So Now I Own a Tomy Hootbot

Years ago, I posted here a simple question: “Why Don’t I Already Have a Tomy Hootbot?” At the time, I’d just learned that these robot owl… things were produced in the ’80s by Tomy, the Japanese corporation best known for those dinky handheld video games but also Giga Pudding (apparently). And yeah, it seemed like I should own a robot owl. Why shouldn’t I? So when this Canadian guy tried to Google around about the Tomy Hootbot he found, he ended up on that very post and consequently emailed me asking if I’d like to buy his Tomy Hootbot. It still seemed like I should own a robot owl, I guess. Again, why shouldn’t I?

And now here it is, on my dining room table:

The owl does more than just sit there, in case you’re wondering. Thirty-some years later, he still turns on and operates properly. It’s just that “proper operations” for this particular toy include none of the things you might expect from owls, robots, robot owls or any other product with a clear purpose. Observe:

Does it hoot?

No, it whistles shrilly at random intervals.

Does it screech?

No. (See previous answer)

Does it fly about the room?

No, but it shakes its sideflaps, producing a plastic-on-plastic clicking sound.

Does its neck swivel in a humorous fashion?

No, it turns on par with how most humans can turn their necks.

Does it prey on mice and other rodents?

No, I have just as many mice now as I did before I got the Tomy Hootbot.

What else does it do?

It clicks its toes against its pedestal.

Is that… something owls do?

I really don’t know. But I don’t think so. It’s certainly not something they’ve become famous for.

But it’s a robot. Does it, like, fire lasers from its eyes?

Its eyes glow red, but alas — so far, no optic lasers.

I heard owls are often associated with wisdom. Does the Tomy Hootbot seem wise to you?

No.

Are you at least glad that it was the Tomy Hootbot that you ended up getting as a result of this blog and not the Otamatone?

Yes, I suppose that is the bright side here.

So how has the Tomy Hootbot changed your life?

Well, I’ve thought a lot about who invented the Tomy Hootbot and what their intentions were. I wonder if they consider the Tomy Hootbot a triumph or a failure. I wonder if they have a closet full of them that they turn on all at once and if maybe the whistling and clicking becomes so loud that people passing on the street stop and wonder what the hell is going on in there. I also wonder if maybe the product’s beautiful design — and it does look amazing, all these years later — was the result of one person and it was another person’s job to plan out what the Tomy Hootbot would actually do, and the first person did a really good job and then the second person was like “What if it just that there and whistled and clicked?” And so the first person was all, “Um, those are two things that owls don’t do. I feel like your end of this project isn’t really on par with mine.” And then the second person started crying and mentioned how he’d been having problems at home because it’s tough paying for little Ayumi’s special school. “But we love her so much!” And the first person was all “What a Monday!”

Why do you keep saying the full name, “Tomy Hootbot”?

Manners.

Anything else?

Well, now no one can tell me that I don’t own a robot owl. That’s something no one will ever take away from me — unless they specifically steal my Tomy Hootbot.

Stay tuned for my upcoming post: “Why Don’t I Have a Hoverboard?”

Hooter Simpson

The following picture shows you a decorative ceramic dish my coworker keeps on her desk.

It’s an owl. She thinks it looks especially like that dick owl from the “How many licks?” Tootsie Roll Pop ad. You know, the one where the owl steals the kid’s candy? Anyway, I think my coworker is right about the resemblance. However, she keeps it with its little ceramic owl feet pointed toward her. I see it from the other end, and it looks like this:

And I can’t un-see Homer Simpson — especially the sixth-season DVD case that’s shaped like the top half of his head. Maybe a little stylized, but the color and the eye shape are dead-on.

Right?

I just thought I’d share that with the world.

Two Strikes Against Owls

I honestly thought I wanted a baby owl until I watched this video.

 

And I’m not even talking about the one eating the rat. I’m talking about the one next him, silently gibbering, BOB from Twin Peaks-style.

Speaking of owls — which is something I’m doing a lot today, I guess — there’s also this less horrifying depiction of these birds.

