[2] Each player takes control of one of the two robots: Red Rocker and Blue Bomber, both of which are standing on a platform molded in bright yellow high-impact polystyrene plastic, representing a boxing ring.
From 1948, the International Mutoscope Corporation had a coin operated arcade machine called Silver Gloves featuring two players controlling the movement and arms of two boxing figures.
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots has enjoyed far-ranging success in the United States, selling in the hundreds of thousands and becoming something of a minor popular culture phenomenon.
[7] Marx produced the action set, virtually unchanged, for well over a decade, until the packaging and characters were updated for the 1977 sales season with a more overt outer-space theme to make it appeal more to buyers looking for space toys following the release of the movie blockbuster Star Wars.
The red robot was changed to a grey color (though the instructions referred to him as "silver"), but retained his classic head.
In addition, an action figure line, a PlayStation game, electronic handhelds, a head-to-head plug and play and bobble head dolls have been recently introduced.
Slinky Dog enquires with them if they've seen "a cowboy doll with a bad arm" (Woody), but when Blue Bomber responds Red Rocker starts arguing with him.
The Blue Bomber is voiced by the film's director, John Lasseter, and the Red Rocker one of the co-directors, Lee Unkrich.
The robots appeared in the Futurama episode "A Fishful of Dollars", where they are among the 20th century items purchased by Fry at an auction.
In the video game, more robots were introduced, including the "Orange Oppressor", the "Yellow Yahoo", the "Green Grappler", the "Purple Pyro", the "Pink Pummeller", the "Brown Bully", the "Silver Stretcher" and the "Black Bruiser".
Near the end of the adventure video game Space Quest III, the player character Roger Wilco and the main antagonist Elmo Pug fight each other with gigantic Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.