[2] The film was directed by Allan Arkush, written by John Hill, and stars Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as the robots alongside Randy Quaid, Kenneth McMillan, Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, and the voice of Jerry Garcia in a rare film appearance.

Stan Winston's make-up work for Heartbeeps made him one of the nominees for the inaugural Academy Award for Best Makeup in 1982, losing to Rick Baker for An American Werewolf in London.

They assemble a small robot, Philco (also called Phil), built out of spare parts from the van they stole, whom they treat as their child.

The film ends with Crimebuster, after only pretending to have his mind erased, continuing to malfunction and going on another mission to recover the fugitive robots.

[citation needed] Because of a strike by the Screen Actors Guild, filming was shut down in July 1980 (along with numerous other movies and television shows).

The Universal executives were concerned that Kaufman had not acted in films except for a small role, and they arranged for him to star in Heartbeeps to test whether he could carry a movie.

[11] Kaufman felt the movie was so bad that he personally apologized for it on Late Night with David Letterman, and as a joke, promised to refund the money of everyone who paid to see it.