Tosh Show - My BattleBots Creator - Trey Roski

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Daniel clashes with Trey Roski, who partnered with his cousin Greg to grow the concept of robot wars into the BattleBots empire. Join our Patreon for exclusive content: http://patreon.com/toshshow 20% off your first purchase when using the code TOSH at checkout at https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/

Hey guys, it's me Daniel. Do me a solid. I don't ask for a lot, but like and subscribe to this podcast. Also, you could rate it highly. I would appreciate. Maybe even write a review. Maybe we'll become best friends. Comedy Central is one of the few companies in, in 01, that wasn't preempted during 9-11.

Battlebots was on during that coverage. I'm just pointing that out. Yep. Tosh Show. Tosh Show. Tosh Show. Welcome to Tosh Show. I'm Daniel.

There's Eddie. What's up, Daniel? Man, I'll tell you what's up, Ed. Okay. You know, I went to Palm Springs and had a delightful time. Now, when I go to Palm Springs, I usually rent a mid-century modern in downtown Palm Springs. and I try to pretend I'm in the rat pack. Right.

You know? The old flavor. Yeah. I smoke constantly. Uh-huh. I push Carly around. It's just, hey, get over here. Yeah, you know how it is.

It's just, the golden days of show business. The golden days. No, I don't do that. But I do always rent a mid-century. Uh-huh? And I do listen to a lot of rat pack music while I'm there. Now, this time, I decided to do something. something different this year.

We broke tradition and I said, we're going to rent a house in Palm Desert. Okay? Now, that's a neighboring community, but it's much closer to Indian Wells where we're going to watch tennis. So the commute's going to be a lot less. Now, first of all, the house we rented, just beautiful, hillside home. It turns out it's, what's his names? Bobby Burke.

It's his house. Okay. Now, you know who he is. No, you know. He was on queer eye. He was like, he's the guy on queer eye that does the real work. You know, he's not the guy that like combs somebody's hair and goes, oh, there, you look pretty. He's the guy like builds them a home.

Okay. Okay. So his area, his taste and area expertise all comes together in this property that he owns that he rents out. And it's just, it's just beautiful. Awesome. Oh, it's a beautiful home. A lot of structures so I could put family members in different areas. had a pickleball court.

This is good. Anyway, great. Now, do I have a complaint? It wouldn't be me if I didn't. I bet you do. Okay. Now, I bring a candle with me. You know, set the mood.

Right. In case the kids go down early with no fuss, and my wife's got a hankering for some tomfoolery, I'm ready to go. Right. Okay, so I have a candle lit. Then, no tomfoolery. Just got a candle.

No, I lit the candle, she's asleep, and then I'm like, well, I'm going to fall asleep. I better blow the candle out. Blow the candle out. Smart. Yeah, you blow a candle. Next thing I know, oh, no, all the fire alarms are going off. From the candle being blown out. The smoke from the candle triggered a fire alarm.

Now, here's the problem. There's like four different structures all the way down the hillside, and they're all connected. So my in-laws, they're down there trying. to figure out why their fire alarm. Nobody has a clue. You have to go up and down a hill. It's just awful. There's just,

I'm manually turning them off in each room. I got two kids asleep. My wife is furious. Then I find one smoked area that's like 20 feet high in this like two-story area. I'm like, well, I can't get to that button. And then I go to the alarm, the house alarm. Right.

And it says the fire alarm's going off. And my wife just quickly, like, type in the house code they gave us for the doors. And I did, and it just shut off. It worked. I was like, oh, thank goodness. Then I go up there, check on the kids. Guess what?

Still sound asleep. I'm like, this is amazing. Now, we have other guests, and they have kids. I didn't check on them. That's their problem. You think this story, you think this is just the end of the story. Now, the story gets way better. Okay?

You have to understand this house also is very remote. It is the last house on the end of a road that is a single lane road that's, you know, going up and down. Canyons half dirt, half paved. Anyway, I've getting the house settled. It's like 11 or so at night now. I'm climbing back in a bit. All of a sudden, I see lights like crazy. And there's a fire truck in the driveway.

Oh, no. And I'm like, you got to fucking be kidding me. And it's gated driveway. So they, you know, they have their own. key that they can open up. So I run downstairs and I'm like, hey guys, I don't know what happened. And the main guy gets out, a captain will call him. He's irritated. He goes, I came up here last night for a false alarm. Are you the owner? I'm like, no, I'm not the owner. And I just got here today. He goes, you need to tell the owner this place, get this fixed. We're coming up here

every night because the fire alarms are going off. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't, you know, nothing I do could have done. I typed, I tried to get it turned off. I didn't know I needed to call in to cancel. He's got a little bit, he's getting a little mean. Right.

But I mean, I understand. Sure. He's got to back a truck down the craziest driveway in the world. Next thing I know, another one of the fire guys gets out young guy, big guy. He goes, you Daniel Tosh? I'm like, yeah. It's great. Thank you.

I'm like, yeah, I'm Daniel Taw. He's like, what's the other guys out of the truck? There's Daniel. So we're all just talking. Meanwhile, I'm in my underwear and I got a breathe right strip on. That's good. You know, that's how I sleep at night. I've got boxers and a breathe right strip.

And they're like, can we get photos with you? And I'm like, yeah. Of course you can get photos with me. You know, you were coming up here to save my family's life. It's the least I can do. So now I'm posing shirtless in underwear with the breathe rights strip with these ripped a young, good looking firefighters in front of their trucks with the lights on

and I'm just like, I'm just like posing. Oh, that's good. Is the captain lighten his mood? Yeah, was he like, the captain light in his mood? He's like, I don't know who you are. I'm like, oh, it's okay. You don't need to. He's like, well, let me look it up.

