Android story of Heinleins?

[AE35Unit]

I just flicked channels and came across a show called Masters of Science Fiction (on Bravo). The story now playing is called Jerry Was a Man and it features a technique called Bioplasty. Pretty average production but then I saw the words Based on a short story by Robert Heinlein. Anyone know this story?

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, though I haven't read it in nearly thirty years. Sounds like the television version (not surprisingly) took some serious liberties with the thing. If you wish, you can find it and read it in his collection, Assignment in Eternity:

Jerry Was a Man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[AE35Unit]

Hmmm the title Assignment in Eternity rings a bell. I'm sure i had two paperbacks with a similar title,book 1 and book 2, and it was like a novel,not easy reading. I must be confusing it with something else.
I must say,the Joe in this production reminds me of Data from Star Trek,albeit with a much more basic 'brain'

 

[revelshade]

A faithful adaptation would cause an uproar - chimpanzee slave with enhanced (but still subnormal) intelligence sings "Swanee River" to prove his humanity? And do I remember correctly that he calls humans "Boss"? Yeah, that couldn't possibly offend anybody.

I just read that Wikipedia entry. Funny how the writers kept the bit about lying for a cigarette but completely changed the point of it. In the original Jerry's lawyer offers Jerry a cig if he will lie about some trivial fact (how many fingers the lawyer is holding up, I think). Jerry refuses, demonstrating to the court that he knows that lying is wrong. Of course, Jerry was coached in advance and promised even more cigarettes if he played his part correctly!

The end of the story baffled me when I first read it, aged 14 or 15, probably. What did some song have to do with Jerry's humanity?

 

[D.A. Madigan]

Jerry sings a song to evoke sentiment in the judge and jury. That's the only argument his lawyer has... make everyone feel sorry for Jerry, and they'll give him some kind of official quasi-human status so he can't be ground up for dog food. Ironically, it's only this sort of sentiment that moves the rich woman in the story to try to save Jerry from the fertilizer factory anyway.