Little Gray Robot

R.O.B.
2/19/12
Craigslist

Meet ROB. ROB is short for 'Robotic Operating Buddy' and he plays Nintendo with you. Actually, he only plays 2 games (Gyromite and Stack Up) and he's not much fun. He plays too slow, will always get you killed and rage quits when he loses. Despite all this, I love the little guy. The Deluxe Set my parents got for me when I was little included ROB, and I've missed him ever since he was unceremoniously traded away to a shut-down FuncoLand in the late 90s.

True, I never really played Nintendo with him much. I learned to play Gyromite with a controller in each hand. I never even heard of Stack Up until I started collecting NES in my 20s. The most action ROB would get is to hold up a Nintendo controller as I stretched the cord across the room and ran my Ghostbusters Ecto-1 car across it as I played my bootleg make-believe version of the climax to Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox hits that wire at the same moment it's being struck by lightning. Yes, I'm saying I built a time machine out of a hearse.

But back to ROB - he's quite the collector's item nowadays. I've only seen him in 2 retro shops, and both times he's been used as a store mascot. In other words, he wasn't for sale. eBay prices are the pits, so I just kept an eye out for a decent deal. Luckily I found a guy on Craigslist who was cleaning out his attic (well, his mom was and told him to take the robot or he was going into the trash). A drive across town and $25 later, I was reunited with my buddy. Sure he's missing his claws, a gyro and one of the docking stations...but I'm not going to play with him anyway. He looks just fine sitting in my game room - protecting the collection from smicks and dynamite.

Welcome back, ROB. Welcome back.