Things that went over your head...

[Fungus]

To be technically accurate... I just can't believe that a battle droid would strike up a friendship with a sewer droid. The whole thing's a bit far-fetched if you ask me.

[sheridan]

I was familiar with Ro-jaws and Hammerstein about five years before I'd heard of the other duo.

[positronic]

To be technically accurate... I just can't believe that a battle droid would strike up a friendship with a sewer droid. The whole thing's a bit far-fetched if you ask me.

Mills addressed that, though. In the original Ro-Busters, they seemed like a bickering odd couple, but then in the later Return Trilogy we learned some things about Hammerstein that explain why he wasn't acting like his usual sober warbot self, and even got a rationale explaining Ro-Jaws' "faulty obedience and courtesy circuits". In other words, Ro-Jaws is not a typical sewer droid any more than Hammerstein is a typical ABC Warrior, or even a typical Hammerstein Mk III warbot.

I have a harder time believing that a sewer droid and a warbot would have even the most minimal levels of musical song-and-dance routines programmed into them. 

[TordelBack]

Hmmm really? I don't think it is that much of a stretch...especially for a pun(???).

I'd say it's a perfect pun. Any less 'stretchy' and it'd be a boring homonym (or just a kid's joke like the one about the shipwrecked survivors of a collision between two ships with cargoes of red and blue paint respectively). The truly great puns require the consumer to do a bit of the legwork.

[positronic]

Hmmm really? I don't think it is that much of a stretch...especially for a pun(???).

I'd say it's a perfect pun. Any less 'stretchy' and it'd be a boring homonym (or just a kid's joke like the one about the shipwrecked survivors of a collision between two ships with cargoes of red and blue paint respectively). The truly great puns require the consumer to do a bit of the legwork.

But not having any official logo, I always thought of them as "Hammerstein and Ro-Jaws", because that's how it tends to work... the take-charge big hero guy gets first billing, followed by "and..." his diminutive, comic-relief buddy. That tends to make the joke much harder to recognize, too.

[Magnetica]

I think that just you to be honest. I always remembered it as Ro-jaws and Hammerstein... because it sounds better that way.

Not sure the big guy always gets mentioned first. Little and Large for instance.

[Tony Angelino]

Or Laurel and Hardy.

[Fungus]

As a pun it's glorious. I've sometimes wondered if PM punched the air (or something/someone more tangible) when he hit upon it.

How do you find Kingdom, on this basis ?    That'll be tough going.

[Tony Angelino]

Kingdom doesn't work for me in that sense. Gene (the) Hackman, Paul Numan, Clara Bow etc. Too contrived for me personally.

[positronic]

I guess the other part is that for the longest time, it was ABC Warriors, and not Ro-Busters, that was the returning feature, and they were (except for Khaos stories in the early 1990s) Hammerstein's crew. He's the Sgt. Rock to their Easy Company, or the Sgt. Fury to their Howling Commandos.

Ro-Jaws, being a mere sewer droid designed for garbage disposal and cleaning out sewer drains, and therefore essentially weaponless, couldn't contribute much in the way of being a soldier, even if he did make a fair serviceable first responder in the Ro-Busters disaster squad.

It was only after reading The Complete Nuts and Bolts that I truly appreciated what a great character Ro-Jaws is, and now he's replaced Hammerstein as my favorite mek. Of course I'd read a scattered sampling of the Ro-Busters stories way back when, but never the entire thing.

I particularly enjoyed reading "Ro-Jaws' Memoirs", which told his backstory of how it was he wound up in that used-robot showroom in the first place. Now that he's taken a somewhat more prominent role with the ABC Warriors in the ongoing struggle for robot liberation, I hope he may continue exclaiming "Manky Moses!" until at last cludgie is unclogged.

[Dark Jimbo]

He does get most of the best lines!

'What sort of robot is this? What does it run on?'
'I'll give you a clue, luv - humans talk a lot of the stuff I eat.'

[JayzusB.Christ]

General Armz.  I only got it the other day.

[Steve Green]

I saw Paul Merton interviewed by Richard Herring last night, where he performed his 'Policeman giving evidence after having taken hallucinogenic drugs' routine.

Reminded me a little of that Dredd with McCarthy on art duties - no idea if it was an inspiration (the original inspiration for the routine was a documentary about operation Julie, where there was a drugs factory bust and the air was thick with hallucinogens)

[A.Cow]

General Armz.  I only got it the other day.

Um ... not sure I get it.  I may be being extra thick here so please forgive me for asking for elucidation.

[Jim_Campbell]

Um ... not sure I get it.  I may be being extra thick here so please forgive me for asking for elucidation.

I thought it existed entirely to set up the "A Farewell to Armz?" next prog tagline…