Lab Assistant

Lab Assistants were common enemies between Crash Bandicoot and Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage. The Lab Assistants work for Dr. Neo Cortex and had many jobs preventing Crash from getting past. In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped under the Time Twister its revealed that they are androids, not humans.

Crash Bandicoot
The Lab Assistants were first seen in the introduction of Crash Bandicoot holding Tawna captive. They don't appear until Cortex's Island where two Lab Assistants were seen in the level Slippery Climb throwing potions at Crash. They're later seen in the last level The Lab where a new kind of them were seen sparkiling electricity suspecting that they're not human but robotic.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
These guys returned in the sequel, this time covering a far more wider range of jobs, such as working in the sewer stages, handling bars made of steel crates or even using annoying (and deadly) shields against the hero while in Cortex's space station.

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
This was the game showing the highest number of jobs for the Assistants, depending on the time they are located in. How they just all look the same is then explained as soon as the sixth world is unlocked and entered, as said above: the Warp Room in fact contains a real factory in which they, as the robots they actually are, are first built and then sent into a stage just in order to (at least) try to stop Crash once again.

Post-Naughty Dog era
After Naughty Dog, the robots seemed to have more and more appearances, such as various ones seen in The Wrath Of Cortex (with the "Afro Assistant" even being shown in the game's credits), as well as many ones appearing in the first two Vicarious Visions GBA titles.

Trivia

 * The fact that there are so many variants of Lab Assistants makes them similar to Nintendo's Shy Guys, which also have the most variants of Nintendo enemies.


 * There was supposed to be a "Prehistoric" Lab Assistant riding the Triceratops in Warped, but it was later scrapped.
 * In the animated series Super Duper Sumos, The character of Billy Swift resembles a dark version of the Assistants.
 * Although they were revealed to be androids in Warped, a hint was given out in the two levels of Crash Bandicoot 2, Rock It and Pack Attack, as there was a bit of the assistant's face replaced with metal.