I'll watch some stuff. I'm like, well, wait until you get back in the place. Anyway, so that was our instance. Anyway, I appreciate Bobby Burke's place, but I want him to know that his fire alarms are a bit sensitive. Sensitivity needs to be dialed down. Dial it down. I was just trying to have, you know, just a nice little candle in my room.

It wasn't even near the fire alarm. It was, you know, near the nightstand. Whatever. I'm just giving him information now. This is just for him. Okay. But this is only part one of this nonsense. You need to know that the house is extremely far.

away from like the main road. Like you have to really travel to get to the house. Like once you get off the main road, it's another 10 minutes of driving. Now, why is that important? I'll tell you. They don't have any EV charging. Okay. Now, my wife and I came up separately.

She came up early, do a little shopping, go out to lunch, and she said, why don't you just wait until the kids get out of school and you take the kids in Carl? And I'm like, that's perfect. Deal. I'll just get stuck in traffic with two screaming kids and a dog. And we'll drive the four hours. hour drive, which under normal, you know, driving would be two and a half. Anyway, I do it because I know that in a relationship, it's about trying to give more than

the other person. Okay. So we have two EVs and you can't charge of the house. Okay. So I have to charge one of them at Target down the street. Okay. Okay. And I say, come pick me up and we'll go out to Brow.

Nice. Right. Nothing wrong here. So we go to this breakfast place. I should remember the name of it. It's popular in the Palm Desert area. And one of the guys came up to me and just told me at the restaurant, goes, just love the podcast. And anytime somebody specifically says the podcast, I feel like, okay, this person is making some effort to endear themselves to me by complimenting my latest project. Yeah. So I liked it. Now, what was the special that day? It was fried chicken over waffles with eggs Benedict on top of it. And I'm like, well, that sounds delicious. Yeah. And my wife just looked at me like, are you nuts?

And I'm like, what are you talking about? It's fried chicken and waffles with eggs Benedict on top of it. Yeah. This is delicious. So I devour this. And I'm like, okay, let's get out of here. We have friends with us at this breakfast. Let's get out of it.

Let's get out of it. But we've got to swing by Target to pick up my car. It is finished charging. You don't want your car to stay on a charger. They now, like, have a little extra charge for just, you know, eating up. I didn't like that. So I wanted to get back there. Anyway, we agreed to get, I think, my son or daughter, like a Lego or something from Target.

So we were going to walk in there because we didn't find a good toy store. So we walk in a target. As soon as we walk in, I say to my wife, whoa, my stomach doesn't feel great. And she's like, no shit. She told you, man. And I'm like, I'm going to just leave. Is that okay if you just, you stay with the kids and do the, get the Lego? Because, and she's like, how are you going to?

I go, there's, we have two cars here. She's like, right, right. She's like, take off. No big deal. I'm like, perfect. I'll take off. So I drive the five to seven minutes to the turnoff. Okay.

Okay. At about the five and a half minute mark, my stomach's like, you're not going to make it. But right when I get the turn off to where the house is, I have, I told you, 10 more minutes of backwards driving. And as soon as I turn off, I'm like, I think I can make it. I get stuck behind the slowest

car in the world. And I'm like, oh no. And like just having to be behind this car, I'm like, this isn't good. This isn't good. So I look in the car. I'm in my wife's car. I took hers, her SUV.

And I say, oh, she's got this huge plastic bag that she had just bought a little outfit for my daughter. I go, I'm just going to, I just pulled over real quick. I emptied out the stuff that was in the plastic bag, and I just stand behind the front seats in the SUV, and I just explode in this bag. Do you blow right through the bag? No, no, it's a big heavy plastic bag.

I explode in it. I fill this bag. It's kind of nice, and then there's tons of wipes because this is my wife's car, and we've got, you know, she's got a young daughter. So I had wipes, I'm like, this is nice. And then I tie this big huge bag up nicely. Right.

And I open the door and I just set it outside on the side of the road. Uh-huh. Okay. I mean, this is littering. I know. Yeah. But I, there's nothing. I'm not keeping it in the car.

No. So I set it down. And again, this is kind of deserty area. So my, let me just bring this back to one more thing. When I pulled off of this road the first time with my son, He had just woken up from a nap and he goes, dad, I woke up and we're in Mexico. I don't know why he appropriates, but it was a good observation because it definitely feels, you know, like you're out there. Anyway, so I drop this bag off and I get home and I make it to the bathroom again for rounds three and four.

I sat on the bag for two, rounds one and two. Anyway. So then everybody gets home and I immediately tell the story that I didn't make it. You know, I got close, but they are like, it is a long distance from the main road to this house. Almost sympathetic. They're like, why didn't you go to Target? I'm like, eh, I thought I could make it. Anyway, later that night, we're leaving to go back to tennis for the evening session.

Okay? And I point out the bag. I'm like, there it is. My wife's freaking. Why is it such a, why is it so square? And I'm like, I don't know why it's square. Like the, like, she was shocked at the bulk of the bag. Right.

On the way back that night, we'll stop. I'll take a photo of it for the podcast. You know. Anyway, on the way back, the bag's gone. Oh, man. So either someone picked it up, but I can't imagine somebody cleaned it up because it's so remote. I think an animal took it. Yes.

Okay, so an animal took it and had a snack. I mean, I know what you're saying. Fried chicken waffles with eggs Benedict. That's a Daniel shooter. That's setting you up. It got me. Oh, he got me. I like Carly being like, are you crazy?

No, well, because it was just, it was a fun order. Uh-huh. If you're going to make that your special, I'm going to order it. All right. We got to get to it. By the way, today's episode, you love robots, right, Ed? It is my thing. I like it.

