“Japan’s first robot buddy cop movie”

There’s a phrase that makes me perk right up and pay atten­tion. I found this on the Inter­net, thanks to Wil Wheaton, and it struck me that whether or not it’s true, the sto­ry is awesome.

And I quote:

Japan’s first robot bud­dy cop movie, a silent film released in 1919, was shown only once, to an assem­bly of wealthy land own­ers in Tokyo. When the film end­ed, the audi­ence demand for afford­able giant robots to work their fields and con­trol the peas­ants was so insis­tent, emper­or Hiro­hi­to had the only copy of the film impound­ed and destroyed to pre­vent the idea from cap­tur­ing the public’s imagination.

Found via Wil Wheaton’s tum­blr. Go ahead, click through. There’s a great pho­to and everything.