Robotman was supposed to be the next Garfield or Snoopy. In the 1980s there was a multi-million-dollar campaign to promote him, complete with an animated spe...
The United Feature Syndicate “asked Bill Watterson to incorporate the character into Calvin and Hobbes as a condition of syndication, but Watterson refused”
I didn’t finish watching it either, but I think the bare bones of it are covered under the Robotman heading of the Monty Wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_(comic_strip)
The United Feature Syndicate “asked Bill Watterson to incorporate the character into Calvin and Hobbes as a condition of syndication, but Watterson refused”