Boston Dynamics Big Dog Robots Pull Santa’s Sleigh, Ruin Christmas

Boston Dynamics makes robots. It makes big robots and little robots and jarring bipedal robots that can run (read: “chase humans”) through the woods. The engineering and design firm was spun-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992, and acquired by Google two years ago. Now, Boston Dynamics has ruined Christmas.

What you see here are the company’s gangly, metallic dogs dressed up as reindeer. They are pulling a sled through a conspicuously snowless field, encouraged by a woman, who is presumably some kind of hostage and being forced to do this, wearing a Santa Claus outfit. The idyllic caroling audio track only makes it all worse.

I’d like to opt out now. The blue pill, please. Any pill. All the pills. Just not convulsing, vaguely zoomorphic robots pulling a sled through the barren landscape to celebrate Jesus Christ’s birthday.