The Animan

It's now 2020. Where are our bipedal TVs?

With its two legs the Animan TV follows you from room to room, dances to commercials, and even leans into the curves during chase scenes. Equipped with its top-mounted security camera, it patrols the house and sounds an alarm if it detects a prowler.

Source: Popular Science - June 1988

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Alex Boese 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. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jun 08, 2020
Category: Inventions | Television | AI, Robots and Other Automatons | 1980s

Comments

The problem is he was a design student, not an engineering student. Otherwise, we'd be inundated with walking TVs.

Posted by ges on 06/08/20 at 09:12 AM

Just shoot the damn thing.

Posted by Virtual in Carnate on 06/08/20 at 01:04 PM

If that was the best design submitted, I'd hate to see the worst.

It sort of looks like a skeletal version of Huey, Dewey, and Louie in "Silent Running" (1972), a movie which the 'designer' surely watched as a youngster.

I guess you could actually build a working version today, but why bother?

Posted by Phideaux on 06/08/20 at 07:59 PM

Phideaux -- it reminds me of the bipedal imperial walkers featured in Return of the Jedi, in the battle of Endor. That came out in 1983, so an even closer source of inspiration than Silent Running.

Posted by Alex on 06/09/20 at 08:04 AM

It looks like it might really want to iron a load of laundry.

Posted by John on 06/09/20 at 10:30 AM

Reminds me of the walking robots built by Boston Dynamics.

Posted by Brian on 06/09/20 at 11:21 AM

Alex -- You're right, there's a similarity which questions where the line is between "influenced by" and "plagiarized."

How about if, instead of bipedal, it cut in half and jumped around ala' Pixar's Luxo Jr.?

Posted by Phideaux on 06/09/20 at 09:01 PM

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