Elektro was a humanoid robot which was built between 1937 and 1938 by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and he was shown at the 1939 New York World's Fair, where he became a huge sensation.
He was able to move, count with his fingers, smoke a cigar and pop a balloon. Elektro was also able to simulate a conversation since he had a pre-recorded vocabulary of 700 words (using a 78-rpm record player). Elektro was not really a robot in a modern-day sense and was actually closer to an automaton since he lacked the ability to learn and didn’t have any integrated computational devices.
Elektro reappeared at the 1940 New York World's Fair with his new companion, the robot dog Sparko! Sparko was able to bark, sit and stand up and beg. Elektro later toured the USA for Westinghouse in the 1950s He later appeared as "Thinko", in the comedy movie “Sex Kittens Go to College“ (1960). In the late 1960s, his head was given to Harold Gorsuch, a former Westinghouse engineer.
Elektro's body and Sparko were considered lost, until both were rediscovered in a basement and a barn in 2012. Elektro and Sparko’s story had a happy end and both are now reunited and on display at the Mansfield Memorial Museum!
Here is a small movie from the 1939 New York World's Fair, featuring Elektro’s first appearance:
