Category:
Robots

Deranged Robot



A 'mentally disturbed' robot at the World Fair in San Diego, 1935/36. A robot provides entertainment at the California Pacific Exposition in San Diego, [but] instead of giving the planned speech, it suddenly began to speak in a boisterous cabaret voice and afterwards emitted the sounds of an orchestra. After a little bewilderment the cause for this 'mental confusion' was discovered: due to a circuit error, the robot had transmitted the program of the exhibition's broadcast station. The photo shows the robot during a thorough inspection of its speech organs and its circuits.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Feb 02, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Robots, Expositions, World Fairs, Celebrations, 1930s, Mental Health and Insanity

Follies of the Madmen #551

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 29, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Robots, Women, Twentieth Century

WABOT-2, the Organ-Playing Robot

WABOT-2 was created in the early 1980s, but I can't find any info on what's become of him since then. Whoever now owns him should be renting him out to play at weddings and funerals — recoup some of that $1.2 million it cost to build him.

More info: Waseda University

Belleville News-Democrat - Sep 13, 1984





Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 08, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Music, Robots, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, 1980s

Follies of the Madmen #524


Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 27, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Robots, Technology, Advertising, Cats, Asia, Pregnancy

Seleno, the Electric Dog

Read the amazing story of cyber-pup here!

ADDENDUM: the link is down as of mid-day May 20, but since the site is a longstanding page, I assume the outage is temporary and am leaving the link in place.



Posted By: Paul - Thu May 20, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Inventions, Robots, 1910s

Robo Show and Flower Planet

Two features from the 1990 World's Fair in Japan.

The opening few minutes are a press release for the company that created the exhibit. "Robo Show" begins at the 5:40 mark, and "Flower Planet" at minute 13:00. State-of-the-art stuff for thirty years ago.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 11, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Robots, Cartoons, Special Effects, 1990s, Asia

The C-3PO ‘Golden Rod’ Card

In 1977, Topps issued a set of Star Wars trading cards. The set included one card that would, arguably, become the most infamous card it ever printed. This was the so-called C-3PO 'golden rod' card — so called because it seems to show C-3PO in a state of prominent arousal.



Mel magazine recently posted an article which explores the history of this card. The article makes a couple of interesting points:

First, Topps not only really did issue this card... it printed a lot of them. This isn't a rare card.

Second (and to me this is the most remarkable thing), no one involved in the creation of the card noticed its most salient feature until after it had been released and word started to spread among card collectors.

Finally, there's no evidence that the card was the work of a rogue artist. The most compelling theory about what happened is that a panel on the side of C-3PO's armor plating must have accidentally fallen open, and was in exactly the right position to create the illusion of robotic arousal. And then, for whatever reason, Topps selected that image, out of all the possible ones, to print.

Eventually Topps released a corrected version of the card (below). Apparently this corrected version is rarer, and more collectible, than the original. Though, ideally, a collector would want to have both.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 09, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Movies, Robots, Collectors, 1970s

Mama Robot Device

In 2017, patent number KR20170003315A was granted to a Korean inventor for a "Mama Robot Device". The inventor's name is only given in Korean, so I'm not sure what it is, but Google translates it as Jeong In-pil.

The Mama Robot is creepy in many ways. As far as I can tell, it's a device that allows children to punish themselves when they know they've been naughty but their parents are away.

The child is able to decide how many lashes with a cane they deserve, and the Mama Robot will then deliver the punishment. As it does so, the prerecorded voice of the parent will admonish the child, but simultaneously the Mama Robot will weep "such that the sad feelings of the parent punishing are conveyed to the child."

A camera inside Mama Robot will record the entire event and then send the video to the parent's phone, as proof that punishment has been served.

I wonder, how many years of therapy would it take for a child to recover from having Mama Robot installed in their home?

Posted By: Alex - Sun Dec 15, 2019 - Comments (6)
Category: Inventions, Patents, Robots, Parents

Bossy the Electrified Cow

In the future, when robot cows rule the world, they'll look back on Bossy as one of the first of their kind.

Sumter County Journal - Apr 17, 1941

Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 29, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Robots, Technology, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, Farming, Cows, 1940s

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Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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