> (The word "robot" didn't appear until 1921, when Czech dramatist Karel Čapek coined it in his science fiction play R.U.R..)
George Meliese's silent films and automatons were at the core of the beautifully illustrated and written YA novel from the mid-2000s named The Invention of Hugo Cabret [0].
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Hugo_Cabret
Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.
Gugusse looks more to me like the "mad inventor" of the robot, with a comedic bald head.
You still occasionally see them at state functions (Trump wore an infamously poor-looking one when visiting Queen Elizabeth in his first term, iirc, and you can find photos of people like Reagan in it looking a bit less uncomfortable). I think they were standard/required clothing for arguing in front of the Supreme Court through the 1970s or something.
It’s the kind of jacket one might imagine a stereotypical cartoon mayor of a town wearing for a daytime ribbon cutting… because, not that long ago, that’s exactly what they would have worn.
It’s an almost, but not quite, dead piece of clothing, but it was still quite familiar when this was made.