Video: Urinal Elephants invade Japan

Uh oh. Best hide the nuts and urinal cakes 'cause a herd of baby blue elephants with little yellow hats are on the loose in Japan. Meet the Urinal Elephant, otherwise known as the Dasubee toilet scrubbing robot. Back 'er up to a ceramic throne of human effluence and watch big blue wipe down your man-stew with the lumbering grace of a robotic elephant. Video? You betcha, right after the break.

[Stevie Wonder @ Apr 22nd 2008 6:32AM]

So...

Are we gonna talk about this big elephant in the room?

[Tim Brown @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:59AM]

Nah, what worries me is the brown robot crocodile that is sitting in the crapper, I've been holding it in all night!

[Gaz @ Apr 22nd 2008 12:21PM]

Drop a big fat log on it!

[OneLove @ Apr 23rd 2008 11:28AM]

@jason: when are you gonna get a life?

[ScooterDe @ Apr 22nd 2008 6:40AM]

hmm, covers urinal, makes lots of noise. Impressive.

[The Cadet @ Apr 22nd 2008 6:52AM]

I can never manage to 'go' when theres an Elephant in the room.
I Don't feel safe.

[Esat Dedezade @ Apr 22nd 2008 6:53AM]

*Reads article*

I see.


This makes no sense whatsoever.

[Bernhard @ Apr 22nd 2008 6:56AM]

I think people will start making more of a mess to clean up when this thing starts invading their privacy.

[bartoron @ Apr 22nd 2008 7:00AM]

That's funny, they usually put attractive women in Japanese advertisments.

[Kahlil Sapp @ Apr 22nd 2008 10:05AM]

Ive done worse. And I bet you have too!

[Chris @ Apr 22nd 2008 7:08AM]

I, for one, welcome our new robotic elephant toilet cleaning overlords.

I had to do it.

[rdwoolf @ Apr 22nd 2008 10:04AM]

Did you say Overlords? You mean Protectors, right?

[Fred @ Apr 22nd 2008 7:17AM]

She's cute, in a chubby kinda Spinal-Tapish fat-bottomed way. I'd let her assist me.

[Matthew @ Apr 22nd 2008 8:44AM]

under the table?

[Fred @ Apr 22nd 2008 8:55AM]

That's definitely face-to-face. Seriously.

[whowhatme @ Apr 22nd 2008 2:25PM]

wait, which elephant?

[Nate @ Apr 22nd 2008 7:19AM]

That is too freakin' cool!!! Making it into a big blue elephant is so much classier somehow...

[absurdio @ Apr 22nd 2008 7:20PM]

uh.

[John Z @ Apr 22nd 2008 7:46AM]

Japan: Where a toilet-scrubbing robot isn't cool enough by itself, so they have to make it into an ADORABLE toilet-scrubbing robot.

The fact that there exists something that let me write the phrase "adorable toilet-scrubbing robot" in all honesty and seriousness just goes to show you that the US needs to step up the robotics research, and fast. Otherwise we're going to be overrun by cute, pastel deathdroids that smile and twitter in high-pitched voices as they blast us with glittery rainbow lasers of doom.

[Juaquin @ Apr 23rd 2008 4:22AM]

The awesome from this comment can not be contained.

Also, I want to see the other side of the elephant. Watching it cover a urinal and make lots of noise just isn't that impressive.

[Ghen @ Apr 23rd 2008 9:30AM]

it looks like robot elephant ass, why do you want to look at robot elephant ass?

[Shane @ Apr 22nd 2008 7:46AM]

Wait...What?

[John @ Apr 22nd 2008 7:54AM]

Isn't there something inherently paradoxical about sticking a urinal up an elephant's ass to clean it?

[sinjinn @ Apr 22nd 2008 8:17AM]

haha.. have to watch the video with this new perspective now.

[The Cadet @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:13AM]

@John,

That made the Pepsi i was drinking come out of my nose.
Bravo, My Friend, Bravo.

