Starting yesterday, my email has been flooded with messages from folks I know telling me about the latest “Dancing Robot” video posted by the folks at Boston Dynamics.

For example, the message from my chum, Rick Curl, said “Stop whatever you are doing and watch this video right now!!!” (This is the first time I’ve known Rick to resort to multiple exclamation marks to attract my attention.)

 

I’m sure we’ve all seen the robot acrobatics video by now, but this new offering — which is set to the music of Do You Love Me as depicted here in Motown the Musical — takes things to a whole new level.

We start with just one humanoid robot dancing. Already, it has better moves than your humble narrator. Then we move to two humanoid robots, who are soon joined by a robotic dog. A little later, this amazing trio is joined by a… actually, I’m not sure what this is… it’s a bit like an 8-foot-tall version of one of those happy dippy drinking bird toys (but much more impressive).

At this point, it’s best to just sit back and watch with your mouth hanging open in awe. All I can say is that it’s a sad day when you get to watch a video of a dancing humanoid robot that has better moves than you, especially if your dear old dad used to be a professional dancer (see The Times They Are a-Changin’ (Part 3)).

Stop the press! My chum Jay Dowling just sent me a link to this video showing how Boston Dynamics trained Spot the robot dog to dance in the previous video. I want my own Spot!

 

Both of these videos are worth watching multiple times right up to the very last step, after which it would be great if you could post a comment telling me what you think.