Looking for a long lost short comedy on HBO maybe the late 70's?

January 27, 2020 5:54 PM

Back when HBO was a baby service I saw a short comedy about an ATM that talked and questioned the person's use of his funds. The voice implied it was in communication with another ATM and fact checked the man as to HIS use of the funds. Ended up by stealing the man's watch and offering it to the next user instead of funds.
posted by Freedomboy to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Do you think this could have been a skit on Not Necessarily The News? It was a sketch comedy show that ran from 1982 to 1990s. Your timeframe of the "late 70s" seems early for ATMs. They existed but I don't think they were well known enough to be really commented on in that way until the 1980s.

The show often had sketches along those lines, commenting on current events and technology.

I know this doesn't answer the question, but it might be a starting point.
posted by bondcliff at 6:40 AM on January 28, 2020

Response by poster: 70"s for certain, son born in '74, saw this when he was a toddler in the same room. The point was the newness of the ATM experience.
posted by Freedomboy at 9:22 AM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Also a lead, rather than a definitive answer:
"During the earlier years of the network, various short films would be aired in-between films and other programming, originally billed as Something Short and Special. Around 1980, InterMissions, as they were now called, were bannered in two groupings: Video Jukebox, for when music videos were played (these segments were eventually separated from the other intermission shorts and gained various longform spinoffs, also titled as Video Jukebox or variants thereof), and Special, for the various short films. By 1984, the shorts had largely been reduced to comedic shorts (originally named HBO Comedy Shorts and then as HBO Short Takes, which used a set of different animated intros)..."
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:41 AM on January 28, 2020