I swear, I’ve seen mothers in supermarkets make this exact expression.

Hooters Say: You’re Not Porking Enough!

At best, it’s a request for more pig-meat. At worst, it’s something far less innocent. In either case, it’s the word of the week.

morepork (pronounced… um… like it’s spelled) — noun: an owl of the genus Ninox inhabiting New Zealand and Australia.

I offered the pronunciation the way I did not to crack wise — or “be cheeky,” as the moreporks might say — but to note that the pronunciation of the word changes quite a bit depending on whether you’re a North American English-speaker or not. In general, I think you’re meant to pronounce the word as you would the words more and pork. However, because Britons, Aussies, Kiwis and others pronounce the letter “R” differently than I do, the American pronunciation of the word loses quite a bit.

(image credits: stuff.co.nz, tiritiri matangi island, churchmousenz)

As you can see, the morepork has the unfortunate quality of always looking totally freaked out.

Originally, morepork and other, less funny names for this owl such as mopoke and boobook began as onomatopoetic representations of its two-syllable hoot. (That is, the owls may not be what they seem, but they’re actively telling you what they are. The tendency to announce themselves may be characteristic of New Zealand birds, as the kiwi bird’s name is also onomatopoetic.) You can tell by the latter two names that you’re not meant to hear an “R” in morepork, but I’m actually not sure how an American should approach this one. With an affected British “R”? Or as he or she normally would, even though doing so would deprive the word of its reason for existing?

This simple matter could easily be extrapolated into a whole book about interplay and imitation between Americans and Britons. We’ll call it The Morepork in the Mouth of the American. And it will surely mention the Winnie the Pooh character Eeyore, who, as I’ve noted earlier, suffers a similar fate. His name is also onomatopoetic — specifically of the noise a donkey makes. But you wouldn’t know it to hear an American pronounce Eeyore’s name. Coming from someone in A.A. Milne’s homeland, however, Eeyore sounds a lot like the American way of referring to a donkey braying, hee-haw. Plus “R,” minus “H.” Transcontinental English mathematics.

According to the site Curious Words and Phrases, though the word morepork appears in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels in the name of the city Ankh-Morepork, Pratchett said the resemblance is coincidental, though the owl may have been retroactively incorporated into the insignia for the city. Curious Words and Phrases also notes that morepork was used in the The Harp in the South, a novel by New Zealand author Ruth Park:

Not black,” cried Hughie. “I won't have my wife looking like a morepork’s widow.” This pleased him, and he lay there chuckling for some minutes, repeating “morepork’s widow.”

But even being half-New Zealander, I don’t have a clue what morepork’s widow could mean. Ruth Park, I cannot fail to note, gained some fame later for the popular Muddle-Headed Wombat series of books. Oh, down under people — why must you be so down under?

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the owl saddled with this name is also known to some by yet other names, including ruru, spotted owl, marbled owl and tawny frogmouth. That last one is erroneous because the tawny frogmouth is a separate species. And that’s mention enough for me to post a rather endearing photo of a frogmouth doing what it does best: making a goofy face.

For a bird that most cultures associate with wisdom, owls spend a lot of time looking all stupid.

Previous strange and wonderful words:

• adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barrack, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
• catholicon, cecaelia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui
• fabiform, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, froward
• gallinipper, grandgore, grue, gyaru
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, honorificabilitudinitatibus
• itaiitai, ignivomous
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, knipperdollin
• leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, milt, mongo
• nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
• pace, pareidolia, pavonated, petrichor, pismire, pong, puggle, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• tergiversate, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang

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What the Owl Did

See, I can be mature about this. I don’t have to find something smutty to say about every scanned illustration I post. For example, here is an owl.

What a nice owl! I’m not going to make a “hooters” joke. I’m just going to admire this piece of vintage storybook art for what it is. Oh? What’s that? You have another picture of an owl we can use? And he’s doing what?

Oh. Well, that’s a different story then.

The Owls Go

Vintage, whereabouts unknown. Cool though.