MAIN
CAST:
RollBots was a Canadian
computer-generated animated series created by Michael Milligan, credited as “MCM”, and produced
by Amberwood Entertainment. The series
was set in the floating city of Flip City. It was inhabited
by sentient robots that could retract their limbs and become balls for travel
along roller coaster-like tracks, as well as receive “mods” that could grant
them new abilities or enhance pre-existing ones. The citizenry was divided up
into 11 different tribes with their own individual functions: Fuzata, responsible for
finances and the economy; Hai’bu,
responsible for sanitation and waste management and aided by the sub-tribe Kenchi-ku, which were
small robots kicked into tiny spaces and became the basis for the major sport,
Bot-Ball (similar to soccer); Kazoku,
responsible for educating BotTots (bot children); Kei’zatsu, responsible
for law enforcement through the FCPD; Kuzuri, responsible for
healthcare; Nisen, responsible for running the government; Tensai, the most intelligent
Bots responsible for maintenance and technology construction; Zobo’shi, responsible
for emergency services and had a rivalry with the Kei’zatsu; Zogen’sha, responsible
for spiritual guidance (aka religion); Zurasho, responsible for construction;
and Zeishi, a mysterious and quiet tribe that mostly kept to themselves. There
was a 12th tribe, the Zushin, guardians of the
city who could access all of its systems and were capable of self-healing, but
they were eliminated by the Spiderbots some time ago in a plot to destroy all RollBots.
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| Spin. |
The main character was Spin (Sam
Vincent), a rookie member of the FCPD who was the last surviving Zushin;
something initially unknown to him. His mods included Boomstick, an extendable
stick with two heat blades at the end; Skyv Boots, giving him super jumping
ability and adjust surface friction wherever he stood; Hyper Mode, a Zushin
trait that allowed him to reach extreme velocities; Radiation Boost, allowing
him to absorb radiation and channel it back as telekinesis or energy balls;
Sound Scaper, an infrared camera; and Invisibility, a prototype disk that
rendered him invisible.
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| On the move: Lance, Pounder, Spin, Penny and Tinny. |
Captain
Pounder (Garry Chalk) was the head of the Kei’zatsu and the FCPD. He was tough
and strong but had a secret soft side. His mods were Trolvodian Throwing Armor,
which gave him projectile shields, and Thunder Punch, giving him a boost of
power in his fists. Pounder worked closely with the Special Weapons and Tactics
bots, aka Swat Bots,
which were specially armed and trained FCPD officers utilized for special
missions. Penny (Cathy Weseluck) served as the FCPD’s doctor, on loan from the
Kuzuri tribe, and was Spin’s best friend—potentially a bit more. She possessed
a Healing Glove that repaired bots, power-up small machines or drain power from
bots, as well as the Sound Scraper. Lance (Scott McNeil) was a cowardly
administrator at the FCPD who disliked Spin for constantly breaking the rules,
but absolutely loved to eat lug nuts (a bot snack). His only mod was a Force
Field that he could put around himself or others. Bunto (Colin Murdock) was a
high-ranking member of the FCPD with a no-nonsense approach to the law and
often commanding his own squad. His mods included Siren, comprised of spheroid
drones that followed him emitting a siren wail; Cuffs, restraining devices that
resembled green energy disks; Arm Beam Gun, a cannon stored in his left arm;
and Do-Right Module, which emitted a shock whenever the bot who had it broke
the law. Tinny (Tabitha St. Germain) was a BotTot who enjoyed hanging out with
Spin whenever he wasn’t in school.
 |
| Vertex in his Spiderbot form. |
The
central villain was Vertex (Murdock), a suspected Spiderbot who planned to
disable the safety net protecting the city (and its citizens from falling to
their dooms) utilizing 11 hidden artifacts so that his fellow Spiderbots could
invade. Only Spin was openly fully aware of Vertex’s true nature (a history
with Pounder was implied) as Vertex could shift his form to resemble a normal
Rollbot (albeit the biggest one in the city). Vertex led an army of henchbots
with his top lieutenants being Manx (Nicole Oliver), a former member of the
FCPD who came up with most of Vertex’s plans and seemed to maintain some level
of conscience; Botch (Brain Drummond), a former member of the city’s most
dangerous gang, the Triads, he had ambitions of supplanting both Manx and
Vertex; and Macro (Murdock), a strong former Hai’bu who loyal to Vertex,
dimwitted and clumsy, and loved eating lug nuts almost as much as Lance. They
eventually were joined by Vett (McNeil), an old ally of Vertex who took a more
direct approach in his attacks on the city. Other bad bots included Phaze (Paul Dobson), another former
member of the Triads who got Manx kicked off the force and had a passion for
magnetic bot mods; Reboot (Cathy Weseluck), a renegade Tensai who voluntarily
joined in Vertex’s plans; Tamaki
(Shirley Millner), the
leader of a group of pirate bots that included her right-hand bot, Kibi (Richard Newman).
 |
| Vertex's main minions: Macro, Manx and Botch. |
RollBots
debuted
on Canada’s YTV on February 7, 2009, and was
imported by 4Kids
Entertainment into the United States on September 19, 2009 as part of The CW4Kids programming block on The CW. It was developed by MCM,
his first television series, along with Jonathan Wiseman, Chantal Ling and Gerald Tripp. MCM would confess
on his website that a lot of what he had in mind was improvised, but there was
a massive mythology built up for the world along with a semi-functional language
and three alphabets. MCM has
also said that a lot of the names used were a combination of “Japanese words
and techy humor” (for instance, Kei’zatsu was taken from keisatsu, which
is Japanese for “police”). Along with MCM, the series was written by Craig Young (also a supervising
producer), Vito Viscomi, Steven Sullivan, Mark Leiren-Young, Terry Saltsman
and Edward Kay. The original
conceptual design was done by Andrew
King, Leif Norheim and Paul Rivoche, and 2D character
concept designs by King with Dave
Badour. Serge R. Cøté served as
the composer with Elliott Animation
handling the animation. It earned a Gemini Award for “Best
Direction in an Animated Program or Series”.
 |
| Pounder and Vertex falling to their dooms? We may never know... |
MCM
had envisioned and planned for around 5 seasons’ worth of material, peppering
in clues for future developments throughout the entire first season; even
ending it on a cliffhanger due to assurances of a second. Unfortunately, the
series proved to be too expensive to produce, despite being broadcast around
the world in multiple languages, and was subsequently cancelled. The American
run didn’t fare much better due to 4Kids’ ongoing financial troubles. After the
first 13 episodes aired, 4Kids put it on a brief hiatus before resuming with
reruns that January. On January 23rd, they aired the 14th
and final new episode as RollBots was again put on hiatus. 4Kids
announced that the show would resume come the fall season, but it never made
the transition into the newly renamed Toonzai block.
 |
| One of the DVD collections. |
To
date, RollBots has only seen home video releases outside of North
America in both episode
collections and a complete
season set. As of this writing, Wow Kidz Action
currently hosts the Hindi
translations of the series on their YouTube channel, and Forrest+Schlange Animation has several animatics from
early production work they did on theirs including the original pitch presentation.
As for MCM, he hasn’t quite given up on his baby yet. He announced on his
website that he was working on a reboot pitch as too much time has passed to
continue the original story. For now, RollBots: Refactored exists
solely as a pilot
script.
EPISODE
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