14 things you might have forgotten about Robot Wars

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Whether he was wearing a leather fringe jacket or some sort of rally driver outfit, the master of ceremonies always maintained a strange kind of languid intensity in his delivery. ACTIVATE!!!

Yep, he just loves watching things blow up in his face, so it's no surprise the former Top Gear host was MC for the first series.

To quote commentator Jonathan Pearce, the leader of the house robots was "Our master of disaster! 200 kilos of gloom and doom, the lance to chew, the hyraulic claw to cut through – the nip and tuck, and you're out of luck!"

(To be fair, Pearce was pretty good himself*)

Whether it was the flamethrowing Sergeant Bash, the battered Death Metal (above) or the “self-controlled” Matilda, the house robots were always deadly to newcomers.

Just reading them back is a roll-call of honour: Robot the Bruce, Roadblock, Panic Attack, Chaos 2, Hypno-Disc (above), Firestorm, Stinger, Pussycat, Razer, Tornado, Storm 2 and so many more.

Remember the extremely flammable Diotoir? Good times.

While you might have rooted for the chancers who put buzzsaws and flamethrowers on their robots, you always knew the simple flipping action of Firestorm or Chaos 2 would triumph in the end, putting their opponents on their backs like so many helpless tortoises.

The football commentator could make a tea party sound exciting with his frenzied delivery. But Robot Wars was no tea party.

As the pit reporter for the show, she helped us believe we too understood exactly how these mighty machines were built when she interviewed their brainy creators (and made them all flustered because a girl was talking to them).