Friday, February 01, 2013

Foster Brooks Robot Gives My Life Meaning

I am sure you recall the robot version of Foster Brooks and how justifiably proud I was to be the first person ever to present a photograph of the Foster Brooks robot on the "internet." Well, my friend Ward McCarthy has found someone's home movies of the MGM Grand Hotel from 1995, and about halfway in you will get a big sample of the Foster Brooks robot, who is even more disturbing than I recalled, with his one rubbery dead hand and his other hand fitfully twitching at the punch lines of his off-color remarks. He is not to be confused with the Frank Morgan robot (!) who appears earlier in the clip. Ward and I stayed in the MGM Grand in 1994 when we were covering the Elvis Impersonator Convention, so this clip brings back a lot of memories - awful, awful memories. For example, see that huge wall of video screens behind the check-in counter? When Ward and I were standing in line interminably, they kept repeating a music video of the Olsen twins (at the time still tiny children) dancing around with huge magnifying glasses, pretending to be detectives, and there were lots of shots of a bloodhound in a Sherlock Holmes hat (or so I recall) doing editorially enhanced double takes and the lyrics of the song were something like "Super DOOPER pooper TROOPERS!" I paraphrase. But the rhythms of their hellish march went on and on forever, kind of like this "post." Because I will now state that the youtube video of the Foster Brooks robot was "posted" in late 2009, and therefore I am STILL the champion of presenting photographic evidence of the Foster Brooks robot earlier than anyone else on the "internet." In conclusion, I noted on the youtube sidebar of "related videos" that there was a clip of Foster Brooks performing at the dedication of Gerald Ford's presidential library - say what! His whole act was pretending to be drunk, and even without Mrs. Ford's well-publicized alcoholism, and her heroic efforts at raising awareness and helping people with substance abuse problems, Foster Brooks seems like a weird choice for ANYBODY's presidential library dedication. I watched about 20 seconds of it, just enough to confirm that he's pretending to be drunk. Yep.