The Machines (Bob the Builder, 1998)

Scoop, Muck, Dizzy, Roley, and Lofty are all of the main characters from Bob the Builder. They are machines owned by Bob and Wendy, they used to live in Bobsville, before moving to Sunflower Valley in Project Build It so they could build the city there, they currently live in Fixham Harbour starting with Ready Steady Build.

They are sometimes known as The Machines or The Can-Do Crew when being referred to all of them.

In the UK version, Lofty and Roley are voiced by Neil Morrissey, Scoop and Muck are voiced by Rob Rackstraw and Dizzy is voiced by Kate Harbour.

In the US version, Scoop is voiced by Alan Marriott throughout seasons 1-16 and David Menkin throughout Ready Steady Build, Muck is voiced by Lachele Carl throughout seasons 1-16 and Sophie Aldred in Ready Steady Build, Dizzy is voiced by Maria Darling throughout seasons 1-14 and Emma Tate throughout seasons 15, 16 and Ready Steady Build, Roley is voiced by Maria Darling throughout seasons 1-14 and Lorelei King throughout seasons 15, 16 and Ready Steady Build and Lofty is voiced by Sonya Leite throughout seasons 1-9, Emma Tate throughout seasons 10-16 and Lizzie Waterworth throughout Ready Steady Build.

General

 * 1) While not as famous as Bob the Builder himself, the machines are very well-known characters amongst the Bob the Builder franchise and are usually considered to be fan favorites by fans of the series.
 * 2) Despite their designs being the overused Sentient Vehicle trope, they are designed in a unique way compared to most shows that have sentient vehicles in them by having the machines' eyes on their headlights as opposed to their windshields like most shows with sentient vehicles in them.
 * 3) *Their designs are also admittedly cute to look at, especially Dizzy.
 * 4) *The designs also create a strong appeal to toddlers and young children.
 * 5) They are all beautifully animated with fluent stop-motion.
 * 6) * In addition, their CGI designs in Ready Steady Build are great and stay true to the original stop-motion designs.
 * 7) They are a fantastic team, and they all get along with each other for the most part.
 * 8) Their characters are super expressive when it comes to their emotions, when they are feeling happy, angry or sad, it is always easy to tell just by looking at their facial expressions.
 * 9) Their UK voice actors, Rob Rackstraw, Neil Morrissey and Kate Harbour all do great jobs at voicing them.
 * 10) *Despite not being as amazing or charming as their UK voices, their US voice actors mostly do decent jobs as well.
 * 11) Their character designs stay true to the vehicles that they are based on.
 * 12) Each character has their own distinct personality with their own traits, and they are all different and unique from each other.
 * 13) *Scoop is portrayed as a sensible and reliable digger who is sometimes left in charge by Bob and Wendy.
 * 14) *Muck is portrayed as a silly but reliable dump truck who loves getting dirty.
 * 15) *Dizzy is portrayed as an energetic and crazy know-it-all cement mixer who loves listening to music and playing with her football.
 * 16) *Roley is portrayed as a smooth and calm steam roller who loves making up his own songs.
 * 17) *Lofty is portrayed as a shy but friendly crane who has a fear of heights and mice.
 * 18) They make the building sequences very enjoyable to watch.
 * 19) Many of the episodes that focus on them are all enjoyable and unique every time.
 * 20) They often get character development most of the time, because even though they do make mistakes from time to time, they always learn from their mistakes and make sure to never do them again.
 * 21) *Scoop has had some character development from time to time:
 * 22) **In "Snowed Under", he started out as being afraid of letting Bob down, but soon ended up being a bossy control freak to the machines, but near the end of the special, he soon realizes that he was being a jerk to everyone and tries to fix his mistakes by apologizing to everyone.
 * 23) *Lofty is one of the best examples of this, as he has gotten tons of character development throughout the show's run:
 * 24) **In the first three seasons, Lofty was originally scared of Spud and had a rivalry with him, but in the episode "Scoop Has Some Fun", Spud scared Lofty and causes an accident with him but apologizes to him in the end for causing it and they both make up with each other. After that episode, Lofty's rivalry with Spud came to a halt.
 * 25) **In the original show, Lofty had a very notable fear of heights, but when it came to Project Build It his fears of heights started to tone down and he managed to completely lose his fear of being in heights, as seen in "Lofty's Comet".
 * 26) They all are caring towards Bob and Wendy and they all know when to tell the truth if they did anything wrong.

Scoop

 * 1) Compared to the other machines, he is the most passionate when it comes to getting building jobs done.
 * 2) He is a great leader to the machines and manages to avoid coming across as completely cocky or egotistical when being one.
 * 3) He has a good relationship with the other machines and is willing to give help to others whether something is wrong.
 * He, along with Bob, Wendy, Spud and Pilchard contributed to "The Official BBC Children In Need" program in "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley" in 2009.

Muck

 * 1) While he has a silly personality, he is generally lovable and enjoyable whenever he is acting silly.
 * 2) He is very optimistic and cheerful whenever he does build jobs, and he always just wants to have a good time whenever he is doing one.
 * 3) Much like Scoop, he has a great relationship with the other machines, most notably Dizzy, who is revealed to be best friends with in "When Bob Became a Builder".

Dizzy

 * 1) Her excitable, energetic, and know-it-all personality is rather enjoyable, and she is admittedly pretty cute when she gets excited about certain things.
 * 2) Her design and her voice are adorable.
 * 3) Although all the machines create an appeal to kids, Dizzy in particular actually creates an even stronger appeal to children thanks to her cute design and her energetic personality.
 * 4) Even though she was poorly redesigned in the 2015 reboot, she, thankfully was the only character in the Can-Do crew that wasn't flanderized and still remains as a likable character.

Roley

 * 1) He is pretty chill, and calm compared to all the other machines.
 * 2) What makes him unique compared to the other machines is the fact he has a strong love for music and singing.
 * 3) He helped John write his song "Crocodile Rock" in the special A Christmas To Remember
 * 4) He looked after Tommy, who is a tortoise owned by Mrs. Potts.

Lofty

 * 1) He is shown to be friendly to the other machines and he also has a soft side to him.
 * 2) His voice is pretty cute too.
 * 3) He gives a good portrayal on people who have problems with socializing, and every episode that involves Lofty going through social issues are always put into good matter and are treated like how they're supposed to be.
 * 4) *In addition to this, it makes his character more relatable to children, especially to ones who have the same problems with socializing with other people.
 * 5) He has some emotional moments in the show, to the point where it can make the viewer feel sorry and sympathize for him.
 * 6) Even though is a coward, he is shown to stand up for himself at certain moments in the show and is often shown to even tackle his fears at points, which is shown in "Lofty To The Rescue", where he tackles his fears of heights.
 * 7) As mentioned earlier, he gets quite a lot of character development in the series compared to the rest of machines, however, unlike the rest of the machines, who usually just only get piece of character development at the end of the episode/special and is never brought up again, Lofty actually got a lot of character development that was in more depth compared to the rest of the machines.
 * 8) He is the most well-behaved machine in the whole show, and he never causes trouble (although he does make mistakes sometimes).

General

 * 1) Unfortunately, all of the machines (with the only exception of Dizzy; as said above) were flanderized beginning with the 2015 reboot.
 * 2) Since Ready Steady Build, the machines' mouths now move when they talk, which looks jarring and rather unsettling (with the exception of Lofty, since he actually has a human-like mouth, so his is the least jarring out of the machines).
 * 3) Because most of the machines were voiced by females in the US dub, most of the male machines (with the exception of Scoop, who was voiced by a male in all of the US dubs) can sound way too feminine or too much like children.
 * 4) *Lofty in the first US dub sounds way too much like a young woman, however, his replacement voice actor in Project Build It and Ready Steady Build does a better job at making him sound a little bit more boyish.
 * 5) *Roley's US voice makes him sound a lot younger than in the UK dub, he also sounds way too much like Cubert Farnsworth from mh:besttvshows:Futurama in the first US dub.
 * 6) Much like Thomas the Tank Engine, the machines can sometimes cause stupid mistakes by accident:
 * 7) *Roley once did a skid zee on mud but lost complete control of it and accidentally destroyed the machine shelter in "Roley Brings The House Down".
 * 8) **It doesn't help by the fact that he completely blamed Muck for "making him" do it.
 * 9) *Dizzy accidentally jumped into cement while cheering for her goal in "Wendy's Busy Day".
 * 10) *Muck accidentally destroyed an entire western town in "Built to be Wild".
 * 11) *Scoop tried to do fix the skating rink all by himself in "Snowed Under", but due to the fact it was impossible for him to do it alone, he ended up destroying it by accident in.
 * 12) *Dizzy tried to rush mixing her cement so she wouldn't miss seeing the baby bird trying to fly but ended up doing it so quickly that it made a little mess over Lofty in "Dizzy's Birdwatch".

Scoop

 * 1) He can have a fair amount moments where he is unlikable, the best example where he is pretty unlikable is in the special Snowed Under, despite being a good special, where he would get extremely angry and fussy at the other machines all because he thought they were "acting like they were on holiday", even though he was likeable and sympathetic in the beginning of the special, mainly because he was worried that he would mess up the job and cause Bob to be disappointed with him and it was understandable why, but the main problem is that he comes across a cynical jerk as the special progresses and soon ends up becoming a toxic control freak who forcefully tries to stop the crew from having any sort of fun, which could make the viewer lose sympathy towards him. The worst offender of his rude behavior has to be when he decided it was an okay idea to insult Roley for accidently crushing a small hill, calling him a "Clumsy Lump", and when he also called Muck a "show-off" when Muck and Dizzy claimed that everyone in the Can-Do crew are all good at their own attributes and that he is not better than them. Fortunately, though, Scoop does get character development in the end and redeems himself by realizing that he was being horrible to the crew, he even apologizes for being rude to everyone as well.