I used to draw them, remember, on airplanes so people wouldn't talk to me? Yeah, enjoy. Did you know fast-growing trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers. No green thumb required, just quality plants you can count on. Plus, get ongoing support from trained plant experts who can help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants, and learn how to care for them every step of the way. More plants than you'll find anywhere else, including rare and unique varieties,

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My guest today is a fellow show creator from the glory days of Comedy Central. Back in the Dr. Katz, Craig Kilbourne era, he has spent most of his adult life exploring the question, what would happen if you put radial saws two toasters and release them in the same room. Please welcome the co-creator of Battlebots, Trey. Trey, thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me. First question, do you believe in ghosts? No. Are you still happy you went with the Battlebots route instead of the lucrative yet disgusting world of sex robots? That's a good question. You know, sex self. I know.

We all know itself. Did you ever know anyone from that world that was working on sex robots is like, hey, you know what, I could create something that might do some damage in the ring? Is that a no? No. No. No, I don't know. I just feel like it's such a parallel world. Have you always been into robots?

Yeah, more or less. Do you have an erector set as a child? I did. Did you like it? I did. I loved my rector set. It was a lot of fun. Most of our contestants start with things like that to build even today.

They'll start with Legos. What about magnet tiles? I feel like those aren't good. My kid loves Legos, but I had the erector set. That was fun. That was the best. Yeah, tightening bolts all day long. You created battlebots with your cousin Greg.

Correct. That's pretty great. When did you create it? Back in 1994-95 is when it all started with robot wars, and then actual battlebots came in existence in 98-99. First of all, how old were you when you guys created this? Fresh out of college, so, you know, 20-something. Both from California?

Yes. Same area? Uh, kind of. I grew up kind of in L.A. Uh-huh. He was in Northern California and Marin. But our mothers were sisters, and so we were, neither of us had brothers, so we were kind of pushed together.

Our mothers were best friends, and they talked every single morning. How did you stumble into, like, robots actually fighting? The robot wars, which was 1994-95. So Mark Thorpe, a guy worked at ILM. He basically built models for George Lucas. He first built a vacuum cleaner that he put. on a remote control tank. And he started driving around thinking he was going to make a vacuum cleaner,

remote control out of this, so he could sit in his couch. And that didn't work out so long. I would invented the Rumba. I would say that's pretty accurate, yeah. Okay. But anyway, he started bumping into things and chasing things and decided, hey, maybe I'll get some of my ILM friends to build some robots. And they all showed up in 1994 for the very first robot wars.

Cousin Greg went to that event to help Mark Sattrachian. Marks Atrachian is probably one of the most incredible engineers. He built that Spider-Man that flies through the air at Universal Studios that's unattached anything. He built the little face that you see open up on Men in Black. Those things are actually practical. Like they actually existed. They actually existed. Back then there wasn't the CG and stuff that they could do.

So they actually built the robots and they built the things. And anyway, they invited, they went to school together. They took movie class together, invited Greg. And so you built one for this very first? The second. So Greg and I built a robot called La Machine. La Machine. Now, why did you go with a French name?

Well, it just seemed like it would work. Law Machine's genius was its simplicity. Correct. Yeah. It was a wedge. Yes. It was a wedge. You guys were going there.

You saw the mistakes that people had made. They were going, you know, form over function. And you were like, no, let's make one that can actually win. We didn't think we had stood a chance. We had no money. We had about 200 bucks. My mom had given us to buy a transmitter. We didn't have speed controllers.

We got the motors out of starter motors is what we used out of boat starters. We had a battery that we took out of Gage Coshua, one of our friends, Honda Civic. And we pull it out of the Honda Civic, put it in the robot. We drive the robot for five minutes. We'd pull it back out. We didn't have a charger. And we put it back in the car, start the car, and let the car charge it. It was very hard to drive.

It was either all on full force each wheel, and you had to kind of do this, turn them on and off real quick to steer. It's like driving Bigfoot. I mean, I've never driven a monster truck, but I feel like they're always doing, running one side of the wheels to the other side, et cetera. All right, go on.

So it immediately did well? Yeah, so the steering was very, very difficult. And what I would do is back up. I was a driver, of course, and I would back up to kind of line it up. And that backing up added this anticipation, to the audience. And so they'd see this thing

backing up and kind of lining up and all of a sudden you'd just hit the go button and it went very, very fast because it had all that juice going right into those starter motors that start your engine. Those motors are actually pretty powerful and it would slam into the other robots.

Nobody could beat us. We ended up winning the middleweight competition that year and we ended up winning the heavyweight melee that year. During that final heavyweight melee, the crowd started chanting LaMachine and stomping their feet. Greg was gone sitting in the audience

with his girlfriend at the time Mark Thorpe came up to me and he said, you're going to get wasted. You want to go in? The crowd is calling for you. What was the weight difference just out of curiosity? So we were 80 pounds, and the heavy weights were 160 pounds.

It was twice our weight. Okay. This robot Thor was made by a company called Schilling Robotics. It was about the size of a go-cart, was all hydraulic and had this hammer that would go down, this hydraulic hammer that when that hammer went down, it would vaporize the concrete. That was the champion at the time.

They said, you're going to get wasted. Mark Thorpe said, you want to go in? They're calling for you. I said, absolutely. Quickly grabbed the battery at a gauge of Honda Civic, stuck it in there. Greg comes out of the audience going, what is he doing? You know? And we ended up winning.

How did you beat him? We kept banging on him and pushing them all in the corner. We stacked him up, literally stacked him up in the corner. We just kept pushing him and stacking him and stacking him. Pushing him and stacking him. And he was smoking and hydraulic fluid going everywhere. I mean, it was. What do you win for something like that?

It's just pride. A trophy. You got a trophy, though. We had a little trophy. All right. They got a trophy. It's like the beginning of Big Hero 6. Did you ever see that movie?

Absolutely. I think there's a Battobot poster in that movie. There is. That's good. Had you ever built a robot before a law machine? I worked on a lot of things, but not a real robot. I wouldn't say a real robot. We used to build things and then kind of destroy them and blow them up as kids.

