But the robot’s big break only came with Rocky IV, after Sylvester Stallone saw the machine and its creator on an American talk-show. Doornick explained that one use for the robot would be to help autistic school-pupils with communication. “All children relate easily with the robot,” he told journalist Phil Edwards in a 2014 interview, “and that makes it easier to forge connections, whether the children are on the autism spectrum or not.” Listening to Doornick speak about autism-therapy in the mid-Eighties, Stallone immediately took an interest: his younger son, Seargeoh (born in 1979), is autistic. 
