On this day in 1982, TV audiences learned that Computers Are People, Too! At a time when PCs were far from common in most households, the show offered a look at how dancers, artists, and composers use computers to create or enhance their own craft (not by coincidence, the program coincided with the original release of the computer-related film Tron). Crude, simple, and light years away from the type of technology that produces films such as Toy Story, this show was nevertheless quite advanced for its time. “We didn’t have any idea what we were doing, and that, of course, is a great learning opportunity, so we probably learned as much as a person could learn on one production,” producer Mike Bonifer says. “Cardon Walker and I produced the show. I remember that the hosted part of the show was pretty much a mess. The lighting was pretty bad. We shot in the Mayfair Theater in Santa Monica. [Director] Denis Sanders and [Post production supervisor] Art Swerdloff didn’t know what they were doing when it came to production management, so the City of Santa Monica shut us down, and we had to get someone from the Studio to come down to City Hall and bail us out of our jam. The shoot went on forever that night. