There have been a lot of sidekicks on late night tv. Ed McMahon, Paul Schaffer, Kevin Eubanks, Andy Richter. But Craig Ferguson has the strangest. An actual mechanical talking robot.
Maybe you haven't seen this. After all, Ferguson's show comes on after David Letterman, at 12:30 AM. But thanks to the glories of the internet, I have been able to watch his show online. The first time I saw it, my first thought was "this has to be a guy dressed up". So I looked it up on Wikipedia. Nope, it's a real robot. And it was designed by Grant Imahara of my favorite informational show, Discovery Channel's Mythbusters.
This thing is incredible. It's a plastic skeleton with batteries & control boards. The skeleton head moves left & right, & one arm moves up & down. And because the show comes on after midnight, it does questionable things, like , well, masturbating. The eyes light up & it plays mp3 files. Those are the various pre-recorded phrases it says.
The robot's name is "Geoff Peterson", & he is funnier than Daves sidekick. Sorry, never thought Paul Schaffer was all that funny. According to Wikipedia & Popular Mechanics it originally had 7 phrases. That has changed, & now it has a lot of different statements. The Popular Mechanics article says Craig pushes a button on his desk to get "Geoff" to speak. It's hilarious. I was dying watching the show on my computer last night. Just hysterical. Amazing what technology can do, or what it will be used for.
Maybe you haven't seen this. After all, Ferguson's show comes on after David Letterman, at 12:30 AM. But thanks to the glories of the internet, I have been able to watch his show online. The first time I saw it, my first thought was "this has to be a guy dressed up". So I looked it up on Wikipedia. Nope, it's a real robot. And it was designed by Grant Imahara of my favorite informational show, Discovery Channel's Mythbusters.
This thing is incredible. It's a plastic skeleton with batteries & control boards. The skeleton head moves left & right, & one arm moves up & down. And because the show comes on after midnight, it does questionable things, like , well, masturbating. The eyes light up & it plays mp3 files. Those are the various pre-recorded phrases it says.
The robot's name is "Geoff Peterson", & he is funnier than Daves sidekick. Sorry, never thought Paul Schaffer was all that funny. According to Wikipedia & Popular Mechanics it originally had 7 phrases. That has changed, & now it has a lot of different statements. The Popular Mechanics article says Craig pushes a button on his desk to get "Geoff" to speak. It's hilarious. I was dying watching the show on my computer last night. Just hysterical. Amazing what technology can do, or what it will be used for.
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