In simple terms, a manny in the Bobiverse is an android. The name comes from the word mannequin, because the first humanoid android designed by the Bobs had smooth skin and lacked detailed facial features.
Each manny is controlled via SCUT faster-than-light communication, so Bobs can pilot a manny over great distances.
Bullwinkle[]
The first android developed by the Bobs is called Bullwinkle. It is a quadrupedal model with an antenna array on its head. Its name is a reference to the cartoon moose that it resembles. Bill develops it as part of his skunk works projects, as a test platform for the technology required to deploy a humanoid version.
Rocky[]
During Bullwinkle’s testing, Garfield develops a flying android that he calls Rocky due to its resemblance to a flying squirrel.
Manny[]
Bill calls his first humanoid android Manny, due to its resemblance to a department-store mannequin, and as a play on words with the nickname for the name Manuel. After frequent use, the term manny comes to refer to any humanoid android. Mannys are used widely throughout the Bobiverse, and they provide immersive, realistic sensory input that Virt can only mimic.
Mannys can process food, and they relay fully realistic taste and texture sensations to the operator. This ability to eat not only allows the operator to experience real life vividly, but also to interact socially with biologicals. In All These Worlds, the mannys are equipped with tear ducts, allowing them to fully express the emotional loss felt by Will and the other Bobs as they see their biological loved ones pass away.
Quinny[]
A Quinlan manny is known as a Quinny. The Gamers design the Quinlan version of the android so that Bob, Bridget, Garfield, Bill, Will, and Hugh can enter the Heaven's River topopolis to search for Bender.
Quinny design includes facial plasticity that allowed the user to stretch the facial features slightly in order to look like a different person — like wearing a disguise. All androids built after Heaven's River include this facial modification feature.
Huey[]
Main article: Huey
Howard and Bridget own a company that develops a manny that can be operated by a living human, similar to the systems portrayed in the Bruce Willis movie Surrogates. They give the name Huey to the human mannys. The technology uses focused magnetic stimulation of the brain to mimic what occurs during sleepwalking.
X-Man 1[]
Neil and Herschel develop an experimental manny called The X-Man 1 (aka Mannequin Skywalker) that can shapeshift because it is composed entirely of nanobots.
To help them in their ongoing refurbishment and upgrading of the Bellerophon, they also develop a spacefaring manny with tiny SURGE drives. Its name is not mentioned.
Dranny[]
Bridget and Howard create a Dragon manny using new tensor-field printer technology to print tissue. The Drannys, as Howard dubs them , are used to learn about the dragon-analog species on Jabberwocky.