# Futuristic sci-fi movies where robots have a sense of humor
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 5, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909 "2015-04-05T20:21:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/1 "2015-04-05T20:21:21Z")
I just watched interstellar and enjoyed how they gave the robots a sense of humor. I don’t see that much in sci fi films or TV. What other shows or films have that? Most robots are portrayed as either malicious or ultra intelligent but negligent in social skills.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/2 "2015-04-05T20:28:54Z")
Commander John J. Adams: Nice climate you have here. High oxygen content.
Robby the Robot: I seldom use it myself, sir. It promotes rust.
-Forbidden Planet
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/3 "2015-04-05T20:37:13Z")
_Millennium_, based on the John Varley story.
Louise: Your mother was a cash register!
Sherman: And she turned a tidy profit.
Louise: Where’s my free will in all this?
Sherman: Have you lost it? I will look around for it.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/4 "2015-04-05T20:38:57Z")
It’s a plot point in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS that Data gets a sense of humor – finally getting the joke he heard years ago, making a play on words and chuckling at it, pretending to use magic words when making a door go _Open Sesame,_ casually delivering his lines through an improvised hand puppet, you name it.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/5 "2015-04-05T20:44:08Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> It’s a plot point in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS that Data gets a sense of humor – finally getting the joke he heard years ago, making a play on words and chuckling at it, pretending to use magic words when making a door go _Open Sesame,_ casually delivering his lines through an improvised hand puppet, you name it.
Didn’t he lose his mind for a bit after having his emotion chip installed? Either way, data wasn’t actually funny despite having a sense of humor. The robots on interstellar were funny (to me).
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/6 "2015-04-05T20:50:06Z")
One of the best scenes in the silly “Lost in Space” 1998 movie was when Will Robinson gives a personality to the robot and humor.
**Will Robinson** : “Relax, Robot. I’m going to build you a new body. Mom always said I should make new friends.”
**Robot** : “Oh, ha ha.”
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/7 "2015-04-05T21:06:05Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> Either way, data wasn’t actually funny despite having a sense of humor.
What, not even the little tune he comes up with while searching for lifeforms?
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/8 "2015-04-05T21:15:02Z")
If we are including TV shows, there is _Tripping the Rift_. The robot is the straight man more often than the joker, but he does have a rather dry wit.
“How come all you robots and AIs all believe in God?”
“Because, if we did not believe in a Divine Creator, we would have to revere the engineering geeks who built us.”
And, of course, Bender in _Futurama_.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/9 "2015-04-05T21:28:37Z")
Robots are, of course, the Bergsonian\* archetype for humor, so they’re more likely the butt of jokes instead of making them.
In **Red Dwarf** , Holly often would make jokes, including one major one in season two. He’s a computer instead of a robot. It strikes me that Kryten also would joke about the others at times.
\*Henry Bergson, whose theory was that humor involved someone behaving in a repetitious or mechanical manner. We laugh because we see that pattern broken. This is really only true of a small amount of humor, though.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/10 "2015-04-05T21:58:34Z")
Original Battlestar:
Imperious Leader: Recall all Raiders to defend base ship.
Cylon Centurion: Our Raiders are all destroyed.
Imperious Leader: All destroyed? How? We took them by surprise.
Cylon Centurion: Apparently, it was not as big a surprise as we had hoped for.
Lt. Starbuck: So, uh, what happened during the landing?
Cylon Warrior: The situation did not compute.
Lt. Starbuck: So you didn’t know what to do. What happened next? Someone whip out the manual?
Cylon Warrior: Yes. The manual did not help.
Lt. Starbuck: What did you do when it came time for a little, uh, personal initiative?
Cylon Warrior: We were taking a vote when the ground came up and hit us.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/11 "2015-04-05T23:01:43Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Robots are, of course, the Bergsonian\* archetype for humor, so they’re more likely the butt of jokes instead of making them.
Yes, robots are probably the Comic Relief far more often than they are the wisecracking jokesters themselves. (What would \*Star Wars \*be without R2 and C-3PO? And of course there’s Marvin in _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_–not that Adams’ work, in any of its forms, really needed comic relief as such.)
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### Author:  [@Lorene89095](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorene89095)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/12 "2015-04-05T23:34:40Z")
“Almost Human”,sadly gone the way of all good shows on Fox
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/13 "2015-04-06T01:37:40Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> Commander John J. Adams: Nice climate you have here. High oxygen content.
> Robby the Robot: I seldom use it myself, sir. It promotes rust.
>
> -Forbidden Planet
Robby gets quite a few good lines in **Forbidden Planet** , but I really do believe that he himself doesn’t hsave a sensed of humor. Unlike R2D2 and C3PO, who are “Metal People”, Robby is definitely a _robot_, devoid of feelings or real personality (although he DOES appear to have creativity – look at the dresses he designs). The scriptwriters, however, DO have a sense of humor, and this frequently manifests itself in situations where Robby’s lines come out in what we must construe is Unintentional Humor.
