In the first season episode of NBC's short-lived Hard Day's Night knockoff The Monkees "Monkee vs. Machine," (1966) a naive human manages to outwit a human resources computer during a job interview. After encouraging fellow band member Peter Tork to try to get a low-level job at a toy factory, Michael Nesmith takes revenge on a dehumanizing interview process by beating the computer at its own game, resulting in smoke, sparks and punch cards spewing out of the machine. These scenes from The Monkees are typical of televisual portrayals of computers during the 1960s, when machines were routinely compared unfavorably to the virtues of humanity.

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