-Bob was developed and built by Scott Trakker, son of M.A.S.K. commander Matt Trakker.

T-Bob is a short, egg-shaped bipedal robot, capable of speech and with fully-developed artificial intelligence, including a sense of humour and a subconscious. [01.02, "The Star Chariot": T-Bob "dreams" while aboard the "The Star Chariot".]

T-Bob has a male voice, and is consequently often referred to as "he" during the show.

T-Bob's technical specifications include an unreliable tracking system,01.01, "The Death Stone": "For once your tracking system actually worked!" says Scott Trakker to T-Bob.] and the ability to convert to a motorized unicycle.

=Connections to "Star Wars"= T-Bob bears an resemblance to an Industrial Automaton-developed Rx-series astromech droid, in particular to R2-D2, ["The New Essential Guide to Droids", by Daniel Wallace, illustrated by Ian Fullwood, Del Rey Books, 2006.06.27. ISBN 0345477596] but appears to be a more advanced model. T-Bob's name may yield a clue: if written TB-OB, or T8-O8, T-Bob may be a Tx-series droid, fitting in with the established progression of the Industrial Automaton series of droids in alphabetic order: P2-series, Qx-series, Rx-series etc. [The T3-M4 astromech droid is widely viewed to be a retcon, constructed approximately 4000 years before R2-D2. However, despite obvious similarities to Rx-series droids, T3-M4 was most likely not built by Industrial Automaton at all and would therefore be separate from IA's alphabetic cataloguing system.]

Improvements from all previous astromech droids include: two, rather than one, humanoid eyes; bipedal humanoid locomotion, instead of two fixed plus one rectractable motorized treads; combined simultaneous communication in spoken English and binary or "droidspeak" (the bleeps and clicks by which R2-D2 communicated).

However, T-Bob has an inferior [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Navigation_computer navicomputer] to earlier astromech droids. Also, rather than the seemingly unending functions displayed by R2-D2, T-Bob is limited to two articulated arms and the ability to transform into a motorized unicycle.

Development

Insufficient back-story is provided concerning T-Bob's development by Scott Trakker, although there is a clear similarity to Anakin Skywalker's development of C-3PO in "Star Wars". In episode 01.02 "Star Chariot", Matt Trakker explains that the alien spacecraft is a relic from an ancient and distant, but far more advanced, civilization, echoing the famous phrase: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." The inferred explanation for T-Bob's similarity to R2-D2 is that Scott Trakker recovered an advanced Industrial Automaton-developed Tx-series astromech droid from a wrecked spacecraft, rebuilt the robot and renamed him T-Bob from the original Tx-series designation, T8-O8.

References