Lately I've been obsessed with finding the current location of 1950's robot star Garco. Garco appeared on numerous TV shows, including one of my favorite pieces of retro-space-futurism, the 1957 Disneyland TV episode, "Mars and Beyond." 

I can't seem to find any clue as to where this robot might be stored. Is Garco sitting in some guy's basement in Billings? Some museum I've never heard of? Robot heaven? If you have any info on his whereabouts please contact me immediately. I will not rest until this lovable hunk of metal is found!

The article below announcing Garco's retirement is from the July 31, 1961 Los Angeles Times. 

Garco Shows Signs of Wear, Will Retire

A mechanical man who can play chess, mix drinks, hammer nails and carry out other assingments with human encouragement will retire from active duty soon.

His mechanism is breaking down. The Garrett Corp. owns the robot.

"We are hoping to find a permanent home for him in the Smithsonian Institute or some other museum where he can be preserved for posterity," said Mickey Parr, a company spokesman.

Active Robot

Workers who built him eight years ago with surplus aircraft parts call him "Garco." They contend he has had more activity in his short lifetime than the average man sees in a span of 70 years.

Since 1953 Garco has taken part in several motion pictures, television shows, commercials and appeared at numerous charity events.

Delicate Child

But from the start Garco proved to be a delicate child. His problems arose from mechanical sickness, often causing his operating system to break down. As a result, the company always kept an engineer assigned to Garco. The engineer in charge of the mechanical man would keep Garco in his garage at home.

Mechanical Doctoring

Presently, Garco is receiving mechanical doctoring from Gray Rollo, 5308 Clearsight St.

"I've had a lot of fun working on him," Rollo said, "and at times I wonder if he isn't really human. He certainly acts more intelligently than some people I know."

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Mars and Beyond (1957) 
• Will Robots Make People Obsolete? (1959)
• Closer Than We Think! Robot Housemaid (1959)
• Robot Christmas (1958)
• Call a Serviceman (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
• The Electronic Brain Made Beef Stew (1959)
• Something must be wrong with its radar eye! (Chicago Tribune, 1959)

During the autumn of 1932 a group of curious onlookers assembled in Brighton, England to see inventor Harry May's latest invention, Alpha the robot. The mechanical man was controlled by verbal commands and sat in a chair silently while May carefully placed a gun in Alpha's hand. May then walked across the room to set up a target for the robot to shoot.

Seemingly more man than machine, and without a word from its inventor, the robot rose to its feet. May commanded the two-ton robot to sit, but instead it took a step forward. As the machine slowly raised the pistol, women in the audience screamed and men shouted warnings to the inventor. May commanded the robot to stop. "Drop that gun and sit down!" he screamed to no effect. Naturally, the inventor rose his hand to defend himself. Alpha the robot squeezed the trigger and in one quick, violent moment the discharged bullet pierced flesh and shattered the bones in May's hand.

The robot stood motionless, its arm outstretched with the smoking gun. May's voice could be heard, again desperately attempting to command the robot, "Back to your chair, Alpha! And drop that gun!"

This time, to everyone's amazement, the robot obeyed its master's command. The gun fell to the floor and the robot returned to its chair.

As a doctor tended to May, the inventor calmly explained, "I always had a feeling that Alpha would turn on me some day, but this is the first time he ever disobeyed my commands. I can't understand why he fired before I gave the proper signal."

Newspapers across the United States took this story and ran with it. An editorial from a Louisiana newspaper even proclaimed that the era of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was upon us. The bold new world of automation was to be feared. Mechanical men of our own creation were sure to destroy us all.

With the benefit of hindsight we can say that this series of events never happened, or were at the very least, wildly exaggerated. A much tamer version of the story was reported in far fewer newspapers, (just one by my count), but still contained the sensationalistic headline, "Maker Is Shot by Robot He Invented." In this version of the story May was inserting a cartridge into the gun, which was attached to the robot, and an accidental, premature discharge simply burned the inventor's hand.

