as Congressman William Schallert as Johnston Helen Winston as Secretary Lew Smith as Tobor Jack Daly as Scientist Maury Hill as Scientist Production Principal photography for Tobor the Great took place from early to mid-January 1954 on location at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California. Contrary to popular belief, the robot was not designed by Robert Kinoshita, creator of Robby the Robot. According to both production sketches and "movie robot" authority Fred Barton, Tobor was designed by Gabriel Scognamillo and built by Mel Arnold, who also worked on Gort for The Day the Earth Stood Still. The original Tobor prop and remote control device is still in existence, having been stored away safely in a private collection for more than 50 years. There is an on-line company, Fred Barton Productions, that sells screen-accurate, full-size replicas of Tobor as seen in the film. Reception In a review in The New York Times Tobor the Great is characterized as "This children's sci-fi adventure (that) chronicles the friendship between an 11-year-old and his grandfather's robot Tobor, who was designed to explore deep space." In DVD Savant film reviewer Glenn Erickson called it, "Like other low budget Republic shows of its day, the film is sturdy, slow and straightforward, taking little advantage of the ideas in its script. Yet it was a kiddie favorite simply because it was about a boy who shared an adventure with a massive metal man." In an appraisal of Tobor the Great film historian and reviewer Leonard Maltin noted "the film missed out on becoming an important sci-fi classic ... terrible acting and dialogue. A botched attempt at a heartwarming sci-fi comedy-thriller". Legacy The film inspired a Tobor the Great comic book story series, written by Denis Gifford and with artwork by James Bleach; it appeared in Star Comics #1-2 (1954), from D Publications. Here Comes Tobor was a proposed American science-fiction TV series. Produced for the 1956–1957 season, the project was never picked up and only a pilot episode was filmed but never aired. A new film company, Diamond World Pictures, announced in 2011 that a sequel to Tobor the Great was to be the first film from the company. Plans were to star Patrick Dempsey and Christopher Plummer, and use the classic combination of live-action and stop-motion animation. To date, no film has been released. Home video Tobor the Great was released on DVD on May