Top Five… Most Annoying Talking Robots
Transformers.. robots in disguise. What there is no disguising, however, is just how downright insufferable it is when some of them open their mouths. To mark the release this week of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Ross McG runs through cinema’s android database to give you the bots that should have been shipped off in spare parts.
5. Optimus Prime
Being an Autobot has never been much fun. Your job is pretty much to stand around doing nothing until a Decepticon does something… (what’s another word for ‘bad’?) deceptive (yeah, that will do) before you have to spring into action. Still, it might help the Bots a bit more if their leader wasn’t as boring as sin. This notoriously dreary do-gooder isn’t even any good at doing good, repeatedly showing his love for humankind by demolishing many of its famous landmarks in fights with other big robots, presumably wiping out all the people caught in the crossfire. Even when he dies he’s dull. And he dies a lot. Enough to make you swear… even in a kids’ movie.
4. Jinx
The robot in forgettable ‘80s teen astronaut flick SpaceCamp (or No Space Between ‘Space’ and ‘Camp’) is voiced by the great Frank Welker, better known as Scooby-Doo and Megatron to generations of kids, but don’t let that fool you. Jinx is pretty aptly named – SpaceCamp’s release came just months after the Challenger shuttle disaster. Annoyingly friendly, particularly towards a young Jaoquin Phoenix, the only positive thing to be said for Jinx is that he almost looks like the far superios T-Bob from the M.A.S.K. cartoon series (when are they gonna make a M.A.S.K. movie, McD?).
3. Johnny 5
Having acted opposite Judd Nelson for much of her career (it’s no coincidence Futurama’s Bender is named after his most famous character), Ally Sheedy must have found it easy co-starring with an irritating robot. In Short Circuit, she gets lumped with Johnny 5, whose catchphrases (‘No disassemble!’/’Input’) had about as long a shelf life as he did. If only that lightning bolt had blown him into tiny pieces. Still, he did inspire Wall-E.
2. Sico
What does every boxing champ need? That’s right, a really creepy robot who talks. Sico (the clue’s in the name, really) isn’t actually the Italian Stallion’s bot, but a gift he gives to his mate Paulie in Rocky IV. Had this nightmare-inducing, happy birthday-wishing, hunk of metal trained Ivan Drago, the film’s outcome might have been different. Scorsese removed Jake La Motta’s talking robot from Raging Bull in post production.
1. D.A.R.Y.L.
Quick, movie fans: what does the acronym D.A.R.Y.L. stand for? If you went for Data-Analysing Youth Robot Lifeform you are correct. If you went for Do Acronyms Ruin Your Life? you also get a point. In the 1985, D.A.R.Y.L. was the bag of bolts stuck in the body of a ten-year-old boy. And boy… did he suck. He’s obviously a higher form of intelligence because… he’s really good at the video game Pole Position. Who would believe it? A boy skilled at a video game? That’s just too ridiculous. He must be a robot…
WHICH ARE YOUR LEAST FAVOURITE MOVIE ROBOTS?
Ross v Ross 
June 30, 2011 at 4:01 pm
[…] Top 5 Most Annoying Talking Robots (Ross v Ross) […]
June 30, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Wait… you’re putting Optimus here, yet not the twin bots from Revenge of the Fallen?
July 3, 2011 at 1:23 am
I wish I could remember the Robot’s name from the original Power Rangers. THAT one was annoying. Funny list, as always. I completely forgot about D.A.R.Y.L, That’s some campy stuff!
July 4, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Mudflap and Skid. That is all…
July 11, 2011 at 8:05 am
Whoever wrote this article is more ANNOYING and far more STUPID than any and every of the robots listed in this half-assed, unproffesional and downright malicious list.
July 11, 2011 at 8:48 am
You’re kidding, right?
BIDDI BIDDI BIDDI WHAT’S UP BUCK
July 11, 2011 at 10:50 am
“Do Acronyms Ruin Your Life?”
YES! Thank you. That made my day.
Box from Logan’s Run got on my nerves. Come to think of it, so did the central city computer – it just blew itself up from a Star Trek cliche. MALFUNCTION. DOES NOT COMPUTE.
The chip-installing arm from Innerspace would get on anyone’s nerves.
And don’t forget… JINX AND MAX… FRIENDS… FOREVER!
July 11, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Did you seriously just make a list of the most annoying movie robots and leave C-3PO completely off the list? He is synonymous with annoying. It’s his raison d’etre. I say this, of course, as a huge fan of the original Star Wars series.
July 11, 2011 at 2:02 pm
[…] The Most Annoying Talking Movie Robots from Ross v. Ross […]
July 11, 2011 at 2:09 pm
putting optimus prime on the list at #5 is for a reaction and to get the reader to scroll down.
July 11, 2011 at 3:00 pm
You lost me with Optimus and Johnny Five. Terrible.
July 12, 2011 at 12:56 am
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm…the Cylons,from battlestar galactica…and that annoying dog thing,erm,a dagget,i think it was called boxie…
ohhhhhhhhhh,and bumble bee from the transformers movie..got the voice back in 1,yet kept using radio waves? helllllllllllllllllllooooooooo ?!?!!??!!
i agree with johnny 5,too…only movie on this list i saw as a kid….
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,but annoying tv robots would be: the chick,Vicki,from that show small wonder…
July 12, 2011 at 2:24 am
…This is kind of a pitiful list. As if the author only owns a collection of a dozen or so children’s sci-fi movies from the 80’s that he just watches on repeat in his mother’s basement. Alpha from Power Rangers (Ai yai yaiiii), that irritating robot from the ill-fated Treasure Planet, that needy love-bot child from Artificial Intelligence, Tom Servo, the entirety of the Decepticons, any robot from the animated movie ‘Robots,’ hell I could go on an on….Can I get a job here now please?
July 12, 2011 at 6:37 am
Where’z the robots from “The Black Hole”, huh?
July 12, 2011 at 8:50 am
Remiel… I will ask my mother to look into getting a basement installed.
And yes, you can have a job here – you start next week.
July 12, 2011 at 9:56 am
Haha, scarily accurate Remiel. Except he doesn’t even have a dozen
July 12, 2011 at 6:01 pm
And then people wonder why nerds are ridiculed. Remiel, you set the movement back twenty years.