You better watch out
You better go hide
You better run fast
I’m telling you why…

Mrs. Claus has murdered Santa and all of his reindeer, and this year she’s coming to your house with her band of killer robot dogs to tell every man, woman, and child that they made the “Naughty List.”

The only gift any of us is getting this year is a glimpse at the bleak future that awaits us all, the one where we are beholden to our robot overlords. It’s a world where jingling bells no longer mean “Merry Christmas,” but that our “animal-tronic” kings are approaching to check on their slave labor.

….What? How do you feel after watching this video from robotics company Boston Dynamics? In it, their “Spot Bots” lead Mrs. Claus in a holiday message, and as helpful as the high-tech robots might be, they can only be so good when they’ve clearly killed Rudolph.

These are actually smaller versions of the company’s BigDog robot that is “a rough-terrain robot that walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads.” You can see “Spot” in action (and the size of this robot compared to the other, bigger, stronger ones made by the company) in the video below.

And because we must understand the enemy if we hope to have any chance at surviving as a species, here’s BigDog in action.

These clearly have tons of practical uses for humans, but I watch too many movies not to know how this ends. I just hope my love of animals will result in a less terrible assignment for me in the robot-animal world.

What other beloved creatures could these things replace that would be as scary as Santa’s reindeer? Tell us below.

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HT: Gizmodo

Image: Boston Dynamics/YouTube