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THE MYSTERY OF THE PIEBALD LEGS
In the cliff hanger ending to "Wild Adventure," which also appears as the teaser to "Ghost Planet," several shots appear to show the robot's rubber legs as having two distinct hues. On the robot's right side, the color of the legs is a light gray. On the robot's left side, the color of the legs is a darker gray. Could this be the result of an uncompleted paint job or application of rubber conditioner?
Originally, it seemed clear to me
that the right half of the robot's rubber leg unit was indeed a darker
hue. I surmised that the director must have insisted on filming the scene
even though the robot was in the middle of an alteration or cleaning.
A fellow B9 robot fan, however, suggested to me that the dark hue was more likely a shadow cast on the robot's leg by the headrest of the chair on the left. The next screengrab seems to confirm the shadow hypothesis.
Here, we see two dark shadow cast
across the robot's rubber legs. The first is caused by Bill Mumy's right
arm. The second shadow, which falls down the corner of the robot's leg
unit is either caused by the headrest of by Bill Mumy's head. The jumbling
of Mumy's shadows is explained by the fact that several lights coming from
different angles are being focused on the young actor.