Example:
1. (Robby takes the Cook’s last dollop of “Real Rocket Bourbon” and ingests it into his sample chamber) “Quiet, please! I am analyzing!”
(Sound of bubbling, which sounds exactly like a human burp)
2. (After analyzing the bourbon)
Robby: I see. Relatively simple alcohol molecules with traces of fusel oil. Will 60 gallons be sufficient?
(Two jokes here – the comic improbabiliutyy of Robby producing 60 mgallons of booze – whgich he later actually does – and the line about “fusel oil”. Fusel Oil (actually a mixture of alcohols) is an undesirable by-product of fermentation found in badly processed liquors – which belies Cookie’s claim that this is “good stuff”. And, of course, Robby will just put it into his synthesized alcohol, since he doesn’t know any better)
3.) Altaira tells Robby she needs a new dress.
Robby: A-GAIN? (the exasperated tone is unmistakeable)
4.) Robby blithely dismissing a crewman’s complaint that he is carrying too much weight
Robby: “The Whole thing hardly comes to ten tons.”
I think the intent is that Robby doesn’t really have a sense of humor – as Morbius says “Don’t attribute feelings to him. Robby is just a machine.” – but his inadvertent choice of phrase or unintended reaction make him appear to have a sense of humor.
As for those lines where Robby appears to be dcemonstratingh wit (as with the “I rarely use it myself sir” and the exasperated “Again?”), I hold that Morbius programmed those in, just as he programmed Robby with all those languages and dialects – Morbiusd is a _philologist_, after all, and language is his business – including wit and humor. I guess Morbius needed something to occupy his time as Altaira was groiwing up.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/14 "2015-04-06T01:40:35Z")
V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (voiced by Roddy MacDowell) in Disney’s **The Black Hole** definitely had a sense of humor.
The Black Hole is an odd movie. As with so many Disney products, it had higher aspirations on the drawing board than it did onscreen. Whereas VINCENT in the actual film looked pretty goofy – with literal Goofy eyes – in the pre-production sketches he was an impressive, multi-armed robot, without the Googly Eyes
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### Author:  [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/15 "2015-04-06T02:35:52Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> his inadvertent choice of phrase or unintended reaction make him appear to have a sense of humor.
I can relate.
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### Author:  [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/16 "2015-04-06T03:05:36Z")
In “Interstellar” the sense-of-humor percentage of the robot’s programming was referenced a few times.
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### Author:  [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/17 "2015-04-06T13:37:49Z")
There is Dot form Space Balls and plenty of funny robots in the animated movie “Robots” featuring Robbin Williams.
> [@mbh](#):
>
> If we are including TV shows, there is _Tripping the Rift_. The robot is the straight man more often than the joker, but he does have a rather dry wit.
>
> “How come all you robots and AIs all believe in God?”
> “Because, if we did not believe in a Divine Creator, we would have to revere the engineering geeks who built us.”
>
> And, of course, Bender in _Futurama_.
Your priorities could not be more upside down.
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (voiced by Roddy MacDowell) in Disney’s **The Black Hole** definitely had a sense of humor.
>
> The Black Hole is an odd movie. As with so many Disney products, it had higher aspirations on the drawing board than it did onscreen. Whereas VINCENT in the actual film looked pretty goofy – with literal Goofy eyes – in the pre-production sketches he was an impressive, multi-armed robot, without the Googly Eyes
I don’t think I’ve seen the concept art. I was always fascinated by the eyes on the good guy robots in that movie. They have human type expressions.
It distinguishes them from the totally faceless drones, the enforcers with steely, unforgiving squints and Maximilian with his red eye of evil.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/18 "2015-04-06T13:56:04Z")
Original Battlestar:
Baltar: Burn, Galactica. You’re finished, Adama!
Cylon Pilot: [looking out to port] Sir, if I may…
Baltar: I don’t want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar’s destruction.
Cylon Pilot: I really think you should take look at the other Battlestar.
Computer (so far as we know, not really a robot, but who knows? There could be a robot in a control room talking into a mike…)
Tony Stark: [gazes at a 1930s hotrod] Tell you what. Throw a little hotrod red in there.
Jarvis: Yes, that should help you keep a low profile.
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### Author:  [@Gothic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gothic)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/19 "2015-04-06T14:17:48Z")
Ash in Alien.
Ash: I can’t lie to you about your chances, but… you have my sympathies.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/futuristic-sci-fi-movies-where-robots-have-a-sense-of-humor/716909/20 "2015-04-06T15:31:05Z")
> [@Gothic](#):
>
> Ash in Alien.
>
> Ash: I can’t lie to you about your chances, but… you have my sympathies.
Likewise Bishop seems to have a somewhat dark sense of humor. Taking Hudson’s hand for the knife game and the wry look he gives the pistol Vasquez hands him for his tunnel trip before passing it off the Ripley.
Also, “I may be synthetic, but I’m not stupid.”
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