The History of Robot Wars
The Most watched show on BBC TWO.
Gutteridge and one of his producers Steve Carsey created a television format based on the Robot Wars concept. They produced a live event opposite BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane, Shepherd's Bush, London and hired Derek Foxwell to build 3 combat robots, 2 of which were named The Mouse and Grunt who would eventually take part in the first UK series of Robot Wars, to take on three American robots, Thor, La Machine and The Master, all of which were veterans of the original American competition. The Controller of BBC Two, Michael Jackson, attended the event, which was not filmed, and he promised to commission a series. However, it wasn't until 1998 that a subsequent Controller of BBC Two, Mark Thompson, fulfilled Jackson's promise and actually commissioned 6 episodes. Gutteridge and Carsey were producers and Foxwell was the technical supervisor and senior technical consultant. He drafted the rules and regulations and was in charge of the pit area and the technical team, which scrutineered the robots, got them on and off stage and helped the contestants prepare and repair their robots. Mat Irvine, initially a member of the technical team,
served as member of the judging panel in 2002 and 2003.
The three person judging panel consisted of Noel Sharkey (head judge on every series: 1998–2003, 2016–), Eric Dickinson (1998), Adam Harper (1998–99), Martin Smith (1999–2003), Myra Wilson (2000–01), Mat Irvine (2001–03), Sethu Vijayakumar (2016–) and Lucy Rogers (2016–).
On the first day, I was in the dressing room and looking in the mirror, and looking down at the arena. And they were pulling the robots into the arena on an invisible twine because nothing was working. And I was thinking: "Oh my God, what have I done with my career?" And you know, within the blink of an eye, it was the most watched show on BBC2.
— Presenter Craig Charles on the success of Robot Wars in the late 1990s and early 2000s which aired at 6:30 on Friday evening and attracted over 6 million viewers,
“And you know, within the blink of an eye, it was the most watched show on BBC2."
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