Precursors of HAL-9000, Robby the Robot, Proteus IV, and C3PO and R2D2 can be found in the "automaton" film comedies popular in the first decade of the twentieth century such as The Mechanical Statue and the Ingenious Servant (1907, dir. Stuart J. Blackman), The Rubber Man (1909, dir. Sigmund Lubin), and Dr. Smith's Automaton (1910). The automaton was a very popular subject for these early one-reel comedies, in which the mechanical men designed to serve their human creators suddenly go berserk, destroying property and posing threats to humans before they are eventually destroyed. In this sense, these out-of-control robots have more in common with other berserk, neurotic computers and robots such as HAL-9000, Proteus IV, the Terminator, and the countless unstoppable androids and cyborgs from the films of the 1980s and 1990s hell-bent on destroying humans and humanity, than with C3PO, R2D2, and Robby the Robot. These latter robots are continually helpful, maintain their friendly composure, and pose no threat to humans. It is worth noting, however, that these early out-of-control robots were considered appropriate subjects for comedy, and the threats they posed were local and easily containable, unlike their later descendents, whose behavior and motivations often pose more widespread threats, in the age of nuclear war, to humanity at large and the planet as a whole.
