[1] Geoff has glowing blue eyes, a metal mohawk (which is sometimes covered by a Santa Claus hat in December) and wears an oversized suit with his name scrawled on a contestant's name tag from The Price Is Right on his jacket, as well as Mardi Gras beads and a Super Bowl XLVII press pass around his neck.

[3] The idea came from Craig Ferguson's repeated complaints that his show suffered due to its lack of a house band or sidekick,[4][5] and he expressed desire to have his own "Robot Skeleton Army".

Robot Skeleton Army is Ferguson's name for his Twitter followers, a reference to the cybernetic creatures from the Terminator franchise.

[4][8] On the idea and development of Geoff: Initially, I wanted something which represented some kind of deconstructionist contempt for the late-night genre and the idea of a sidekick, but [Josh Thompson] became so good at it, he just became a sidekick.According to Imahara, he worked on it weekends and in his spare time, creating a "plastic skeleton with aluminum bones and torso" that "shares a lot with R2-D2 and the Energizer Bunny" (both of which Imahara had previously worked on).

[15] Terminator-esque robot skeletons, which pre-date Peterson, appeared in jingles that parody the musical performances of artists such as Kraftwerk, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Gary Glitter, and Johnny Cash.

The segment depicted Ferguson, Peterson, and T.J. the Leprechaun partaking in "hallucinogenic frozen custard" with comedian Carrot Top and their subsequent gallivanting around Vegas.

The sketch also featured appearances by Grant Imahara, Donny Osmond, Secretariat (the show's pantomime horse, voiced by Josh Thompson impersonating Morgan Freeman), and Wavy and Sid (Ferguson's alligator and rabbit puppets), which culminated in Ferguson and Peterson marrying one another at a typical Vegas chapel.

[17] Thompson referred to Peterson as a homosexual skeleton robot during a live stand-up routine while opening for Craig Ferguson in Hershey, PA on October 9, 2012.

A running gag on the show involved Ferguson making fun of how Peterson can only move one arm, and is unable to walk away from his lectern, although he is somehow able to play an invisible harmonica.

[2] As he is considered "dead" resulting in his status as a skeleton, Peterson's cause of death varies from a skydiving accident, a bar fight with Wilford Brimley, being massively overweight, choking on a bird's foot, and a methamphetamine overdose.

[2][18] Peterson typically gives her a lukewarm, sometimes nasty greeting, and she feels very uncomfortable around him and often antagonizes and insults him during her interviews with Ferguson.

From June 29, 2011, onward,[20] Thompson voiced and performed Peterson in-person for virtually every episode, including those filmed in France and Scotland.

[25] When Thompson was unavailable for two weeks starting with the November 7, 2011 show, Peterson was voiced by several celebrities: Alfred Molina, Dominic Monaghan, Thomas Lennon, Larry King, Louie Anderson, Lauren Graham, Paula Poundstone, Angela Kinsey, Jason Schwartzman, and Shadoe Stevens each for a single episode.

[27] Jaime Weinman of Maclean's said: "I think my favorite part of that is just the decision to give this mohawked skeleton robot a name as prosaically normal as Geoff Peterson.

"[28] Tom Jicha of Sun-Sentinel said that "some nights he's ridiculous, verbally jousting with the robot he [Ferguson] created and named, Geoff Peterson".