Obsolescence R Us

In the Future, your office machines will tell you when you are fired.

Kindle for the Inferno

See, it starts with utilizing computers for school work, and then schooling through the internet -- it eventually becomes a world where machines control what you are taught...

Some Time Ago, In a Distant Place...

Today we present that lovable 'bot, Q1-C1 from the classic SF/Fantasy film NEBULA CONFLICTS (1978)

No-Nos of Science

Is this not what scientists have dreamed of since the dawn of civilization?

YES!  The head of a proboscis monkey surgically attached to robotic body, and speaking with the voice of Jimmy Durante!!  This is what it's all about, people!

The Next Phase

Joust With A Junk Pile

Entry #4 of the July Robots.  I guess this Bot brings the "Neckless Goon" idea to it's logical conclusion.

1925 Automated Lint Picker

A 1924 study commissioned City of Chicago determined that one of the chief concerns of the population was the hazard of pocket lint.  In the early-to-mid 1920s, there had been a major increase in cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC) which experts had theorized was the result of an overabundance  of dry, flammable lint jammed in coat, jacket, shirt and pants pockets that, when subjected to the constant friction of daily activity, ignited the clothing of the unfortunate victims.

In 1925, one H.C. Breem, engineer/inventor and owner of a small machine shop, developed his Mobile Automated Pocket Lint Extractor (MAPLE), which he hoped to sell to city governments, the plan being that the devices would trundle about the public ways cleaning the lint out of citizens pockets as they waited for street cars and elevated trains.  Unfortunately, during demonstrations, the automaton seemed much more adept at picking wallets, loose change and bills out of pockets than the targeted lint.  This of course resulted in massive orders of the machine from local and state agencies as well as the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

iJustice

Robot Month Begins

For July, I thought I'd post a Robot/Mechanical Monstrosity cartoon each day (or at least try to get one posted every day!).

This one, like many of my cartoons, I drew in my sketchpad while riding the El Train to work:

The Future is Ow

Commuter Scribbling

Just some items I scribbled in my drawing pad while on the way to work:

 

No Line, No Wait

Looking Ahead

Tell Me This Ain't Paducah!

In a special 4th anniversary of  The Meander Box posting, we'll take a stroll down Memory Lane (or perhaps Faltering Memory Lane)!

Remember Bunny McCracken?

Maybe not!

The roguish rabbit was first introduced in the Lancaster-Woolrich studios 1935 animated short  ELYSIAN FIELDS OR BUST, which set the pattern for most of the following McCracken shorts: Mistakenly convicted of stealing a carrot, Bunny escapes from jail and tries to find the three-legged gopher who really stole the carrot. While he's chasing the gopher, McCraken himself is being  relentlessly pursued by the tortoise detective, Shelly Green.  Slapstick comedy and wacky word-play abounded!

Bunny McCracken is best remembered for the classic catch-phrase  Tell Me This Ain't Paducah!, which swept the nation in the summer of 1936 ( one could barely pass a schoolyard, construction site, office water cooler or speakeasy without hearing those immortal words!).  I'm sure most of you have at least heard this phrase somewhere; if not, ask your grandparents.

Unfortunately, the good times for the Lancaster-Woolrich studio was not to last.  When the giant hydrogen filled Bunny McCracken balloon exploded during the 1937 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (apparently, the real first place the term "Oh, the Humanity!" was uttered), the resulting lawsuits financially crippled the company, resulting in disastrous cost-cutting measures, such as farming out the actual animation work to Venezuelan convicts and utilizing rejected Ritz Brothers scripts.  By 1939, studio owners Bud Lancaster and Roland Woolrich decided to call it quits, but they couldn't agree on how to divide the remaining assets of the company (the film shorts);  a judge decreed that the films should be split evenly right down the middle -- literally:  The films were cut in half length-wise!

As far as we know, there are no surviving prints of any Bunny McCracken cartoon, though there are those who claim a series of the shorts ran on the DuMont network in late 1949, so maybe, if somebody does some detective work...

A Plea

The Art of Modern Debate

Something scribbled while riding the el train

Separation of Degrees

Well, maybe I just made this up...

Skid Row for Robots

Staggering Down Memory Lane

The Hazards of attending High School Reunions