Back in my child days there were only four channels on cable TV that I cared about:

28 - Nickelodeon
46 - Animal Planet (RIP Steve Irwin)
50 - Cartoon Network
51- Comedy Central

....and of course, whatever channel WWE Raw or Smackdown was on.

Why is this relevant? Well for whatever reason Comedy Central, a station that I watched for South Park and overnight standup comedy was airing this. Remote controlled little gladiators fighting to the death. It was one of the first shows I remember trying to catch new episodes as they were airing, just like Dragon Ball Z or Powerpuff Girls. Unfortunately, a lot of the Comedy Central era Battlebots episodes are lost and not everything is on Youtube. Many clips are in terrible quality, like this one. There's a better one, but I refuse to link it. It's oddly endearing to see these ancient uploads still kicking to this day, I'm not sure what would happen if they got taken down aside from my heart breaking.

I caught a glimpse of the GBA game in of all things a scholastic book catalog, which sometimes had little sections for video games to buy from them. I'm assuming Battlebots was there because it encouraged an interest in engineering? Anywho, I kinda always wanted to play it due to the raw power of licensing.

I'm not sure if it's quite as bittersweet as the Rocko game on SNES, but the GBA game is unfortunately very repetitive and is basically a one-button isometric fighter. Twisted Metal if it were dumbed down to machine guns and ramming essentially, but even that feels insanely generous. It's hard to judge how I would've enjoyed this back then, but something tells me that I would've been like "Oh I'm playing as Ziggo!!!" and ignored the fact that it was a 4/10 game at best. I feel at that point I would've had a better head on my shoulders though, but it definitely wouldn't have done long-term damage like Spyro Orange could've done.

The most interesting/detestable thing about this and the sequel game though, is that I went to boot up Design & Destroy only to find out that it was the exact same game as Beyond the Battlebox! No, I did not accidentally grab a PAL game with a different subtitle. This is actually the apparent "sequel" to the first GBA game! Same exact menus, same exact roster of Battlebots, same arenas, etc. Just the thought of a kid asking for this for their birthday and finding out it was the same game makes me sick to my stomach. For shame on Majesco Entertainment or whoever was responsible! Wikipedia actually makes a suggestion that it was released to siphon sales off people thinking it was related to Robot Arena 2: Design & Destroy!

Despicable, fuck'em. Goddamn Cooking Mama people, glad they're dead. Thankfully, Battlebots itself ain't dead. Long live robot fighting!

Sorry for both nostalgia-posting and Chomp-posting, I'll be awaiting my tar and feathering later after my three hour Battlebots Youtube session.