Robot Wrecks
Robot Wrecks
| 12 July 1941 (USA)
Robot Wrecks Trailers

Spanky and the gang discover a demonstration of a "human-like" robot named Volto and are inspired to create a robot themselves to do their chores for them. Slicker Walburn convinces them they will need "invisible rays" to bring it to life which he just happens to have to sell to them. As they rush off to get their money, Slicker gets Boxcar Smith to wear the robot's outer body so when he "brings" the robot to life, it will be Boxcar bringing it to life. The gang unsuspectedly gets their robot to mow the lawn at Froggy's house, but with a signal from Slicker, Boxcar runs amok and mows down everything in his path. Froggy gets to explain what happened to his parents who bust up the fraud and get the miscreants to work with the gang to clean up the mess.

Reviews
CommentsXp Best movie ever!
Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
dbborroughs Kids see a robot demonstrated and decide to build their own. When it fails to work, one of the other kids trick them into believing that he can make it work.Amusing but clichéd story is well done, but I really wished that it didn't hit every one of the familiar gags for a story like this. You've seen all of this before and while its well done the, the familiarity drains the humor from the affair and makes it so that you watch and smile instead of laugh. You won't hate it, but odds are you'll wish it was better. Worth a look if you run across it but its not something you'll want to search out on its own.
jbacks3 Robot Wrecks should have been a great Our Gang entry--- the basic idea of building kid's robot slave in the days soon after the World of Tomorrow sounds pretty cool. Alas, sounds can be deceiving. Robot Wrecks blows the premise by bastardizing the robot by stuffing it with Billy Ray "Boxcar" Smith and allegedly fueling it with "invisible rays" and then selling it to one of their usual foes, Freddie "Slicker" Walburn (who's atypically gullible here). Voices are obviously dubbed, the acting is excruciating to watch and the only remotely funny aspect is that the writers could get even kids to recite the dialog (blame Hal Law and Robert A. McGowan). Sadly, future MGM Our Gangs would rival this deplorable production. If I could give this less than 0 stars I would.
marjcbs Let me explain....The Gang had previously encountered Slicker as a bully in "Fightin' Fools" and now faces him as a con man who sells them "invisible rays" to help them make their robot work. Is the Gang that gullible? (And Spanky, the unofficial leader of the Gang, is 13-years-old! Surely, he would have had more intellectual sense!)That having been said, this film is rather fun. As the Gang builds and tests their robot, they copy some of the same things they witnessed in a previous labor-saving robotics demonstration (they even mimic the famous line: "Robot, do you feel in condition to go to work?").Even more fun is to be had. Slicker enlists a friend of his to step inside the robot, and fool the Gang into believing their endeavor was successful. When the robot is instructed to mow Froggy's lawn, he does more than that --- he mows down flowers and vegetables, turns over wheelbarrows, and flings newspapers all over the yard. All filmed at double-speed!! It's really cool to watch.Sadly, what is less fun is when Froggy's dad gives the kids a lecture on personal responsibility (such is often the case in MGM Our Gang films). This lecture is then followed by one of Froggy's lame Aunt Minnie quotes at the end of film: "Never put off till tomorrow what you should have done yesterday!" (this, of course, in inexplicably followed by raucous laughter from the Gang).An interesting side note is that Billy Bletcher, the actor who played Froggy's father, is the guy who provided voices for some of the Warner Brothers cartoons (probably most notably as Henry, the grouchy father bear). His natural baritone voice made him the perfect actor to play Froggy's father. In fact, in an amusing throw-away gag, he even provided a dubbed voice for Froggy's mother! In sum, this is a reasonably enjoyable film that could have been even more so if the writers didn't feel the need to moralize near the end. One more thing: is it really necessary to end an MGM short with a contrived joke that produces forced laughter at the end?Just a thought.
Douglas_Holmes (Possible Spoilers) Flat, dull and unfunny, this was typical of the "adults (for which read 'Authority Figures') know best" plots that betrayed the entire Our Gang concept. In the earlier films, the kids create things and get into trouble, but there was an endearing charm to watching them trying to mimic the kinds of things the adult world had (building a fire engine, operating a playhouse, attending club meetings, etc.)This film uses that familiar idea and then perverts it by using it as a lead to a piece of "do it yourself" moralizing, which robs the film of humor. Also, there are problems with the kids: as someone said, Spanky is way too old to still be playing a thoroughly naive kid (all of the Gang's characters in this film were played as ignorant rubes who would have bought the Brooklyn Bridge if Slicker had offered it to them,) while Freddie "Slicker" Walburn himself looks distracted, as if he wished he were somewhere else. Given the quality of this miserable film, it isn't surprising.