SONY U.K LTD

For this project we were given only seven weeks to design and construct a robot look – a – like of the famous English actor comedian John Cleese, the robot was a great success in four T.V. commercials which became a cult figure. I was also honored to be nominated for an EMMY award.

John Cleese has always been a favorite comedian for me, so when John Webster of BMP advertising agency contacted me about this project I was thrilled

We have all heard of stories where a great idea was originally drawn out on a cigarette packet, well that is exactly what John Webster gave me to work from, plus only seven weeks to build it, but we accomplished it by doubling the seven into fourteen weeks by adding a night shift.

I also had a great opportunity of showing our appreciation to John Cleese for all the great fun his work gave us. When Cleese came to the studio he really loved the robot and when I heard after the shoot that Cleese had become a proud father, this gave me the perfect opportunity to build a one meter tall wooden representation of the full size robot; and this is what the Evening Standard in London wrote about it.

Following the arrival of John Cleese’s new baby BMP agency which thought up the Sony commercials featuring a robot version of Cleese, has presented him with a baby robot It hasn’t occurred to the agency to include a baby in the robot family on television yet. The gesture was made by Tony Dyson of Star Wars fame, who also constructs the Sony robots.