So Greg and I would build things and then we'd put little M80s in them and stuff and blow them up. We, you know, back then we had Cox cars. Remote controls really weren't big. It didn't really exist. You couldn't afford them. But we used to have Cox cars and stuff that would follow strings and we'd run them into each other. We'd take those airplanes that had the strings on them. Yeah.

Remember those? Around and circles. And you go upside down and we each go opposite directions to try to hit each other, which was a little bit difficult. Oh, I didn't even think about doing a war, a little dog fight with those old planes spinning circles. Has the robot ever gotten loose in the crowd like a bull jump in the stands? Not necessarily loose in the crowd. We had a incidence once we were trying to, this is way back at the beginning with Law Machine, actually.

We were trying to get a sponsor. And so we went and met the Stanley Steemers, which are a group of people who built some computers. It was the HP engineers that actually invented the computer system. And they had this giant room with, you know, chrome chairs in it, right? And we went in there to make a presentation. A robot went a little crazy there and kind of banged up a bunch of their chairs. You got an 80-pound machine flying around.

that's going to do damage. Yeah, a little bit of damage. We didn't get picked up on that TV show for some reason. How did you end up at Comedy Central? We went and knocked on all the doors. And they actually laughed at us and said, you probably had this experience too, right? Don't call us, we'll call you,

and you never hear from anybody anymore. But they kind of giggle and chuckle it and say, you know, oh, this is interesting, but it's, you know, whatever. Debbie Liebling was kind of in charge. I saw it and said, yeah, this is funny. Did you say we didn't want it to be funny, though? Or were you in a position where like, I'm just going to... See, that's always what I did when I tried to sell shows.

Whatever they thought it was, like, that's what I pretended. That's, yes, that's exactly what I wanted it to be. We were pretty hardcore on what we thought. It was a sport to us. So we weren't going to let them edit the fight. You know, that was initially they came in and they said, okay, we want to edit this and make this into our comedy, you know, whatever. And we said, no, you can't do that.

This is a real sport. But around that, we let them do. their comic, what I would call comic schick. Some of it was great. One of my favorite ones was Carlo Lueber Ticini claims that his cat was injured, you know, out in a car thing, and he built this robot, and the cat

could control the robot. And the cat sitting in the robot, driving the robot around, and was absolutely hysterical. And one of the best pieces that Comedy Central actually did. I mean, I was always, as a young comedian at the time, I was always confused by the show at first. I was like, why is it? Comedy Central would always put,

comics in things and I'm like, is this what I have to do? I was always baffled by some of the things they did. The fighting is that part of it. That was the interesting part. Bill Dwyer, by the way, Bill with one L. Have you ever asked him why that is? It's a good question. No, I haven't. He spells his name with one L. It just says, I don't, never set well with me. I've known Bill. I haven't seen Bill and forever, but he's still hosting your live show in Las Vegas now. He is, and he's great. And he's really The Sclar brothers used to be on the show as well. Yeah, they were, you know. What?

They finish each other's thoughts. That alone is hysterical. That is. Yes. Let's see you and your cousin do that. Yeah, that's not going to happen. And you had a Carmen Electra? Yeah, she didn't really pull.

I didn't like her, to be honest. You didn't like Carmen Electra? It was funny during the filming, and she came out the first time, and all the kids would run by her. She was sitting down once, and she saw all these kids running. and she thought they were coming to take a picture with her or do something with her. They ran right past her to some of the engineers of the contestant. Their face changed from...

She didn't know the market. You got to know the market. Those nerd kids don't want to hang out with Carmen. No. She's no Jenny McCarthy. Okay. Tracy Bingham was great. Tracy Bingham.

Yeah. I mean, listen to all these people that were on Battlebots back in. When did it get picked up from Comedy Central? 2000? 2000? It was 99 or 2000. Somewhere right around. Comedy Central is one of the few companies in in 01 that wasn't preempted during 9-11.

Battlebots was on during that coverage. I'm just pointing that out. It's a weird moment to have robots destroying things. Donna DiRco. Donna Deerco was absolutely my favorite. She was a genius. She did stuff that actual comedy that was so funny. This kid had lost.

He was probably eight years old. His robot got destroyed. And she says, what a little kiss, make you feel better. And the kid looks up and his eyes open up and everything else. She bends over and kisses the robot. Uh-huh. It was absolute classic. There was nothing funnier I've seen.

Is an eight-year-old really making a robot? They obviously have help. Okay. Yeah. This is my son built. You tell me. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. This is, he's got a car. He tapes. First of all, the rocket was still good. and he breaks it, and he tapes it onto a car. And he's like, Dad, and I'm like, ah, you just took two toys and turned it in one shitty toy. This is exactly what Greg and I used to do as kids in his age.

Okay. So you're telling me that my son might have something? He might. Let me see if this thing works. His brain is thinking correctly. Get this off my desk. My son built this. That's great.

Oh, there goes. Yeah, it worked. That's good. We'll see what happens when the dog. It's still going. Yeah, it's going. They even pride it itself when it turned over. So I shouldn't be mad at him for destroying two toys?

Absolutely not. No, you should encourage him, actually. You should give him, you should, listen, best thing you can do, if you've got something that breaks that you're not going to fix, give it to him, let him take it apart. What he could learn from that is phenomenal. A simple toaster. You know, if you give him that...

I'm not giving him electronics like that, a toaster. Give him a toaster. If it doesn't work and you're going to throw it away and you're not going to get it fixed, which most things you don't today... I'm glad you brought up a toaster, though. On my toaster the plug, the third prong, it snapped off. You don't need that for anything. Well, it's a safety.

That's for safety. That's for safety. Because I've used it for years without that piece. It doesn't necessarily need it to work. But it's a good safety thing to have. Don't have it anymore. I don't want to get rid of the toaster. It's too nice, minus that little piece that broke off.

