Robert Kinoshita, creator of the robot in “Lost in Space,” died in December. He was 100 years old.
TV and film art director Robert Kinoshita, best known for creating the “Lost in Space” robot that yelled “Danger, Will Robinson!” on the sixties TV show, has died. In the video below shot on his 95th birthday, he says he hopes to live to 100. He did.
Kinoshita worked on his first film in 1937, “100 Men and a Girl,” but his film career was temporarily derailed when he and his wife were forced into a Japanese internment camp in Arizona during World War II. He eventually returned to Hollywood to work on the 1956 sci-fi classic “Forbidden Planet” as a robot builder, including work on the film’s Robby the Robot.
“Lost in Space,” which ran from 1965 to 1968, is about the Robinson family’s extraterrestrial adventures. A 1998 film based on the series starred William Hurt, Mimi Rogers and Gary Oldman.
The “Lost in Space” robot — which has become a pop-culture icon — was similar in look to a robot named Robby that Kinoshita helped create for the classic 1956 sci-fi movie “Forbidden Planet.” Robby showed up in several productions after that, including an episode of “Lost in Space.”
“The Robot received as much fan mail as its the human cast,” reports THR, “And a nationwide organization of fans, The B9 Robot Builders, has built more 100 full-size Robot replicas.”
