#mr. roboto

[secret-unburnt-guitars]

The 1983 Kilroy Was Here Tour Program (...and its glaring issue)

There is in existence a tour program that was made to promote KWH. Printed in 1983, (when else would it be?) the program most likely was distributed at the concert itself.

I first found it on eBay, and god, did it piss me off when I read it.

For the most part, it does a decent job at bringing the reader and/or audience member up to speed with the plot behind... whatever they're about to witness. Feasible design work too, good photos, just a little large in my opinion, but who am I to complain?

(Sorry if the quality's low, my scanner stopped working so this is from my phone camera.)

The program is supposed to be in-universe, explaining the "recent events" that have occurred, including things like Dr. Righteous' rise to power, Jonathan's hijacking, and Kilroy's escape. It touches on specifics such as Kilroy only serving five years of his life sentence among other things such as excerpts from faux articles about Hyde and Vanish being hired to be Righteous' official cronies.

The very large problem here (plain to see) is the members' biographies. "Oh but Rosie I don't see what's wrong with it, it's just some corny way of listing off the members while staying in character it's not that important" I'm going to be honest with you. I am looking you directly in the eye now. First of all, hang on for a moment. I'll explain. Second, no, it's not important. Not to you, maybe, but have you ever had a rock in your shoe while you walk and every time you take a step you feel that rock stab directly into your pinky toe, and when you finally get a chance to take off your shoe, you realize somehow it's in your fucking sock, so you have to go through all the trouble of sitting down, taking off your sock, shaking out that stupid rock that turned out to be probably the tiniest pebble you've ever seen in your entire life, putting on your sock again, and spending 2 minutes re-lacing your shoe because you decided to wear Converse that day like a bumbling moron, wondering how in the hell that rock even managed to make it in? That's what this feels like to me. This has been bugging me for almost a year. It's never going to stop bugging me.

Sorry, anyway, if you've watched Caught In the Act, you would know that the entire concert takes place within Kilroy's flashback. To recap a previous post: after the minifilm was displayed and Mr. Roboto was... performed, the show briefly transitions into a scripted banter between Kilroy and Jonathan. Jonathan asks if Kilroy was actually responsible for the death at the show, in which Kilroy reveals that he was framed by "that son of a bitch Righteous" and proceeds to explain how the fateful night at the Paradise truly went.

"The crowd was so psyched. There was so much tension and excitement," he says. "But when JY started the show in his guitar solo, the place went wild!"

This goes into a full-length concert. A full-length concert, in fact, with each existing member of Styx at the time. The actual Tommy Shaw, James Young, and Chuck and John Panozzo were all there and playing their guitars and drums and bass and whatnot under the name Kilroy. Narcissistic much? Not to fear. Dennis DeYoung unintentionally erased himself from this story, as the show was Kilroy's flashback. Obviously, this means they very much exist within KWH as themselves and at roughly the same time as their fictional counterparts. There is absolutely no way that any of them would be the same person, inevitably creating four sets of doppelgängers that scamper around Chicago.

Now the thing that makes me want to scream as loud as I can at 5 AM:

As shown above, each bio lists the members' names and their 'aliases' as the characters they play. Again, you would probably think "oh that's probably not to be interpreted the way you are right now," in which I would curtly remind you about the rock in your shoe. Look at JY's. Really look at it.

"Reformed guitarist." Who the fuck reformed him?????? Hyde and Vanish I can somewhat understand, but Righteous is the founder and leader of the Majority for Musical Morality. I'm speaking completely within the officially established canon here and I'm not referencing any of my own fanlore. You go "oh well maybe someone else reformed him and then he became Dr. Righteous" What's in your shoe right now? Huh? Do you want to tell me what's in your shoe right now? Righteous is at the very top, who would reform him??? He's been like this from the beginning. JY couldn't have been reformed, because he was at the concert playing the guitar when the band gets raided by the MMM. The existence of the organization AND Code 672 confirms the simultaneous existence of Righteous. They're two different people who coincidentally look the same.

I want to focus on Jonathan real quick too because I think this is the second-most blatant out of all of them, right behind JY.

