Macenstein

If you’re like me, you’ll never let a little thing like “proof” get in the way of a good story, especially if it involves robots. To that end, I present you with distant creation’s story of the animatronic Steve Jobs.

Allegedly, DC is claiming that a robotic likeness of Steve Jobs will be making a cameo in an upcoming revision to Disney’s famous Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot. The exhibit is said to feature “a young, bearded man in jeans, sitting in a messy garage, working on an early prototype of the personal computer. That young man looks a whole lot like Apple founder Steve Jobs, who became Disney’s largest shareholder and a member of its board of directors when Disney purchased Pixar in 2006.” There seems to be some debate as to whether or not Steve will be mentioned by name in the ride’s narration, but the author (Ricky) claims that ” it’s very obvious that it is [him]. ”

Now, forgoing the fact that Ricky only offers “I wish I could tell you. At this point, you’re just going to have to trust me. ;)” as proof of this story’s origin, the really disturbing thing about this article, if it proves to be true, is that Steve would have to had to approve this. Since Jobs currently sits on Disney’s board and IS their largest shareholder, there is no way Steve would let something like that get this far without his OK, and no way anyone who has ever read stories about Steve (and who likes their job) would dare to try to slip something like that by. This means someone would have had to actually approach Steve and say “Hey, we want to make a robotic version of you to show that Apple led the personal computer revolution” or something (we’ll give Steve the benefit of the doubt that he did not start Pixar Studios all those years ago as part of a plan to one day take over Disney and insert himself in the Epcot ride. Although, now that I mention it…).

So why is it a bad thing that Steve (allegedly) knowingly agreed to have his robotic likeness grace the exhibit? After all, Apple did pretty much kick off the whole personal computing thing. Well, actually, there’s nothing wrong with it, or more specifically, there wouldn’t be, so long as his counterpart Steve Wozniak were to be featured along side him. Remember, Woz actually invented the darn things we now type out our Jobs-worship upon, and while I would not belittle Jobs’ contribution, I would say at least equal credit should go to the other Steve, especially at the time (allegedly) being depicted in the ride.

Of course, both Steve’s had beards at the time, and Woz wasn’t as “jolly” then as he is now, so there’s a slight chance that if this rumor is true, it is in fact Woz we are seeing in the exhibit, and maybe Jobs arranged it as a tribute to his… friend? Former co-worker? (Are they even speaking?).

Anyway, I’m personally rooting for this to be true. I’m not sure what current section of Spaceship Earth the new animatronic Steve would be replacing, but I just want to see how high the bidding gets in 15 years when a new exhibit pushes the roboSteve out onto eBay. I’m sure there is a woman somewhere who would pay big bucks for a young robotic Steve Jobs to do with as they please.