The Alps Television Spaceman debuted in 1959, and was powered by two D-cell batteries. Its movements included walking forward with swinging arms, accompanied by rotating eyes and a kaleidoscopic light show within its “mouth” and revolving chest-mounted TV screen. The distinctive tin antenna serves not only as a visual hallmark but also as a functional switch.
Safety considerations prompted the replacement of the pointed tin antenna with a round plastic radar dish in later iterations. Despite these modifications, the essence of the original endured, influencing a generation of robot toys to come. Its legacy lives on not just in its physical form, but in the blueprint it laid down for other television-style robots that followed.