Clutch: Cool! Now that baseball season is finally over we can talk a little hoops, and AI may be coming back to Philly! “Practice? We’re going to talk about practice?”
Shipwreck: Not Allen Iverson, Artificial Intelligence – robots, droids, synthezoids and all the other animated forms so popular in Sci Fi
tFidy: Do you even pay attention in the Production Meeting Clutch?
Clutch: They’re always so boring. Michelle from Accounting kept walking by and I got distracted…
tFidy: Well I’ll get started since I’m sure you don’t have anything prepared. I’m going to start with Rosie the robot maid from the Jetsons. The Jetsons were a futuristic version of a 50’s sitcom family. George Jetson was a nice enough guy, but not particularly bright or hard working. Jane, his wife was pretty much a do nothing ditz… and Rosie is the one who fixes all the problems faster than you can say “Jane stop this crazy thing!” Clearly in this version of the future, technology made human’s lives easier and ‘bots like Rosie allowed them to live a comfortable life. Little known fact, Rosie’s been married to C3PO for years. They have a nice home up in Connecticut; I think they may be neighbors with David Letterman...
Shipwreck: The Jetson’s vision of future is taken a step further in the Battlestar Galactica mythos, where the Cylons decide to shake off their shackles and focus on exterminating the human race. Now we’ve gone on and on about all the Cylon hotties – Six, Boomer, Number 3, but no one embodies the plight of the Cylon better than “Gary the Cylon”. Here’s a guy whose main job function is to destroy mankind, yet he struggles with the day to day problems we all face – getting vacation time, health insurance, dealing with coworkers. Check him out on YouTube. He shows you that there’s a heck of a lot more to being a Centurion then just saying “By your command.”
Clutch: BSG has a pretty grim view on the relationship between man and machine, but it’s take a further in Terminator. Not only do these machines not want to do human’s work, they send this guy back in time to kick some human butt. There’s been a lot of bad *ss terminators over the years, but this guy was like the Rose Bowl – he was the ‘Granddaddy of Them All’. When he said – “I’ll be back”, he wasn’t kidding; coming back for two more movies. He wasn’t just a killing machine; he could deliver the comedy line too… “Hasta La Vista Baby” is a classic! I always hoped he would make a cameo in "Sarah Connor Chronicles." Guess he’s kinda busy with his day job.
tFidy: BSG and Terminator were both very dark, but the Buck Rogers series had a different view of the future – one that was pretty dull. As hot as Colonel Deering was, she and that Doctor, were total wet fish. What they needed was an infusion of 20th Century cool, which Buck had by the truck load. No one got that better than Buck’s robot companion Twiki. He was always ready to bust a move on the dance floor or throw out a 20th C colloquialism that got the point across a little better than that dull future speak. Ask anyone to remember one thing about that show and they will mention Twiki’s catch phrase – “Beety, beety, beety, what’s up Buck?”
Clutch: Twiki was pretty cool. And the future wasn’t all bad, as I remember that Princess who was always trying to invade Earth dressed like a Vegas Show Girl.
Shipwreck: We’ve got to put Commander Data from the USS Enterprise on this list. He was a future version of Pinocchio; a being given life wanting to be a real boy, by getting human emotions. He pursued this is whole career and was got close to achieving his goals, but never quite got there. The crew on the Enterprise was the best Star Fleet had to offer and he could out do any of them. He was stronger than Worf, smarter than Geordi and was a better musician than Picard. For all of Riker’s lady’s man rep, it was Data who scored with Tasha Yar (a highly underrated Star Trek Babe). Data even had an evil twin - Lore, but unlike most evil twins, he didn’t have a goatee.
Clutch: You want an AI character that’s done it all? How about the Vision from the Avengers? He’s a member of the World’s Mightiest Heroes. He can turn intangible. He married the very hot Scarlett Witch (before she went off the rails nuts). He went all Skynet and tried to take over the world, got taken apart by the US Government, reassembled by Tony Stark, fought his evil doppelganger from another dimension, switched bodies with him and eventually defeated him. It all went bad for the Vizh though when the She Hulk ripped him to shreds during the “Disassembled” storyline a few years back. And like Humpty Dumpty, all of Stark’s men couldn’t put the Vision back together again. Until… hold on this gets confusing- Iron Lad (a teen version of Kang the Conqueror) traveled back in time and reassembled him, but in a teen version… he’s now part of the Young Avengers.
tFidy: Iron Lad? Teen Vision… really? What is this: Earth’s Mightiest One Tree Hill?
Shipwreck: A lot of times it doesn’t end well for a lot of these AI characters… the Terminator got… well terminated, Data was destroyed saving the crew of the Enterprise and I think the robot from “Lost in Space” got his power pack pulled out one too many times by Doctor Smith.
tFidy: It’s a hard knock life, for us…
Clutch: Ok, I draw the line at show tunes. Can we talk some basketball now?
Shipwreck: Next time...
tFidy: We’re out.
Clutch: Peace!
