I worked on a massive audio (78s) digitization project for the LOC and it was a blast to see the process of how these archivists and their outsourced crews (like us) worked to maintain the human arts. It was an odd feeling, I never had a client prior to that make me feel like our work was so important.
The actual title of the short uses the word "automate", French for "automaton"; I suspect NPR simply used the more familiar word in their headline for clarity.
George Meliese's silent films and automatons were at the core of the beautifully illustrated and written YA novel from the mid-2000s named The Invention of Hugo Cabret [0].
Well, the Library of Congress entry notes him as "Gugusse the clown" and the Wikipedia entry[2] has a few citations (to books, I can't verify) that support it, but more to the point, "Pierrot" is a classic[3] stock character in e.g. commedia dell'arte. It says clown but I think our modern meaning of that word is a bit removed, and perhaps "harlequin" (another character[4]) is more what we'd say these days.
> Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.
Strange of you to criticize NPR for that bit seeing as they didn't come up with that description for Gugusse. From the LoC page for the video:
>> Gugusse the clown appears to control the actions of Pierrot Automate, a child-sized automaton standing on a pedestal. By turning a crank, Gugusse makes him march and wave a stick. As Gugusse turns the crank, the automaton gets bigger until it is the size of a grown man. Suddenly the automaton is controlling his own limbs. He hits Gugusse on the head with his stick. Gugusse pulls the automaton off the pedestal and picks up a large hammer. As Gugusse pounds the automaton on the head, he gets smaller and smaller. At the final stroke of the hammer, he disappears.
So they're using the supplied description of Gugusse. If you have an issue with it, take it up with the Library of Congress.
The jacket just looks like a variant of “morning dress”. It’s the equivalent of a tuxedo for the daytime (wearing either at the wrong time of day used to be considered incorrect; see the selectively-sartorially-fastidious Jack in 30 Rock reacting to Liz’s surprise at his wearing a dinner jacket without some special event planned with, “it’s after 6:00, Liz, what am I, a farmer?”)
You still occasionally see them at state functions (Trump wore an infamously poor-looking one when visiting Queen Elizabeth in his first term, iirc, and you can find photos of people like Reagan in it looking a bit less uncomfortable). I think they were standard/required clothing for arguing in front of the Supreme Court through the 1970s or something.
It’s the kind of jacket one might imagine a stereotypical cartoon mayor of a town wearing for a daytime ribbon cutting… because, not that long ago, that’s exactly what they would have worn.
It’s an almost, but not quite, dead piece of clothing, but it was still quite familiar when this was made.
> (The word "robot" didn't appear until 1921, when Czech dramatist Karel Čapek coined it in his science fiction play R.U.R..)
George Meliese's silent films and automatons were at the core of the beautifully illustrated and written YA novel from the mid-2000s named The Invention of Hugo Cabret [0].
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Hugo_Cabret
Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.
Gugusse looks more to me like the "mad inventor" of the robot, with a comedic bald head.
1: <https://www.loc.gov/item/2026125501/?loclr=blogloc>
2: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugusse_and_the_Automaton>
3: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot>
4: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin>
Strange of you to criticize NPR for that bit seeing as they didn't come up with that description for Gugusse. From the LoC page for the video:
>> Gugusse the clown appears to control the actions of Pierrot Automate, a child-sized automaton standing on a pedestal. By turning a crank, Gugusse makes him march and wave a stick. As Gugusse turns the crank, the automaton gets bigger until it is the size of a grown man. Suddenly the automaton is controlling his own limbs. He hits Gugusse on the head with his stick. Gugusse pulls the automaton off the pedestal and picks up a large hammer. As Gugusse pounds the automaton on the head, he gets smaller and smaller. At the final stroke of the hammer, he disappears.
So they're using the supplied description of Gugusse. If you have an issue with it, take it up with the Library of Congress.
You still occasionally see them at state functions (Trump wore an infamously poor-looking one when visiting Queen Elizabeth in his first term, iirc, and you can find photos of people like Reagan in it looking a bit less uncomfortable). I think they were standard/required clothing for arguing in front of the Supreme Court through the 1970s or something.
It’s the kind of jacket one might imagine a stereotypical cartoon mayor of a town wearing for a daytime ribbon cutting… because, not that long ago, that’s exactly what they would have worn.
It’s an almost, but not quite, dead piece of clothing, but it was still quite familiar when this was made.