For five seasons, BattleBots aired on the American Comedy Central and was hosted by Bil Dwyer, Sean Salisbury, and Tim Green.
The robot builders left behind in San Francisco formed BattleBots, Inc. and began a series of larger competitions.
The creators tried selling the competition as a television series to networks such as CBS, NBC, HBO, and Showtime, but none picked it up.
A second event was held as a pay-per-view in Las Vegas in 1999, the PPV was in turn, used as a pilot to pitch the show again, with a higher rate of success.
Munson lamented that the network had also ignored his suggestion for the co-host role to be filled by "attractive geek girls" with sufficient knowledge to speak with builders, having elected to "[keep] throwing bigger and better hot babes at it", such as Carmen Electra.
[6] Despite this, viewership and awareness of BattleBots grew progressively over time; contestants Christian Carlberg and Lisa Winter were invited to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, BattleBots beat South Park as Comedy Central's highest-rated program for a period during Season 3, competitor interest grew and licensing deals also emerged.
[6] The success of BattleBots, however, resulted in competition from other broadcasters; TLC introduced a competing program, Robotica, while other channels imported episodes of the British Robot Wars series.
CBS sport originally agreed to air the Collegiate Championship before dropping out due to lack of commercial interest.
In December 2014, ABC announced that it had picked up a six-episode revival of BattleBots, produced by Whalerock Industries, to premiere in June 2015.
[12][13] After ABC declined to renew the revival for a subsequent season, the series was picked up by Discovery Channel and sister network Science.
[15] The announcement reported that among the returning bots would be favorites Tombstone, Minotaur, Chomp, Witch Doctor, Bronco, Bombshell, Bite Force, and Yeti.
Chris Rose and Kenny Florian return to call the action, provide background information about the bots and teams, and offer commentary.
Chris Rose and Kenny Florian returned as hosts with a new sideline reporter, Jenny Taft, interviewing all of the BattleBots competitors in the workshop.
[16] An eleventh season ran from January 6 to April 7, 2022, establishing a permanent base for production at Caesars Entertainment Studios in Las Vegas.
Starting May 2023, the production space was utilized for another live show, 'BattleBots Proving Ground', which involved fights between newly designed or untested bots from newcomers or unproven teams.
Correspondents included former Baywatch actresses Donna D'Errico, Carmen Electra, and Traci Bingham, former Playboy Playmate Heidi Mark, comedian Arj Barker and identical twins Randy and Jason Sklar.
The 2015 edition was hosted by Molly McGrath, with Chris Rose and former UFC fighting legend Kenny Florian as commentators.
The judges were engineer and NASA astronaut Leland Melvin, Nerdist News anchor Jessica Chobot and visual effects artist, and former competitor, Fon Davis.
The returning judges were Fon Davis, Jessica Chobot, and Leland Melvin, as well as celebrity guest judges actor Clark Gregg, MythBusters host and former Battlebots builder Adam Savage, NFL tightend Vernon Davis, and YouTube star Michael Stevens a.k.a.
[17] Other judges include former Battlebots competitors Lisa Winter, Derek Young, Grant Imahara and Mark Setrakian.
Robots that are unable to release their opponent or otherwise become entangled may cause the match to be paused, allowing BattleBots technicians to enter the BattleBox and attempt to separate them.
If a robot is unable to move for ten seconds, because it is too badly damaged or it is stuck in some manner (e.g., ensnared in an arena-trap), it is declared knocked out.
Judges are provided with detailed guidelines for scoring, but in general terms, Damage points are awarded for how much non-cosmetic damage is inflicted to both robots either directly by their opponent and/or by arena hazards, Aggression refers to how much each robot engaged or avoided the other, and Control points are awarded based on how skillfully the drivers either evaded their opponents' attacks or positioned their own for maximum effectiveness.
[citation needed] Arena booby-traps are intended to make fights more interesting and unpredictable and to reward drivers who can avoid the traps while pushing or carrying their opponent into them.
In the second season of the ABC revival series, the winner of the championship tournament finals was awarded a cash prize of US$25,000.
[21] Additionally, the Giant Bolt trophies are awarded to teams based on their robot’s design and operation, regardless of their performance in the tournament.
Each episode is themed around a "bounty" placed on the heads of six destructive veteran bots: Bronco, Icewave, Tombstone, Beta, Witch Doctor, and Son of Whyachi.
The sixth episode is the Golden Bolt tournament, where the five surviving bots face off against each other and three current or former BattleBots champions (for 2022, Tombstone, End Game, and Tantrum).
The format was similar to the earlier series, eschewing the bounty match battle and replacing Tombstone with SawBlaze as an automatic Golden Bolt qualifier.