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  "path": "/26/03/gugusse-and-the-automaton",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-09T17:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://kottke.org",
  "tags": [
    "recently discovered",
    "a digitized copy of the whole film",
    "here’s the story",
    "George Méliès",
    "Gugusse and the Automaton",
    "movies",
    "robots",
    "video"
  ],
  "textContent": "The Library of Congress recently discovered a copy of a “long-lost” film made in ~1897 by George Méliès called Gugusse and the Automaton (Gugusse et l’Automate), which “had not been seen by anyone in likely more than a century” and “was the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot”. It’s also one of the first science fiction films ever made.\n\nYou can watch a digitized copy of the whole film here (it’s only 45 seconds long):\n\nAnd here’s the story of how the film was discovered.\n\n> Equally delighted was Bill McFarland, the donor who had driven the box of films from his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia, to have the cache evaluated.\n>\n> His great-grandfather, William Delisle Frisbee, had been a potato farmer and schoolteacher in western Pennsylvania by day, but by night he was a traveling showman. He drove his horse and buggy from town to town to dazzle the locals with a projector and some of the world’s first moving pictures.\n>\n> He set up shop in a local schoolroom, church, lodge or civic auditorium and showed magic lantern slides and short films with music from a newfangled phonograph. It was shocking.\n>\n> “They must have been thrilled,” McFarland said. “They must have been out of their minds to see this motion picture and to hear the Edison phonograph.”\n\n**Tags:** George Méliès · Gugusse and the Automaton · movies · robots · video",
  "title": "Gugusse and the Automaton",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-09T17:00:00.000Z"
}