That's the good thing about me with my son. Like, whenever he does something, I actually am impressed because it's like, I'm like, I couldn't do it. I don't know why that works or doesn't work. Maybe I should start taking things apart. How many years were you on at Comedy Central? We did five seasons. Okay. On Comedy Central.

Some of those years, we did two seasons a year. But, I mean, Comedy Central did make us famous. You got to give them full credit, and they did. I don't give them full credit for anything in my life. Well, they do. That's me. I'm bitter. Who fired you over Comedy Central?

Do you remember? Comedy Central was sold. Remember MTV ended up buying Comedy Central? Ah. So that was kind of our... Demise. My demise was the dip shit over at MTV too. Oh, Chris, once he came over.

Oh, I probably shouldn't call him that. You can edit that part out. Yeah, well, leave it in, you know. He knows what he is. After the Comedy Central show was canceled, you launched a nonprofit to teach kids robotics and promote STEM education. Why was that important to you?

You know, it's kind of the whole point of Battlebots is to get kids interested in math and physics and building little things like that. So if we can inspire somebody, to do something that they don't normally do. I think that's the whole point to make, you know, education fun. Any of those kids go on to like... They all end up going on and becoming engineers.

No, I meant go on to like building a robot and fighting in your thing. Absolutely. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I love to talk about Andreas Souris, who built witch doctor. She went to an all-girls Catholic nun school in Miami.

And the nuns fell in love with the girls asking the right questions. They're still building battlebots there today. makes math make sense. It makes all this stuff they try to shove into your head that you never, what is pie? 3.14. Okay, what is it? I don't know.

It's a circle. Okay. Don't do this to me. I teach once a week at my son's school first grade math. And let me tell you, I get panic stricken when they're like, check my work. And I'm like, all right, hold on. Let me just look. And that's first grade math.

So don't start with pie and it's relevance to everything. If you were going to build a battlebot and your son is going to build a battle bot, that's what it's going to make pie make sense. Because that's your wheel, that's your sprocket size, that's the speed that you're going to want to calculate your robot to go. That math suddenly that they taught you way back when, that they gave you an equation for, that you know is 3.14, that you know as some circle that you don't know what that does. And most of the people that, why did you learn that? I don't know why I learned it. Because somebody thought it was important. Because my parents made me.

Exactly. You know, but your son now is going to look at that. take that math, and now he's going to go to the car dealership when he turns 21 and you're going to buy him a car, and he's going to argue with the Ford dealer that that torque that they showed on the brochure is not correct because he calculated it using that equation. All right. This relationship that you've created between me and my son is not going to happen. What about the golden ratio?

When do we start using that? Oh, there's all kinds of crazy math out there, yes. I think it's all crazy now. Okay, now it's crazy. I got you. Talk to me about the process of building one of these robots. How much does it cost? How long does it take to build?

And are they completely destroyed after a match? So it depends on who you are to build them. So I talked about Mark Satrakien before. He built the snake, which was one of his coolest robots, in 18 days. That's a short time. That's incredible. That's unbelievably incredible. I was just clarifying.

Most people, you know, this is more of a hobby. It's not a full-time gig. I'd love, a lot of people would like to make it a full-time gig. So if we get to the gambling days eventually, maybe then it will become full-time and they can actually live off this. But most people spend their nights and weekends building. I would say it takes three to six months sometimes to build them. Money, you know, it all depends. You're buying parts.

So if you take your time in the equation and, you know, how much maybe you think you deserve an hour, how much does that cost or how much do you. I'm not a good example for that. But the parts are not terribly expensive. Okay. You know, you can buy speed controllers for under a thousand bucks and motors for under a thousand bucks depending on, you know. All right. Once you start saying the word thousand, though, I'm like, ugh.

It starts to get it. It starts to get it. Just to have somebody else destroy it with their better invention. There's a great story where these professors spent about $70,000. Mm-hmm. They had cameras on board to drive with those goggles, you know, that see, you know, where the robot's going. They had a net throwing device back before we didn't allow nets.

Before you ban nets. And which is a good reason. and they had saws that would move in and out, they had a turret that fired this little piston cannon kind of thing.

They came to win. It spent a lot of money. They'd go up against these two boys, nine and ten year old, and they actually built their robots by themselves. It was two wooden boxes of multi-bought that started as one

and broke into two. It was two wooden boxes covered in carpet. And the light turned green to start the match, two little boys multi-bought splits in half. In between the two robots,

they had gaffers tape, duct tape. And they duct taped them down to the floor. 200 bucks is what they spent. on their robots. I mean, the duct tape is good. We outlawed duct tape after that, too.

Oh, you did? Yeah, I didn't. Just after that match? You didn't let them go again? Well, you know, it was great. Way to stifle a nine-year-old's creativity. It was great. The crowd didn't stop clapping and cheering and didn't sit down.

It was not. That's what's amazing. Yeah, it was brilliant. I mean, we've had robots that kind of just skirt the system. Has there ever been a cheating scandal in the battlebots community? Not exactly that I know of. There's definitely some, you know, people that kind of push the envelope. One of my favorite ones was

the Mythbusters. They were Battlebots contestants way before they were famous Mythbusters. You guys created the Mythbusters, basically. Well, they were... They gave a platform, and you launched them. And they... Yeah, they started. But Jamie, he goes over to his opponent, and he starts talking to him. He goes, oh, we're going up against each other next. Show me your robot.

Oh, that looks really cool. That's amazing. You know, and talks to him a little bit about it. And then he walks away and he takes a couple Alka-Seltzers while his back's turned and puts those in his mouth, starts drooling. And, foam is coming down and he turns back and he looks at the guy and he's just getting angry and he turns all red and everything. And this guy, this opponent, that he's going up against next, it's just terrified. Oh, sure.

This foam is driven. Nobody knew Jamie back then. But it was psychological warfare. He was psyching him out. So when he did get in the arena with him, that guy just kind of folded and didn't want to have anything to do with him. We've seen other stuff where people will actually go and measure parts like the one team will go away. And they go over there and they measure and do a bunch of stuff on their robots on. a table.

Well, that should be stopped. Well, you shouldn't allow that. We figure that's okay, as long as they're not sabotaging the other robot. You can't measure someone's robot. I don't like it. Do you guys inspect these things, like to make sure that there's not a bomb? Or something? Like, why does somebody have a hand grenade launcher and just toss that to the other opponent?

Yes, we inspect these things to make sure there's no bombs or hand grenade launchers. I mean, because it seems like a bomb would be a no-brainer. Can you have fire? You can, yeah, and people love it. I'm not a big fan of it, to be honest with you. You don't like fire? Well, I'm a guy that goes in there and puts the fires out, too. I've always sacrificed myself before any.

What's Bill doing? Yeah, have Bill put a fire out for goodness sakes. Can they fly? Yes, you can. You're allowed to fly. You're allowed to fly. Yes, you can have lighter than air. You're thinking.

I can see your thinking. I'm always trying to beat the system. And I also just want to bet on it. Yeah. Can technology create something that jams the other person's signals? You can't do that. So the rules are basically... Hack their car.

Make their own... The other opponent's car commit Harry-Cary. So we used to have rules. We really don't have rules anymore, but it is common sense, you know, and what we... Television doesn't want to see

invisible weaponry, right? That would be what I'd call invisible... If you, the robot just stopped... I agree with you, but not everything's about television. I just love... You want to win. I want somebody to win, and I like somebody that has the ability to create.

Is that easy technology to create to jam their signals? It would be pretty, Oh, never mind. Yeah. I mean, you could block their view, right? You could just block their view. They can't see the drive the robot.

Then that wouldn't be exciting. If an arm came up with just a can of spray paint and just starts spray paint in front of where the other driver was. I see you thinking. You're going to. I mean, I love it. Yeah. No, we're building. What about a robot that just starts laying bricks and just builds a wall around?

You can't have an entanglement device. Laying bricks would be probably considered an entanglement. An intentional. Not only will I show up with my legal team to dispute all of your claims. We have small print. What about diplomacy? Is there room for diplomacy before the wars begin? That's a good idea, Ed.

That comes out there and doesn't want to fight and just tries to... Turns its back. Uh-huh. Oh, what a statement that would make in Battobots. Refusing to fight. Lays down their weapons. You have to engage. Has the military ever come calling?

They show up at every event, actually, and recruit. There's a few engineers that end up getting great jobs. Wouldn't that be great if that's how we solved our global conflicts by just letting countries just battle-bought each other? That's a great idea. Oh, man. It'd be fun to go to war. I mean, we're kind of doing that now, aren't we not?

I mean, with all these drones and all these things that are kind of, there's taking the human element out of it, we're kind of doing that to an extent. I'd still like us to enter a sex robot in every time. You know what? We came to win. Boston Dynamics. Have they ever tried to enter any of your events? Scott LaValley, who I built robots with the little kid. He actually built Atlas for Boston Dynamics, and he worked on big dog, little dogs. The dogs. Do you think they would do well in your ring?

We are doing creature combat, which we just filmed a little bit of kind of a teaser to figure it out, but we are moving on into this new kind of cre- It's not just dogs, it's creatures. Sure. And it's kind of interesting to see where it goes. Alligator. Alligator would be a good, you can want load of the ground. You recently competed at an ultimate fighting bots event and won?

I did. How was operating a humanoid? So I do have an ability to manipulate machines better than most people. So knock on wood, never been in a car accident or anything, just, you know, fly helicopters. I, you know, can drive just about any machine and flown just about any machine out there. You ever do that thing in Vegas where you drive heavy machinery

around that, like, sandpit? I have not done that. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, that would be boring. Yeah, but what if they let you fight them? Oh, that'd be interesting. It's not really geared to be fought, but that's a good idea. That's what I would do.

Yeah. Do you ever fantasize about tricking out a Waymo and destroying like a Tesla? It would be interesting. Greg and I both worked for DARPA. but we were liaisons during the very first DARPA competition for autonomous cars. And my car was Carnegie Mellon, or that's the car I was a liaison for. And during the practice, the very first practice, it actually went into a wall,

knocked the wall over, and broke the gate. And I was like, yeah, battlebots, man. And I was the coolest thing. They were, like, all worried. Has AI helped improve the battlebots? You know, it's interesting to see where it goes. We do have a fully autonomous robot, Orbiteron, and practicing during our faceoff's improving grounds and getting better.

Did win its last fight full AI. The autonomous technology and all that is kind of interesting. I'm kind of on the fence with some of it. Let me jump backwards here for a second. The NFL has been showing a humanoid robot, throwing a football and whatever that they've always wanted. Fox always does that nonsense. And you kind of ask yourself, do you want to see football players that aren't human?

Didn't they do a movie like this with what's his name? The guy that sings, right of showman. Yeah, real steel. Real steel. That was basically this, right? I mean, that was... I didn't watch it. It was a fighting thing.

The problem is there is a lot, you know, that was all fake. And a lot of people think that was real. You know, even some television... Who thinks real steel was real? A lot of TV people. Okay. All right, sorry, I don't get you off track here. I agree with you.

Nobody wants to watch robots play football. It's the human element. Like, when this AI robot goes up against a human driving a robot, that's interesting to me. Right? But if you had two AI robots going against each other, that would be boring. It's like you mentioned the UFB event that I, the undisputed heavyweight champ right now. You know, it's not the interesting because you don't, you know, when you see a guy fighting and, you know, you see him get hit or something, you feel that. You kind of feel that experience. You go, oh, that would hurt.