1932 Oct 23 Ogden Standard-Examiner - Ogden City UT

Such fantastic feats ascribed to robots are so obviously absurd to today's skeptical minds. Robotic machines are just now beginning to complete the most basic tasks of walking up stairs, slowly running, and "recognizing" faces. Such autonomous movement, as described in the story of Alpha turning on its inventor, is only recently beginning to be seen in robots being developed by Honda, Toyota and in elite universities around the world.

But why did these articles run in so many newspapers across the country? Why were people apt to believe that a "robot," or "mechanical man" would develop a mind of its own and turn on its inventor?

The 1930s was an era of dread. The Great Depression had ravaged the nation economically, physically and emotionally. The fear of automation manifested itself in sensational pieces throughout various popular media about the invasion of the machine. Comic books, radio dramas and newspaper articles fueled the fire, and allowed the nation to point to something, anything. Robots, technology, automation, they were the cause of our distress.

Technology was something to fear because it would (or had) put you out of a job. Automation meant efficiency. Automation meant fewer jobs for men who worked in factories. Automation meant that we would never see an end to the despair. Sound familiar?

The article embedded above is from the October 23, 1932 Ogden Standard-Examiner (Ogden, UT).

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Robots for Romantic Old Maids (1928)
• Robots Will Kill Music! (1930)
• Alpha the Robot (1932)
• Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles (1934)
• A Whole World of Metal Men? (1937)
• Donald Duck's "Modern Inventions" (1937)
• Will Humanity Annihilate Itself? (1939)

The radio of the future is... a television? This 1942 ad for Admiral radios featured modernist designer Samuel A. Marx and his vision of a "radio of the future." Like most American visions of the future from the 1940s, this one is drenched in talk of war and what technological advancements are just around the corner; after the war.

Source: Duke University Libraries

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Tomorrow's Kitchen (1943)
• After the War (1944)
• Plastic Skyscrapers and Frozen Dinners (1945)
• 'Brain Wave' Music Possible (1949)
• Television: Medium of the Future (1949)

Today's retro-futuristic eye candy comes from the 1956 book The Complete Book of Space Travel. This donut-shaped space station, popularized by Wernher von Braun, popped up on TV, in films and even on lunch boxes. Do the kids these days still carry lunch boxes? I really have no idea. I vaguely recall carrying an ALF lunch box to school, but I may be stealing that memory from a Full House episode or something.

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• The Complete Book of Space Travel (1956)
• Space Suite (1956)
• Rocket Ship (1956)
• Challenge of Outer Space (1950s)
• Wernher von Braun's Space Shuttle (1950s)
• Man and the Moon (1955)
• Space Age Lunch Boxes (50s and 60s)

Remember 1959? You were just 9 years old, with not a care in the world (except maybe nuclear winter). You spread the Sunday paper out across the living room floor of your suburban Chicago home, and excitedly flipped to the funny pages. Closer Than We Think! Your favorite!

What fantastical promise from the future did Mr. Radebaugh have for you this week? Cars that run on sunshine? Tomatoes as big as Verne Gagne's head? Underseas highways to the land of godless commies? No, something even more ridiculous! A home library of electronic media! What a weird futuristic world that would be! Gosh golly, what will they think of next!

Some unusual inventions for home entertainment and education will be yours in the future, such as the "television recorder" that RCA's David Sarnoff described recently.

With this device, when a worthwhile program comes over the air while you are away from home, or even while you're watching it, you'll be able to preserve both the picture and sound on tape for replaying at any time. Westinghouse's Gwilym Price expects such tapes to reproduce shows in three dimensions and color on screens as shallow as a picture.

Another pushbutton development will be projection of microfilm books on the ceiling or wall in large type. To increase their impact on students, an electronic voice may accompany the visual passages.

Eternal thanks to my Closer Than We Think pusher Tom Z., without whom I would be living in a cold, dark world of black and white comic strips.

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Movies Will Replace Textbooks (1922)
• Thinks We'll Do Our Reading on Screen (1923)
• Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
• Glenn T. Seaborg's 1989 (1964)
• Learning in 1999 A.D. (1967)
• RCA's Two Thousand (1969)
• Media Room of the Future (1979)