Gaylord, the 1950's canine automaton with "a bone of his own"
You think you get over things. You think you forget. But the first four seconds of this commercial for Gaylord — a terrifying canine automaton from the 1950's ("He comes with a bone of his own," the announcer informs us. Indeed?) — drew me into a nightmarish re-enactment of the persecution I had to endure every day as I minced around my kindergarten playground. "Gaylord! Gaylord!" the purple-faced goblins of my peer group would cry. Then they descended upon me, a sticky horde that would only stop pinching and poking until I burst into tears and loudly disavowed any spiritual affinity with Care Bears and unicorns. It was terrible, but twenty five years later, I do this same thing to Joel when he comes into the office in the morning. What have I become?
Vintage Gaylord commercial [YouTube]

the latest
latest episodes

I hate to sully your schoolyard nostalgia with schoolroom pedantry, Mr. Brownlee, but "automata" is plural. Gaylord here is a terrifying canine auotomaton. (A tech blogger ought to be getting that right.)
You're right. Fixed.
Thanks for not mocking me about that comment. I was poised to regret posting it almost as soon as I clicked the little red button. Grammar-nerdiness dies hard.
Gaylord's theme song is by electronic music geek Raymond Scott.
I owned one of these as a kid. I never knew it was named "Gaylord". Too bad it, and other cool stuff like my Major Matt Mason gear, got tossed back in the 70's.