Bob and Ted had been friends since high school, which was many years ago. Ted was an animatronics, robotics and special effects guru, and had used Bob as a guinea pig on many of his, often groundbreaking, special effects projects, turning him into all sorts of characters from credible versions of Prince Charles, Marilyn Monroe and John Lennon, through to sci-fi and animal characters. Bob was comfortable as both male and female characters and always tried to act the part of whoever or whatever he looked like.