An examination of the rich History of Speech Technology, reveals an industry dominated by numerous quests–scientists and designers and developers striving to create the latest and greatest in voice technologies.
And while these quests have yielded things like TTS, ASR and IVVRs, no Speech Technology Quest has been as storied or heartbreakingly difficult as My Quest for The Guillotine Gary Animated Talking Skeleton.
Since first learning of Guillotine Gary, I have spent days and nights searching for him, scouring the Internet, hoping against all hope to locate Gary. Bur for all my searching–here, here, here and here–I cannot find him.
I know what you are thinking, Speech Heads: Who is Guillotine Gary?
Basically, Guillotine Gary is a talking toy complete with removable head, speech-enabled begging/pleading, and guillotine. One website–which, by the way, had no Guillotine Garys in stock–describes him as follows:
“This guy will have you laughing your head off! Guillotine Gary just wants to keep his head attached, is that too much too ask? Animated Guillotine Gary features a skeleton prisoner wearing prison stripes and a working guillotine. When pushed, Gary starts pleading for his life using very convincing arguments. Will he live or die? Requires 3 “AA” batteries (not included).”
My Quest has even led me to recruit my Speech Brother Eric B., begging him to use all his Speech Powers to locate a Guillotine Gary. But even Eric B. has failed me.
Speech-Heads, I implore you: If you have a Guillotine Gary Animated Talking Skeleton, please send it to me care of Speech Tech HQ. I am counting on you Speech-Heads. The Quest Continues: Victory Or Death.
Epic.
[...] looks like all you Speech-Heads are finally getting behind me in my quest to acquire The Guillotine Gary Animated Talking [...]