Trivia / R.U.R.

• Creator Backlash: Čapek disliked R.U.R, going as far as saying that he should not have written it. Romain Rolland recalls that when he watched a performance with Čapek, Čapek was constantly complaining how bad the play was.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: The play is Čapek's internationally best known work by far, mainly because it originated the word "robot". The word was not Čapek's idea, and as described above, he didn't care for the play.
• Referenced by...:
  • Isaac Asimov's The Rest of the Robots: The introduction describes how R.U.R. was following in the footsteps of Frankenstein and Faust, with artificial life that causes trouble due to its existence.
  • Unintentionally, HuGtto! Pretty Cure: One of the characters is an android named Ruru who rebels against the evil organization that created her as her character arc revolves around Ruru trying to discover what it means to truly be alive. The producers never actually made the connection until an interviewer pointed it out, due to the similarities between Ruru's name and the title of the play, even more so when she is referred by her designated number RUR-9500.
  • Deus Ex: Mankind Divided includes a cyborg character who, as a result of the traumatic events at the climax of the previous game, has developed a split personality: that of the robot Helena. She has the play completely memorized^note when first encountered, she is reciting dialogue from it and views it as a virtual prophecy; much like the robots of R.U.R., cyborgs in Mankind Divided are treated as (at best) second class citizens, and are desperately searching for a means to achieve equality with "natural" humans.
• Sincerest Form of Flattery: The fact that the word "robot" originated in this play shows up via references to Čapek's name and the play itself showing up as Homage in a lot of other works of fiction, including Star Trek: The Original Series (in the episode "Requiem for Methuselah," the android's name is Rayna Kapec, an anagram, though not a homophone, of Capek), The Outer Limits (in the remake of the "I, Robot" episode from the original 1964 series, the business where the robot Adam Link is built is named "Rossum Hall Robotics"), Batman: The Animated Series (the scientist that created the HARDAC machine is named Karl Rossum, and a robot is seen driving a card with a vanity license plate that reads RUR), and Futurama (in "Fear of a Bot Planet", the planet of robots is named "Chapek 9"). The Norwegian Science fiction series Spaceship Marco Polo from 1978 had a research team returning from the planet Rossum, which, it turned out, was run by robots... and in the Doctor Who episode "The Invisible Enemy'' which introduces K9 the robot dog, K9's creator is named Marius.
• Ur-Example: Aside from the robotic tropes that it created with the term, this was also the first Science Fiction program ever to be broadcast on television, on The BBC on February 11, 1938.

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