I mean, you watch a football game. That guy gets hit and you go, I wouldn't get up. You know, that was a gnarly hit. But if it's not human, you don't feel it. You don't care. So I don't really see that being interesting. All right, fine. Done.

Forget it. We'll be right back. When did you start flying helicopters? 87. You still fly? I still fly. I still have my own helicopter. I was going to fly down here, but the weather was a little bad yesterday.

That's good. You say no when the weather's bad. Yes. Get there, I-dis. Is that a real thing? It's a real thing, but I don't have that problem. You don't? No.

You just, like, have a hard line. No chance. I don't fly in bad weather. Yeah. It's not fun. Why do helicopters struggle in bad weather? They don't necessarily struggle in bad weather. I mean, the point is to be able to see.

I get it, but in general, why can't helicopters fly through thick fog? Why do people get twisted and not figure out which way they're going? Why would you want to? I don't know. I just want to know why there isn't a fail safe in helicopters that makes it. I don't fly airplanes. Why? Because you can't see out of them.

They give you a little teeny window. I know. They put all these gauges in front of you. You can't even see the landing. Half the time, they put up skis. like cardboard in the windows just to block the sun from pounding them. It's like why. I'm not a flyer.

I want to see. Okay. Yeah. What about, uh, have you flown any personal drones, the ones that can actually carry human yet? Uh, no, not, not ones that carry humans yet. Would you, would you? Um, I don't know.

That's a good question. I kind of look at that entire industry and scratch my head and go, why, you know, I mean, you know, why are they reinventing the wheel? We have a perfectly good helicopter. No, because, you know, we need something. Here's why. You need something to get you out of danger and not have to actually learn how to fly a helicopter.

Okay, but you can autonomize a helicopter just as easy if not easier, an existing machine. It's too big. Well... It's too big, Trey. I hear you. Everybody that's on the show gets a gift, okay? I don't know where these legs came from,

but I just had these in a drawer. This is the gifts you give out? No, well, it depends on who's on the show, but you, I thought, you're definitely going to need these legs. I can put that on a toaster. Put it on a toaster. We still got instructions for those.

I don't know. Creature wars. That is your... This is your... This is your... This is... Sometimes it's stuff. This is brand new.

This is a Japanese... What is this? Best broom and dustpan to clean up the masses. But apparently this thing is amazing. Never been opened. It's beautiful. Wow. I'm sure it's nice.

This is the re-gift from Christmas? No, that was not a Christmas. gift. That's insulting. Somebody bought me that for Christmas. I think that was a... Not insulting to give that away, then? No, you'll like it. You'll like it. Okay. So every single night that I'm at the live show in Vegas, I end up sweeping the floor after... Yes, and you try this broom.

I'm an expert at it. Put that on the floor, please. Okay, yeah. Sorry. This, oh, this, I wanted you to have... This is my first... This is from Comedy Central. I've never a gold record from... I did this when you... Right when Battlebots came out. This was my first Comedy Central album. My manager, Christy Smith, just a horrible deal she got me in. I signed this deal to record a comedy album. This was back when CDs were a thing.

And then I find out immediately that I have to give them five more albums. I'm like, I never did it. I did one. I did one and I never did it again. Anyway, I also thought it was weird to hang your own stuff up. So I never, it's obviously never. So I'm just going to give that to you as a Comedy Central memorabilia. You need to sign it.

I'll sign it for you. So I can go to Palm Stars after that. You go to Ponsors, you get $20 for it. But the only one I ever actually hung up was I had somebody else gave me Dane Cooks. And I had that in my bathroom for like a decade at my office. We have a little treasure spot at Battlebots. When you come to Vegas, you've got to come see the show. Bring your son.

Done. I'll bring my son. I'm not going to bring my mom. My mom in Vegas is a nightmare. Oh, it's just complain about what I spend money on. Oh, how much does this cost, Daniel? No. That doesn't seem.

Here, I got to put those table legs in the floor. Thank you. You still tinker and make stuff or no? Absolutely. Uh-huh. Yeah. You still have a law machine? I still have a law machine.

Yep. Did she ever lose? Yeah. She did lose kind of towards the end. Biohazard finally flipped her over. Then we put some writing mechanisms and then we started battlebots and couldn't compete anymore. The live show, is it new people every day?

Or is it robots that you guys have just created? So we have a couple dozen robots that were made by the professional teams, and we have many copies of those, and we keep fixing them and putting them back in. We also have proving grounds and what we call face-offs. Proving grounds is kind of for the newbies, and we do this on weekends, where people that want to come and compete and make it to the TV show, they can show up the proving grounds and kind of prove to us they belong in the TV rounds. You can get you?

Yeah. Is this all ages? It's all ages, yeah. Okay. So, I mean, a lot of times it's hard for me to find something in Vegas for my kid to go to. Oh, he would absolutely love it. He loves showgirls, but I'm just always like, I'm sneaking him back.

This is to inspire him. This will. Oh, that inspires him. Yeah, that'll. What casino are you in? So we're part of Caesarsers, right behind the horseshoe. You and Celine Dion. Yeah.

Has she ever come in and used one of the robots? She hasn't. That's a shame. We do have a lot of Vegas fans, famous fans. Chris Angel comes all the time with his kids. We have Donnie Osmond that comes. Chris Angels. He dressed, is he dressed,

weird still? Yeah. Like mesh. Yeah. And like, the nipples are showing or something and chains everywhere.

He's a character. Does he float? He's very good at that. Yeah. What about Caratop? You ever seen Caratop? I've never seen Caratop. I'd love to go see Caratop.

Oh, you can't believe you haven't seen Caratop. As soon as he finds out that somebody really would love to see them, he's going to be at your doorstep. I mean, talk about a guy that puts things together. He could probably go over. Yeah, and Caratop, this is right up his alley.

