Elektro

Elektro, Westinghouse's Mechanical Man, amazed audiences at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Standing 7 feet tall and weighing 260 pounds, Elektro performed 26 different tricks by voice command, including walking, talking, and smoking a cigarette. He had a vocabulary of approximately 700 words, which were played on 33 1/3 rpm records and cued to a script. Elektro originally starred in The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair, a film produced by Westinghouse to help promote their appliances. He then did live performances across the country for many years, especially in the housewares departments of large stores. A talent agent spotted the aging robot at an appearance at Pacific Ocean Park in 1958, where he was playing second fiddle to the full scale model of the nuclear-powered Nautilus submarine in the Westinghouse exhibit. With a fresh coat of paint, necessary to dull the reflection of the set lights, Elektro was cast as S.A.M. Thinko in Sex Kittens go to College in 1960. The Sequential Auxiliary Modulator blew a few fuses when confronted by the brilliant mind of Mamie van Doren's Dr. Mathilda West, or possibly it was some of her other features. After having some significant cosmetic work done, Elektro has retired to the Mansfield Memorial Museum in Mansfield, Ohio, where he can be seen with several of his robot friends.