Rocky IV ReAction Figure Available NOW!
We are thrilled to announce that you can now purchase a well-made, 3.5″ Rocky IV reAction figure with detachable birthday cake for $18: HERE
Do you know how Robot SICO ended up in Sylvester Stallone’s 1985 blockbuster movie, Rocky IV?
This is from a 2014 Philadelphia Inquirer Interview.
Invented by International Robotics founder Robert Doornick, robot SICO was designed to give us more insight into Autism, which in the 1980s was extremely under-researched. As we know now, Sylvester Stallone’s son, Seargeoh Stallone, is autistic, which is what brought robot SICO to the Rocky IV set in the first place.
As Trivia Happy explains:
“The story begins in the 1980s, when Doornick appeared on a talk show to promote his robot and discuss the work he’d done with autistic children.
At that time, the disorder was even more enigmatic than it is today, and the idea of robotic treatment was literally years before its time. Still, Doornick believed, and still believes, that robots could communicate with autistic children more easily than people, in some circumstances. After the show aired, Doornick received an unexpected call.”We got a call from the Stallone family,” he recalled in an interview with Trivia Happy. “They were very interested in how the robot could work with his son. One thing led to another and Stallone completely became enamored with Sico, that particular character.”
So, as the story goes, it’s unlikely that Rocky IV would have had any robotic elements in it at all if it weren’t for Doornick’s appearance on that talk show. Stallone, however, reportedly quickly fell in love with Sico, writing in more scenes for the robot that ultimately were cut. Including, of course, this gem:
“Doornick recalls one particularly comic scene between the robot and Rocky’s brother-in-law, Paulie, that wound up on the cutting room floor. In the scene, Paulie and the robot had developed an odd couple relationship, with the robot complaining that Paulie always slept in the same t-shirt and made too much cigar smoke. The robot “found it offensive to [his] sensors.” So Paulie responded. Paulie shuts the robot down,” Doornick remembers, “opens the back panel, and changes the circuits to turn the robot completely female. Which is why in another scene, when the robot brings Paulie a beer, that’s my voice being synthesized into a woman’s voice. Most people in the movie don’t understand why the robot switched from a normal voice to a female voice. That’s why.”
Now you know.
WANT TO SEE ROBOT SICO IN HIS BIG SCENE?
VIEW
Rocky IV Robot SICO reAction figure toy from 1985 film.
