Leave It to Roll-Oh (film #2 on Lifestyles U.S.A., Vol. 1 (Something Weird, 2000). Also in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #819 on Prelinger Archive. Also, film #13 on Ephemeral Films CD-ROM (Voyager) (excerpt)). [Category: Industrial]

If you want something that's guaranteed campy, you can't go too far wrong with early visions of robots. Roll-Oh is a robot taken straight out of a cheap serial and placed in the home with a housewife. He waters flowers with his own water supply, vacuums the carpet with his feet, and scares away a delivery boy. Despite this, he looks incredibly clunky and more trouble than he's worth. After awhile, the narrator tells us he's "just a dream", but that his counterpart already exists in our homes in the form of modern appliances. This film was shown at the GM exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, probably as a rip-off of Electro, the Westinghouse robot that caused such a stir at the fair. But it's a really lame rip-off. This was made during the time when they still couldn't decide how to pronounce the word "robot"––in this film it's pronounced "ROB-but" one time, and "ROBE-it" another.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.