I can still feel the bubbles in my nose. ITCHY!!

Thanks for the laugh

[NONO @ Apr 23rd 2008 3:43AM]

Bravo indeed my friend... this whole thread of replies is freaking hilarious!

[Sean @ Apr 22nd 2008 8:20AM]

everytime i see an elephant i just can't stop picturing it having a conversation with a snake.

[gad get @ Apr 23rd 2008 2:55AM]

Sorry?

[paragraph @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:08AM]

The hat is a nice touch.

I have to admit, as odd as this is, it's creative. Just think what the japaneese would have done if they invented the zamboni? It's be pastel orange, be a cute tiger, and probably have TWO hats.

[Harlo @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:11AM]

Major bonus points for the use of 'man-stew.'

[The Cadet @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:14AM]

Ha Ha, Man Stew, I'm going to refer to it as that from now on,
I only just noticed.

[welchb @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:52AM]

I came into the comments purely to make this comment. Well done Harlo and Thomas.

[T H @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:25AM]

Ugh.

"man-stew".

[Jiggs @ Apr 22nd 2008 6:45PM]

Better than "man-chowder".

[Chris @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:41AM]

I live in Japan and I always chuckle when I see a sign above the urinal that says, "Please take one step forward"!

[Jason Collin @ Apr 22nd 2008 9:51AM]

A big-ass robotic elephant cleaning up the urinals while I'm using one nearby would make me feel more at ease than the usual middle-aged to senior women one often finds cleaning them while they are in operation. (yes, women are in the men's room while men use them, can't see how that can't be viewed as entrapment!)

[gad get @ Apr 23rd 2008 3:41AM]

"Apparently, some guys who've used our washrooms have concerns about our practice of having female caretakers clean out nearby urinals even while men are relieving themselves. We need to help them feel comfortable using our facilities."

"Sir, what if we had the women push robotic blue cleaning elephants in yellow hats up to the urinals to do the work instead?"

"Great idea, Yakamura!"

[Gibson @ Apr 22nd 2008 10:02AM]

What...

What did I just see?

[jon roig @ Apr 22nd 2008 10:02AM]

That's cool... but is it really a robot?

[Steffen Jobbs @ Apr 22nd 2008 10:08AM]

Urine the money, dudes. But putting poor immigrants out of jobs isn't so good.

[Hockeypuck55 @ Apr 22nd 2008 10:31AM]

Engineering at its finest.

[Mr. Phillip A. Wood @ Apr 22nd 2008 11:53AM]

Is it just me, or is the intense code in which this article seems to be written much funnier than the articles around it?

[Jared @ Apr 22nd 2008 12:06PM]

Either she's really small or the Japanese have monster-size urinals.

[happy_penguin @ Apr 22nd 2008 12:16PM]

Kinda cool but why the Hello Elephant design?

[Christian @ Apr 22nd 2008 1:10PM]

She looked trapped there at the very end... what happened after? how is this robotic?

[Jerry @ Apr 22nd 2008 6:45PM]

I was thinking the same thing.

If the Elephant went around by itself backing up to urinals to clean them, then yeah, it would be a robot. This? Just a glorified steam cleaner.

Unless something really intense is happening at the ass end of the blue beast. Like, lasers and stuff.

[gad get @ Apr 23rd 2008 3:24AM]

Yeah, really. Where is the robot here?

Imagine how much more impressive it would be if we had a toilet trained elephant lumbering from one urinal to the next practicing its aim.

Of course, if it was autonomous, there would always be the horrific possibility of the silly blue giant accidentally shoving someone face-first into a urinal and then soaking them with anti-bacterial detergent.

[TIMMAH! @ Apr 22nd 2008 1:33PM]

And what cleans the nasty elephant?

[whowhatme @ Apr 22nd 2008 2:27PM]

A Bigger, BLUER elephant

[celloids @ Apr 22nd 2008 1:45PM]

I don't get this and neither do I find this amusing.