It'll Never Fly

I started off looking for a Grandpa Simpson quote, and stumbled upon a list of favourite quotes of Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama. Here’s one in particular, from the episode entitled “Fry and the Slurm Factory:”

Which, of course, got me thinking. Has “robot” always been pronounced “roh-baht” or was there a time, perhaps early on when it was still a new word, that people pronounced it “roh-biht?”

First, it might be prudent to learn a little bit about the word itself. The Online Etymology Dictionary states the word first appeared in a 1923 English translation of Czech playwright Karel Čapek‘s 1920 play entitled R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). It is translated from the Czech word robota, which literally means “forced labour” or “drudgery.” Although, Karel Čapek is credited with popularizing the term, he himself attributes his brother Josef with coining the term.

So now we know how old the word is, are there any recordings of people saying the word besides Billy West as Zoidberg? Well, we can go directly to the source. Isaac Asimov is, of course, famous for coining the term “robotics” and for his three laws of robotics which he introduced in his 1942 short story “Runaround.” His first robot story was “Robbie” which he wrote in 1939. How does Asimov himself pronounce “robot?” Well, in this 1987 interview with Don Swaim, he pronounces it just as Dr. Zoidberg does. According to Asimov’s biography on Wikipedia, he was born into a Jewish family and immigrated to the States when he was 3. His family spoke in both Yiddish and English, and he became proficient in both languages.

So then, it must come as no surprise that Asimov and Zoidberg would pronounce “robot” is the same fashion. Billy West has said in interviews that he based Zoidberg on Jewish vaudeville-ish comedians such as George Jessel (who can be heard here) and Lou Jacobi (you can hear audio clips of him here; not to be confused with Michael Vale who portrayed Fred the baker from the Dunkin’ Donuts commercials). So is it just people with a yiddish background that pronounce “robot” that way?

Here’s where I muddy the water a little. There was a comic strip that came out in 1934 called “Flash Gordon” that was created to compete with Buck Rogers at the time. A few years later, several serials were produced at Universal Studios starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe as Flash Gordon entitled “Flash Gordon” (1936), “Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars” (1938), and “Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe” (1940). It is this third serial that I’ll be interested in today. One of the main characters in the series is Dr. Zarkov, played by Irish actor Frank Shannon, who’s basically an all-round science genius and do-gooder that helps Flash with all the problems that can’t be solved with punching or fighting. Near the end of Chapter 3, Ming unleashes a swarm (or gaggle, or whatever) of mechanical men on our heroes. Pay close attention to Zarkov near the 19:00 mark:

I love that theme music. If you want to watch the serial in its entirety, all of the episodes are available on Google Video.

I had watched this serial years ago, and was the first time I had ever heard “robot” pronounced “roh-bit.” So on the off chance that Shannon was Jewish and not Irish-Catholic and spoke Yiddish, that might explain it.

In the end, I guess it doesn’t really prove anything.

To end on a lighter note: If you’re like me and a fan of 80′s cheese, you probably remember the 1980 movie simply titled Flash Gordon starring Max Von Sydow as Ming and beefcake Sam J. Jones as Flash Gordon. Jones has actually had a semi-successful career playing bit parts in film and TV. Even had a memorable (I’m told) role in the popular sci-fi series, Stargate SG-1, playing Aris Boch.

I think I saw this in the theatre with my dad and brother as part of a double feature with Batman, but it was so long ago I could be wrong. I didn’t know who Queen was either, but my dad had the soundtrack on LP and my brother and I played the $#!% out of that thing. It’s sad, I know, but it probably wasn’t until Wayne’s World that I really bothered checking into who this band called Queen was.

Robits are cool…

I don’t have much to say about this one. I look pretty normal. I remember having started to grow tired of my new hairstyle already. And those glasses were getting tiresome, but I still put up with them.

I’m following Kentcer’s lead on this one. Back in elementary school, over several grades, two of my best friends and I thought we’d write a book about knights, castles, and dragons, as well as illustrate it ourselves. I think we started it in Grade 2. One of my friends moved to another school soon after, so it quickly became a two man job. Thankfully, it ended once we lost most of our imagination and started ripping off Robert Asprin.

It’s written in pencil, so it’s a little smudged and faint in some places, but it’s neat to see how our penmanship changed (or didn’t) over time. In a later grade, I even tried to correct some of the grammar (hence the blue ink).

Enjoy.

Update: There’s also a similar blue notebook packed away somewhere of comic strips I used to draw as a kid. One set was a spoof of the Justice League of America, but in a similar vein to Spider-Ham which I called the ALI, the Animal League International. The other set of strips was kind of a rip off of Ziggy called Crazy Charlie and His Dog Auto (I didn’t know how to spell Otto at the time).

Update: Sweet! I just remembered where I put them and found them. Apparently, we thought Dragonland was going to take off, because there’s a whole other Hillroy notebook here that was never used, but has “Dragonland: Book II” written on the cover. I also wrote a “Spy Guide Book” in another Hillroy notebook, and wrote my own issue of a newspaper with rubber stencils and an ink pad. Found my stickerbook, too. I have got to get these scanned!

Update: Note to self, so I can find them again later: They’re in with my old D&D stuff.

Ding-dong, the haircut’s dead. Which old haircut? The wicked haircut.

I don’t know why I never took my glasses off for school photos. I obviously wasn’t ashamed of them, as huge as they may be, but the problem was I always had to tilt my head in some awkward fashion, presumably to avoid destroying the photographer’s equipment with an errant beam of intensely heated light bouncing off those things.

It was tough being a kid in the 80′s that doesn’t follow trends. Not that I was intentionally not following trends, mind you, I just had no clue. But I do like how this one turned out.

And I’m showing some teeth in that smile, too. I think I’ve forgotten how. Let’s see, I just took a break from writing this to see if I could smile while showing teeth, and I guess I still can. Looks really unnatural, though. I guess I’m just not used to it; and need more practice; and less fat would be good…

Nerd alert! Don’t ask about the vest… I have no idea. I guess I wasn’t as sick of that haircut as I thought, because I obviously put up with it for yet another year.

So much for movie star or hockey player, eh? Apparently, I was practicing to become a librarian, an accountant, or a computer programmer. I’m not good with money, and I’m not particularly fond of books, and the rest is what dreams are made of. There’s an old picture of me as a toddler punching away at a computer keyboard that I’ll have to find and put up here. Not all that unusual nowadays, but back then you weren’t in the elite geek circle unless you had one.

I wouldn’t have made a very good hockey player anyway. There’s that whole skating thing that they always seem to be doing for most of the time, which is a lot harder than it looks. I’m probably the only Canadian over 20 that can’t (well, couldn’t). I’ve since strapped on a pair (of skates) after a 20 year hiatus. What have I learned? 1.) The bigger you are, the harder you fall, the slower you heal. 2.) After 20 years of not skating, I mysteriously still haven’t learned how to stop. 3.) Getting your skates “rockered” has more to do with old grannies than it does old guitarists. 4.) I am way out of shape.

Not that there’s anything wrong with books or school. It’s cool to stay in school, kids. Do it long enough, and you could very well save humanity itself. A librarian wouldn’t be all that bad, actually. It involves my three favourite activities: collecting, databasing, and sorting.

What? You thought I actually watch the DVDs I buy? You thought I actually read the comics I collect?

Where’s the fun in that?