Yeesh.

So after the magical sophistication of Bow Shooting Boy we move into the 20th century. There is a brief stopover at the turn of the century for Tesla's radio controlled boat, but I started reading all the stuff and Tesla's just too big a subject for tonight. I give you instead, Elektro. Built by Westinghouse in 1937 for what reason I don't know. It was, no doubt, a promotional device, and Westinghouse dragged it all over the States for years, showing it off at fairs and expositions. I'm not convinced that it did the company much in the way of drumming up business. I mean, did anyone ever go "Hey, there's Elektro (with a "k"), make my next TV a Westinghouse!" Seriously it drew thousands of curious, astonished and nervous Americans who were staring at a world war just around the corner.

So, heres a few facts about the boy: Stood seven feet tall, weighed 265 pounds, could move by voice command, and talk, sort of. It played a 78rpm record of about 700 words delivered in robot speak. It could wave its arms and rotate its head. And for you kiddies out there it could smoke. For some unknown reason its photo electric eyes could distinguish colours. (It just gets more and more useful.) Someone decided to give this robot a chance and built a robot dog companion called Sparko for it in 1940.

Amazingly it was still being paraded about in 1950! It gets weirder. Elektro starred as Thinko in the 1960's classic Sex Kittens go to College. In the film he played a robot that could handicap horses. Elektro didn't do well after that. It was taken apart and pieces of it went south. Westighouse employees were quick to see the cultural significance of the example of the robot maker's craft and hung on to significant chunks of it. The result is on display at Westinghouse's robot exhibit of Mansfield's Memorial Museum.

Of the many things Elektro could say was this gem "My brain is bigger than yours."