MARK 4 WILL FIX DOGS MARK 4 WILL FIX DOGS MARK 4 WILL FIX DOGS

Did you know …

That the films Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2 were both based on the real-life exploits of a real-life robot? It’s true!

“Johnny Mark 4” (the Mark 5 model was never actually built) was made by the Mitsubishi corporation some time between 1981 and 1984, and while “he” was never so intelligent as the character Johnny 5, he was programmed to be semi-autonomous; Mark 4 could complete household tasks with little direction and simulate human conversation reasonably well.

Where real life most significantly diverges from the films is that the titular “short circuit” occurred near the end of Mark 4’s functional lifespan, and, in fact, did not expand his intelligence and awareness as it did with his fictional counterpart.

In early 1985, Mark 4 was assisting in housekeeping duties at an animal shelter as part of a Mitsubishi public relations initiative. Some claim that the short circuit was the result of a dog urinating on Mark 4, but his engineers insist that he was fully waterproof. It’s more likely that Mark 4 simply backed into an electrical outlet while sweeping and received a damaging electrical charge. However it happened, significant short circuits occurred in Mark 4’s processing center that afternoon. Unfortunately, they were not enough to fully disable him; I say “unfortunately,” because the accident damaged something in Mark 4’s logic board, and he immediately stopped cleaning and began disassembling dogs. According to witnesses who viewed the incident from an adjacent hallway, Mark 4 attempted to reassemble the dog parts into a larger, more efficient dog, but the room and its windows were so . . . messy that it seems unlikely that any observer could accurately determine what Mark 4 was attempting. In any case, dogs don’t work like that, and Mark 4 died alone in the locked room as his battery pack was allowed to deplete.

In retrospect, it seems a little strange that they made a movie out of the incident. I can’t say I’m sorry that they did, though. What a fun couple of flicks!