Norby was originally a robot named the Searcher, created by the robot Mentor First on the planet Jamya. When the Mentor robots were in danger of deactivation due to exhausting their fuel, the Searcher was deployed in order to find a promised refueling ship sent by the Others, the creators of the Mentors. The small robot succeeded in locating the ship, however before he could warp it back to Jamya, it crashed in Earth's asteroid belt. The impact of the crash also rendered the Searcher immobile, until the ship was discovered many years later by a salvager and inventor named McGillicuddy. McGillicuddy was a robot maker himself, albeit his were of cruder design than the Mentors'. One of his damaged robots was created from a tubby barrel that originally contained Norb's Nails, later becoming the basis for Norby's name. McGillicuddy used the Searcher's parts to repair his damaged robot. Norby eventually fell into the possession of a used-robot shop where he was sold to Jefferson Wells, a space cadet looking for a teaching robot.