Bob the Builder was the OG transformers: Confessions of a 2000s kid
Bob the Builder was the OG show for "talking vehicles" for many 2000s kids in India.
Rise of the Beasts, the latest Transformers movie has just been released in India. Yes, in case you missed, Hollywood is still churning out Transformers movies like there’s no tomorrow. And despite the franchise not earning the best of reviews, many cinephiles still cherish the popcorn entertainment that this franchise of “robots who transform into cars, dinosaurs and everything else”.
The voices of these robots are as iconic as their vehicular transformations. While Michael Bay’s original Transformers voices have retained the voice acting legend Peter Cullen who has voiced the heroic Autobot Optimus Prime since the 80s American animated series The Transformers. This time around, in 2023, even Pete Davidson and Michelle Yeoh will be voicing some newly-introduced robots.
But away from the glitchy robotic baritones of Transformers, the concept of “talking vehicles” was introduced to my prepubescent brain by Bob the Builder rather than the Transformers. Unlike the American and Japanese children of the 80s and 90s who were introduced to Transformers shows, animes and of course, the shape-changing action figures.
Transformers franchise purists might want to annihilate me but my introduction to these robots was only through Michael Bay’s critically banned Hollywood movies. The first three also featured some iconic Linkin Park tracks (What I’ve Done, New Divide, Iridescent) so that was a bonus. After all, Linkin Park was a big thing for many Indian high-schoolers (and hopefully still remains a big thing).
But before my high-school theatrics, I grew up on Cartoon Network and Pogo airing Western cartoons in Hindi dubs. The only other languages available for the dubs included Tamil, Telugu and Bangla; the linguistic options were quite limited.
Bob the Builder remains an unbeaten classic from this pre-streaming/torrenting era. From his yellow helmet to blue dungaree-check shirt combo, the titular protagonist remains as wholesomely iconic as ever.
Still, Bob was your average nice guy protagonist much like Thomas the Thank Engine (which by the way is aesthetic but nightmare fuel content) and Oswald (that kind-hearted octopus was too good to be true). The actual highlight of the vibrant stop-motion classic wasn’t Bob but rather his team of work friends, talking machines of all colours and shapes.
The yellow backhoe holder Scoop (basically a JCB in Bob’s world), the red dump truck Muck, the orange cement mixer Dizzy and the green road roller Roley. You might not remember their names even if you grew up watching the original series back on 2000s era Indian TV screens. But their sleek designs, matte colours and smiling demeanours, Bob’s machines were the perfect talking vehicles for me.
So impressed I was with the feel-good nature of Bob’s (almost delusional) interactions with his workforce that I used to wish that someone actually created talking cars. Now, in retrospect, with fears of Tesla’s “killer cars” and an AI takeover plaguing my uncertain future, that childhood desire seems like a nightmare.
Bob’s picture-perfect world found him doing basic construction tasks with his machines and his romantic partner Wendy. But despite the nostalgia that Bob the Builder fills me with, I hardly remember any episode in particular. It’s just the notion of talking machines cheerfully working under the sun that impressed me. Soon, as I grew up, this positivity was replaced by mass destruction and conflict between Autobots and Decepticons that form the premise of every Transformers story.
I might not remember the specifics of Bob the Builder anymore but I can get teary-eyed if someone sang the title song in Hindi today. Yes, this is the same title song where “Can we fix it? Yes, we can” was replaced by the horrendously laughable line “Kar ke dikhayenge.”
By the time I entered the phase of sex “mis”education and mindless dirty jokes at school, “kar ke dikhayenge” always sounded like something that Bob the Builder would say while indulging in intercourse (sorry for ruining Bob the Builder for you).
Today, I am still hyped for the new Transformers movie and all the new vehicle-robot hybrids it has to offer. But a part of me also yearns for the simpler days of talking machines just building a road instead of destroying the Pyramid of Giza.
Sadly, Bob the Builder himself has been bastardised by the influences of CGI animation. I will never be the one to protest the rise of CGI but in Bob’s case, the CGI takeover hurts. The cute stop motion world of Bob and his vehicles has been replaced by whatever monstrosity this is.
Just glimpsing at this new Bob the Builder animated reboot makes me turn into Don Corleone from The Godfather as all I can say is “Look how they massacred my BOB!”.
