Wow, this is a grim one. What can I say, folks? It goes with the territory of writing a cartoon about a dead guy. But should love be the exclusive domain of the living? Science suggests otherwise. I recently came across this 2010 clip with the self-explanatory title Japanese Robot Girlfriend.
The prototype JRG seems pleasant enough but rather cold, and it was a mistake to dress her as an actual nurse instead of a nurse in a 1980s music video. Perhaps what's needed here is some musical inspiration. There are a surprising number of tunes about the love lives of machines.
Here from Hollywood's golden year of 1939 is the possibly earliest example of the form, as crooned by the immortal Jack Haley:
Earnest and poignant if not exactly arousing. As an example of how quickly music evolves over time, here is a jumpin' little number by Wynonie Harris from 1951, a mere eleven years later:
Sadly, the romance of machinery does not seem to have been a major theme in popular music for most of the 1950s and 1960s. The Miracles, however, brought the theme back big time in 1975:
That #1 hit was almost certainly the inspiration for this bizarre 1978 disco number by Dee D. Jackson:
And who can forget Marvin the Paranoid Android's contribution to the subgenre from 1981:
I couldn't very well end this little survey without mentioning that there are not one but two great songs called "Computer Love," one by Zapp & Roger and one by Kraftwerk. Here they both are:
Weren't those nice? Kinda makes you see the machines in your life in a different way, right? Right?!?
Oh, forget it. I'm going into the kitchen and getting freaky with the toaster. Don't judge me.
Oh, forget it. I'm going into the kitchen and getting freaky with the toaster. Don't judge me.