He builds stuff all day long. I still don't understand how. somebody hasn't ever taken a stray from one of these weapons going whizzing by? What do you mean? I don't know. Like, you said, like, at one point they were allowed to shoot little cannons. Yeah, we allow untethered

projectiles now, yeah. Right, and there's just no way that that can what if it aims straight up in the air and then? We have a very strict safety protocol and we've been doing this for a long time. Is there a top? There's definitely a top. There's two tops, actually. There's a double-layered top

that's about a foot, sets of foot, to absorb It makes a lot more sense now. There's all kinds of technology in this box. It's a rusty old-looking box. It doesn't, you know. I still worry, though. Now you're inside this box. Are the drivers inside the box, too?

No, no, of course not. Okay. Okay, that makes sense, too. Yeah, that one of them going, I'm in here with a suicidal maniac, get me out. Our battery's exploding? We have a lot of explosive. We are probably...

In that box, there's some chemicals that you just probably don't want to mess with. We have two vents bigger in this table. that enter our box and evacuate everything outside that goes into a giant filtration system. It's a giant truck that it has all this, you know, charcoal and stuff in there. And they just pump that right into the casino floor? It plop right in the casino floor. It had a little oxygen. And just keep people gambling.

Keep some gambling a little dizzy. Okay. You've thought of everything. By the way, how, you've been doing, you've been doing Battlewurst for how long? Over 30 years. And are you, do you have another televised version or like mainstream, television show in the works? So we just got our very first sponsor. So we were, 30 years, you get your first sponsor? We weren't allowed to get sponsors because we were

broadcast and the broadcasters wouldn't allow us. So we started off on, like I said, ZDTV and the internet. We immediately got swept away by broadcast. We got picked up by Comedy Central and then we went on to ABC and then we went on to Discovery. And broadcasters, they wouldn't allow us to go get sponsored. They didn't want us to get Coca-Cola and give it away. And now, because we're going to YouTube and we're going to be a YouTube full show, now we can get our own sponsors. So we got our very first sponsor that, a company called Bright Data, who's given us enough to create, create the TV shows. We're creating 20 episodes, filming in April. It'll air probably June or July. Uh-huh. Okay. That's it. I mean, good for you for stick. I mean, did you ever think when you

guys started this nonsense in the 90s that here you are 30 years later and you're like, yeah, I'm still doing it, building robots. You know, it's kind of different in the sense that there's no end to what people can create. And we see new robots and new ideas and new things. I mean, Jameson has a chop saw that he'd been working on for, I don't know, how long, seven, eight years. That's too long to work on a chop saw. And he ended up making a win now, you know, and he's the champ.

He's the one to beat. Explain to me what this new show is in April. It's not the current show that's in Los Angeles. No. Is it called Battlebots? It is. Yes. Will Carmen Electra be on it? I don't know yet. It's possible. That would be a good kid. Haven't, haven't seen Carmen Electric. You don't want to. But pro league, bring her back. All right. Sorry. So in April, we got the new show. It's called Battlebots. It's Battlebots, pro league. Yeah. Pro

League. And it's the best of the best. How many booby traps are set up in the current courses? I mean, there's saws that come out of the floor. There's hammers. There's a new element to the new show that we really haven't told anybody about yet. And this is, we have hammers. The contestants control those hammers. For this pro series, we believe we're going to allow those contestants to take off one of the hammerheads that they'd like and reattach their own weapon to that. So they could come up with a new idea that becomes part of our arena hazards that they control. But it only goes up and down? It only goes up and down. I got an idea. It's got to be a sex thing, right? No, I'm paying. That's all I come up with.

The only thing I ever come up with it is different. It's like, it's Vegas, for goodness sake. Right. Is it being filmed in Vegas? Yes. No, okay. You filmed in Vegas. Trey, thank you for being on the show.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Posh. I want to thank Trey for being on the show and inviting me and my kids to the show in Vegas. And we will take them up on that offer on one condition that we can compete. I want my kids to. get in there and fight the robots.

Oh, I like that. Right. I want to show my children that they are smarter than computers. Humanity. And stronger. Either that or they're going to get their asses whipped. We'll learn something either way. Kids fighting robots.

You put that show together in Vegas. I'm coming. Kids fighting robots. Okay, we got some plugs. Patreon.com slash toss show. my first farewell tour. I'm out there right now. Enjoying this country.

Some people call it the flyover states. Not me. Not you. I call it the refueling states. Yeah, exactly. You got to touch down. You refuel. You get the fuck out of there.

Toshoshostore.com. And now, since I hear the music playing, I know that it's time for they love me. They love me not. Go ahead, Eddie. All right. from ceremonial dagger Hold on

Ceremonial dagger Ceremonial dagger The names are great There's a ritual I don't know who this looks like Okay all right go ahead Daniel I love you I love just about everything you say

I agree with almost every opinion you have but I will not accept Larry Bird Slander That's where I draw the line Good day sir I think it's a fair point Now In fairness I was just poking the bear

You know I'd I didn't really believe what I was saying. Larry Bird is and will always be the greatest white player. That ever lived. Ever. Any sport. They say he was a good trash talker, but could anyone really understand him? I tell you to tell him.

Hickory. Oh, Larry. I'll miss him. When did he pass? God, it's been a while. Now, all right, that's fair. Listen. My apologies to Larry Bird and all the bumpkins out there.

All you bumpkins, we apologize. All right, what else you got? Heavy Gray. This is from Heavy Gray. Okay. Worst interview ever. She was a delight, though. Looking forward to the next episode.

You think I'm the worst interviewer ever, but she was delightful. Ma? Maybe she was only delightful because of my horrible interviewing style. Maybe it's the way you're playing them. You're bringing them out. I only pretend to be the worst. interviewer so that they can look more delightful. The cat and mouse game here.

Yeah, you don't get me. See you next week.