Muck

 * 1) He does have a fair share of moments where he is unlikable, much like Scoop, although, there aren't that many moments where he is irredeemably unlikable, compared to Scoop's behavior in Snowed Under.
 * 2) He does not like having washed and generally loves getting muddy, which is not good because that's basically self-neglect on personal hygiene.
 * 3) *Though to be fair, he does occasionally like getting washed from time to time, so he doesn't completely hate getting washed.
 * 4) Similar to Lofty, he suffers from some fears, for example, he has nyctophobia, meaning that he is afraid of the dark.
 * 5) For some reason, his gender was changed to a female in the US dub, which is confusing for fans of the show and is also unnecessary since no one was complaining about the lack of females in the show (though, the reboot changed him back to a male).

Dizzy

 * 1) Even its adorable when Dizzy gets excited about everything, it could make her character come across as a typical Genki Girl trope.
 * 2) Along with Roley, she was pushed over as a side character in the 2015 reboot for no apparent reason and barely even gets any spotlight anymore, to the point where she basically becomes a filler character in the reboot.
 * 3) Even though she wasn't flanderized and is still likable in the 2015 reboot, she arguably has the worst design out of all of the machines in the 2015 reboot.

Roley

 * 1) Despite being pretty likable for the most part, much like Scoop and Muck, he has a few moments where he is unlikable, most notably in "Roley Brings The House Down", where he would blame Muck for "making him" do a skid zee and to completely destroy the machine shed, even though it was technically Roley's fault because he was the one who did, it doesn't help by the fact that the episode tries way too hard to make you side with Roley, but considering how unreasonable it was for him to blame Muck, it makes the viewer side against Roley. Although, he and Muck do apologize in the end.
 * 2) Along with Dizzy, he was pushed to a side character in the 2015 reboot and he never gets the spotlight, as mentioned earlier.
 * 3) Even before he became a side character in the reboot, he is generally not really focused that much on the original show and there is quite a lack of episodes where he gets the spotlight.

Lofty

 * 1) He is obviously shown to be a coward in lots of episodes he is presented in, similar to how Muck is afraid of the dark, Lofty is afraid of mice, heights and Spud (prior to "Scoop Has Some Fun"), he also forgets that he is most likely the strongest of all the machines in The Can-Do Crew, making him slightly dumber than the rest of the machines.
 * 2) Sadly, his UK voice, while cute, can be somewhat annoying (depending on your view). Maybe, this could send some viewers crying.
 * 3) He is a bit of a pessimist at times due to the fact he lacks confidence and even goes as far as to doubt that he can do the things he obviously can do.

Trivia

 * This is currently the fourth longest page on this wiki following behind the pages for the Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), the shonen protagonist page and the character development page, as well as the second largest page for any character overall.
 * Scoop's original name was going to be Digger, the name was only used in the pilot episode.
 * Whilst the US voice actors for the machines had their voices change throughout Project Build It and Ready Steady Build, the UK voice actors kept their roles throughout the entirety of the original run of the show up until Ready Steady Build's cancellation.
 * Some of the machines have different genders in different dubs of the show:
 * Scoop is female in the Polish and Swedish dubs of the show.
 * Muck is female in the American, Greek, Brazilian and Korean dubs of the show.
 * Dizzy is male in the Romanian and Slovenian dubs of the show.
 * Roley is female in the Swedish dub of the show.
 * The coin-operated ride company Jolly Roger Amusement Rides LTD made a kiddie ride out of Scoop in 1999, which featured 2 rectangular buttons, a green one to start the ride and a red one for sound effects and phrases. Later on, one was made with Roley in 2003.
 * There are also video option versions existing for both rides.
 * In some episodes, Muck sometimes uses Scoop's mouth plates at times. One example is in "Snowed Under", in which he has Scoop's mouth plate to intimidate him, and also in "Built to be Wild" and "Muck's Convoy", which were used to display a shocked expression on his face.
 * Both Dizzy and Scoop's stop-motion models are currently on display at the Portsmouth City Museum.
 * Both Scoop and Muck's stop-motion models are currently on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.
 * Lofty is the only machine in the show that is the same gender worldwide.
 * Some of the machines resemble specific real-life models of machines:
 * Scoop resembles a JCB 3CX backhoe loader.
 * Muck appears to be based on a Shantui SD-22 bulldozer with an added dump bed.
 * Roley resembles a Zettelmeyer diesel road roller.
 * Lofty resembles a Liebherr LTM 1200-5.1 mobile crane.
 * Dizzy is the only machine that was never ridden by Bob or Wendy due to her small size.
 * Muck is the only machine to not be based on or around real-world construction vehicles, as almost no vehicle in real life features his combination of features.
 * Along with Bob and Pilchard, Scoop was made into a balloon in the form of a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in 2001, it was eventually expanded to include Wendy and Muck in 2002. The float has been retired since 2004.