"Her pants are blazing for you, Newton Crosby."

Borne from the U.S. military-industrial complex during the Cold War, Number 5 went from deadly to DeBarge in one fell swoop. He crossed state lines, armed with an insatiable appetite for input, in a vain attempt to fill void within. Just like part time bon vivant, part time Golem, Al Michaels.

Johnny 5 is, by far, my favorite self-aware robot in the history of moving pictures. Why? Well, he’s seen Ally Sheedy naked. He helped Fisher Stevens find himself. He’s one of the few reasons anyone checks to see if Steve Guttenberg is still alive. And he’s on an eternal quest for humanity. Johnny 5 wants what we all take for granted…to be human.

American society seems to be headed in the opposite direction. We’re wired to thrive on stress and routine. We can’t function without our smartphones and having all the answers at our fingertips. We prefer texting over actual conversation. We’ve traded spontaneity for analytics. We crave formulas for everything. Success. Failure. Happiness. Even spontaneity. We have to remind everyone how spontaneous we are with a calculated post about it on our social networks. We’re too plugged in to be human anymore.

I suppose we’re a lot like Johnny 5. Robots on a quest for something…

I hope it’s humanity.