At the tail-end of their concert after the raid, that one nerdy guy from the Heavy Metal Poisoning number gets killed off. This ends the flashback and brings us back to the present and especially back to Jonathan, who most definitely did not know about any of that and sings a little song. When he gets that weird glowing guitar in the finale it is made absolutely clear that Jonathan Chance does not know how to play, thus separating Jonathan from Tommy. (On a side note, this means that the person that raided the Dr. Righteous Show in the HMP music video was probably Tommy. Good on him.)

This physically hurts me to think about but I try and keep my peace by reminding myself that there's nothing I can do about this. I wouldn't have much of a problem with this if it wasn't actually (albeit unintentionally) canon.

This isn't a plot hole, this is a plot trench. I can't keep my peace. This is hell on Earth. Save me.

[mavibonghostexpress]

Mr. Roboto..

[bgranville]

Another Retrotober!

Here are Rupert the egotistical mini t-rex, Sheepington the anxious brain-cell holder, and Mr. Roboto, a robot assistant.

Here they are from 2012 with some of their other friends. I didn't change their designs at all.

They're story was that they were on a children's show that got cancelled. Now they're out of work actors trying not to starve or kill each-other while looking for work.

I made them up when I was in high school in the 2000s and drew a few little comics. They would have been the stars of my first webcomic, but I was initially intimidated by the idea that a webcomic needed to basically be a novel or something. Then Bojack Horseman came out...

I forgot how fun it was to draw these silly little animals! I still love them!

[your-funky-squip-companion]

i cant get the vision of squip playing guitar to every computer-related song no matter how ooc it is

[scholarofgloom]

[rubiatinctorum]

*styx voice* i am the

[megafighter343]

Anyone wanna make a Styx musical?

So, I mulled over the idea of a musical based on the Styx concept album Kilroy Was Here. After a quick talk with ChatGPT, I now have a playbill

Act 1:

Mr. Roboto Cold War Don't Let It End High Time Heavy Metal Poisoning

Act 2:

Just Get Through This Night Double Life Renegade (from "Pieces of Eight" album) Haven't We Been Here Before Don't Let It End (Reprise)

Encore:

Come Sail Away (from "The Grand Illusion" album)

If any of you theater kids on here wanna have a go at taking this tracklist, writing a story around it and putting on a production, then have it. I wanna see the results.

[oooklathemok]

Styx - Mr. Roboto (Official Video)

[growingupgreene]

I had an interesting revelation tonight in a conversation with my dad. We were listening to Styx’s “Kilroy was here” album & he said that it was Classic Rock. Which I disagreed with, since to me, Classic Rock is the ‘50’s-‘60’s rock era. Styx is definitely Rock ‘n Roll, but not Classic. Just straight Rock.

His take was that Mr. Roboto is classic rock, as in it’s a classic song. I agree with that, but found it intriguing that we had different definitions for “Classic Rock”. I was thinking of it as a genre or sub genre, a specific era of rock music, with a capital C. He was thinking of it as a way to determine songs that have staying power, with a lowercase c. Both are right, but come from different directions. It’s fascinating to think that we can use the exact same word but mean quite different things.

Also, “Kilroy was here” isn’t just an album. It’s a whole rock drama, which I only found out about because the album back cover had the cast pics & the inside of the album had a synopsis. It’s on YouTube, so I know what I’ll have on in the background while I work tomorrow…

[magicallarynx]

okay don’t perceive me but like……. I just KNOW he’s got that “sex god” autism ✊😔

[textsearchaccessgooglemicrosoft]

[secret-unburnt-guitars]

things i never posted from august

[80ssonglyricmeditations]

The problem’s plain to see; too much technology. Machines to save our lives, machines dehumanize.

[storyweaverofgondor]

Ok, listening to Mr. Roboto didn't fix me but it did unlock a particular childhood mind space so there's that.

[mistfunk]

Mistigram: hats off to @roboto_txt of HPM for tying for first place in this weekend's quarterly Blender improvised art competition -- a contest it seems he just can't lose! This kicks off the first of five #ANSIart screens I might well share with you demonstrating his superior "blending" of the surprise topics #godzilla / skyscraper / playing #chess. Open up your calendars, the next Blender is up the weekend of October 21st!