Man(?)'s best friend - a tragic tale

From the archives, Electro, the Westinghouse Moto-Man:



The reason the Electro never caught on is probably due to his early death from lung cancer. Smoking nowadays isn't what it used to be.

Of course, if you were creating Electro, you'd immediately decide that he needed a dog, and so you would also create Sparko. And here's where it gets interesting (if you didn't think that a smoking robot, who needed a dog, was interesting enough). Esther Inglis-Arkell tells the tale: "All the Sparkos were modelled on Scottish Terriers and meant to be shown off with their master, a smoking robot, at the 1939 World's Fair. They were supposed to follow any light, and chase after visitors playfully. The last Sparko was lost in 1957. The fate of one remains a mystery. But the first to perish died tragically before the Fair even began."

Sparko died tragically? Yes indeed. We couldn't put it any better: In 1939, a robot dog was killed while chasing a car. Really.