Always Save the Girl: In the episode where Thrasher and Blastus donate there coolent they go to Maimy and she is getting attacked by a giant robot that Thrasher tamed but when losing control of the beast it kills Megawatt.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The short cartoon showing how plants are dangerous showed a tulip ripping a robot child apart, one tree attacking four robots, another robot eating a dog that was urinating on him, and the Gore-Ax adding at the end of the film, "That tree stole a dog's identity and ruined his credit!"
Bears Are Bad News: The credits of the penultimate episode show how the robots establishing a new Insanus on a planet inhabited by Care Bears went. It didn't end well.
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist and Anyone Can Die: A variation; almost all the robots, including the main characters, get destroyed constantly... but are fixed or rebuilt with no harm done a few minutes later.
Deranged Animation: Justified; the show's director is the co-creator of Superjail (Christy Karacas), so expect a lot of excessive violence and chaotic sequences that make you wonder if drugs, manic depression, a bad case of attention-deficit disorder, or any combination of the three were involved.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Sunshine class are a class of robots with "faulty psycho chips" who "get their own bus" and are exempt from taking standardized tests in school. I don't see any parallels between this and a special-ed class, do you? And it gets worse when Mrs. Crunshine reveals that her mission is to dispose of non-violent robots who burden society with their feelings by shooting them all into the sun.
The "tonic" (a gross yellow slime that comes from a pipe down by the playground, smells and tastes like gasoline and feet, comes in jars, has pacifiers in it, and causes such lovely side effects as tremors, childhood memory loss, terror daydreams, hacking cough, loss of limb control, and slime leaking from the eyes) that the janitor gives Thrasher and Blastus so they can be mutilation ball stars is exactly like steroids or any other performance-enhancing drug (though there is no Drugs Are Bad moral to be learned from this, besides a quick one from Tacklebot about how "Real alpha dogs don't need to drink stuff that comes out of a pipe at the playground).
Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Apparently, Insanus explodes daily (for one reason or another), to the point that all of the robots merely get on a spaceship and drive to a new one.
Expy: Blastus looks like Fatbot from Futurama (the robot on the Animal House-parody episode who had to be rebooted after catching a virus in Tijuana); Thrasher more or less looks like C3PO from Star Wars (or Gus the robot from Tripping the Rift), minus the Ambiguously Camp Gay mannerisms.
Some of the guest stars include frickin' Lewis Black (as the Gore-Ax), Lisa Lampanelli (as The Green Spirit of Insanus)note in probably one of the few things she's been in where she doesn't make crude, racist jokes, rapper Lil Jon (as Mayor Amputator and King Suckerpunch), and Gilbert Gottfried (as Tickle Me Psycho). If you've heard any of their stand-up on Comedy Central, it's hilarious to find them associated with a kids' cartoon, even if it doesn't feel like one (though Gilbert Gottfried has appeared in kids' cartoons since the 1990s).
Mrs. Crunchite (from "No Child Left Benign") and Megawatt's mom (from the series finale "To Wretchnya With Love") is Kate McKinnon (former cast member of Logo's The Big Gay Sketch Show; current cast member of Saturday Night Live)
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Averted. Even though the show is cancelled and Cartoon Network got rid of all evidence that the show existed from their website (despite that the channel recently aired the episodes "Bling Thing" and "The Playdate" on their classic cartoon block, Cartoon Planet), it is available for viewing on iTunes, accessible through many torrent websites, and has recently had its entire season released on Netflix.
Lighter and Softer: This show was a more- or less-toned-down version of Superjail. It had the gratuitous violence and chaotic, trippy animation, but it's robots getting killed and pummelled, not humans, so there's no need for censorship issues over bloodletting, gruesome, imitable violence, and death. However, during production, the crew had to constantly be reminded that the show was airing in primetime, and warned them not to go too much into [adult swim] content. It didn't stop them from trying.
Love Martyr: Even though Maimy rejects Thrasher and uses weapons on him Thrasher still loves her regardless.
Mood Swinger: Weenus. Justified in that he has a faulty psycho-chip. He was one of the members of the Sunshine Class in "No Child Left Benign," meaning that, by Insanus' standards, he's mentally-challenged.
Ridiculously Human Robots: Subverted; the robots act similar to most human teenagers...when they're not destroying each other, getting pummelled into scrap metal, and blowing everything up.
Rescue Romance: Thrasher saves Maimy and they have a small moment until the giant monster falls on top of her.
Screwed by the Network: The only reason this show did well in the ratings was from word-of-mouth, since the network rarely promoted the series (outside of mentioning it during their Monday night line-up ads). It's not as bad as other shows that have been screwed over for whatever reason, but sadly, it wasn't enough to keep the show afloat.
Even though Cartoon Network has not aired the show independently in reruns (and pretty much wants nothing to do with it, now that Adventure Time, Regular Show, and MAD have proved to be more of an international draw than Robotomy), some episodes have appeared on the installment show, Cartoon Planet (so far, "Bling Thing"note The episode where Thrasher and Blastus sell their coolant to buy upgrades for their robot bodies and "The Playdate"note The episode where Thrasher and Blastus babysit Maimy's younger brother. It has Gilbert Gottfried as the Tickle Me Psycho doll have aired) and Netflix has the entire series uploaded for those who may have missed it the first time around.
Take That: "Frenemy" is a merciless parody of Facebook, Twitter, and social networking sites in general.
On "No Child Left Benign," Blastus tells Thrasher that books are dangerous because his grandmother died from reading. The book she read before she died was about teenaged vampires.
The TwilightTake Thats continue in another episode, where Thrasher is forced to watch a movie that shows the danger of plants. Instead, we get a robot version of Twilight and this line:
Gore-Ax: No, no, no, no. This isn't the movie that makes you hate plants; it's the one that makes you stupid!
Dana Snyder voices Principal Thunderbyte, Mr. Dreadnot, the janitor of Harry S. Apocalypse High, three news anchors (as seen in the episodes "Play Date," "Field of Screams," and "Nana's Run"), and several one-shot characters.
Gilbert Gottfried voiced all of the Tickle Me Psycho dolls in the fourth episode.
Temporal Paradox: Occurs in the first episode. Thrasher and Blastus end up having to destroy their past selves in order to protect the "space-time containment".
CONTINUUM!
The Teaser: Even though an average episode is only 10 to 11 minutes long, this show does have cold openings.
This Is Wrong on So Many Levels: A variant on "No Child Left Benign": After Blastus vomits up the books he stuffs in his mouth and eats his own puke, Thrasher says, "Well, this is all kinds of wrong."
The show now has somewhat of a cult following, and had an unsuccessful Facebook campaign to save the show.Aired on Cartoon Network. (Specifically, right after MAD on Monday nights, since you wouldn't know if we didn't tell you.)The show has had episodes aired on the 2012-2013 edition of Cartoon Planet, and the entire series is on Netflix.Watch the teaser.
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