Original subtitles

Bobby was extremely passionate about his role, okay?

I mean, I wouldn't say he was a method actor, but the guy really loved being

robot. I mean, you know, his chair was painted silver.

His dressing room was painted silver.

And he just loved being in there. You'd think, I would think, that any

opportunity I would get to get out of there... Whenever I could, if I were in

the robot, I would, get me out of here, cut, fine, let me out of here.

You know, Bobby was very comfortable in there, and he did a fantastic job as the

robot. I mean, I can't sing his praises highly enough as the actor that he was

inside there, because not only did he have to memorize and give us all of the

dialogue, he had to do the technical stuff at the same time, plus be inside

this, you know, fiberglass shell, plus...

at many times carry the burden of like hundreds of pounds on his shoulders and

still be able to act.

I mean, he's an unsung hero of the 60s.

But he did get a little overly passionate, I think, about the robot.

So one day, Mark Goddard and I used to constantly goof around.

We used to steal producers' golf carts and drive them out to the moat on the

back lot.

throw them in the water i mean i can't get food for that now can i i mean we do

a lot of stuff during lunch and things just for fun just to just to goof around

so one day we were breaking for lunch as i recall if memory serves me well i've

been watching the o .j simpson trial i have to as i recall um anyway we were

going to lunch and the effects guys were about to get bobby out of the robot so

he could go to lunch and and mark and i said to i think it was stew moody

one of our wonderful special effects guys, who would always tell you, don't

worry, everything's safe.

He had, like, no fingers.

He'd always tell you not to worry about it, you're going to be okay.

You'd be like, oh, are you sure?

Anyway, we said, don't worry, Stu, we'll let Bobby out of the robot. You go on

ahead to lunch.

So everyone left the set, and Mark and I left Bobby alone in the middle of stage

11, and it was like the sand.

The exterior set. He was out there in the middle about some foam rubber rock.

And we left him there. That was it. We just said, let's leave Bobby in the

and go to lunch. Well, we were gone maybe, you know, five or ten minutes. It

wasn't like leaving him in there for an hour. We were gone a few minutes, and we

looked at each other and said, oh, we can't. We can't leave Bobby in there.

know, that's not fair.

We've had our little joke.

Let's go back and let him out now.

So Mark and I are walking back to the set and the doors are open and we can

you know, 30 yards away, there's the robot in the middle of the set and

smoke coming out of the robot.

And Mark and I look at each other like, oh, oh my God, like what if one of those

wires inside, maybe Bobby was trying to get out and one of these wires fell down

and like.

Burnt him to a crisp. He's sizzled. He's electrified. And I'm like, we've killed

him. We've electrocuted him. We start running to the robot thinking, oh, you

know, this is like beyond bad. This is like we've like killed Bobby May or

something. We're really upset.

We start to get the thing out of the bubble. Here's Bobby May holding a

pen flashlight, smoking a cigar.

Not a cigarette. He's smoking a cigar. He's holding a pen flashlight, and he's

reading The Hollywood Reporter.

Could have been the variety, but he's sitting there reading a trade, smoking a

cigar with a pen flashlight.

He's happy as a clam. He's totally fine that he's in the robot.

It's like, oh, hi, Mark. Hi, Bill.

Hey, did you know Disney's making it? It's like unbelievable, unbelievable.

He had to be there, but to the best of my knowledge, that's how it occurred.