At the 1939 World’s Fair, Westinghouse, which had an interest in robotics even a decade before, unveiled two robot prototypes: a humanoid named Elektro and a dog named Sparko.
Elektro was able to
walk, count and smoke cigarettes (which likely did not make his voice raspy, since he talked using a record player) while Sparko was able to sit up and bark. Take that, G.E.!
Sparko and Elektro. The big guy was 7 feet tall and weighed 300 lbs. No wonder science fiction was scary.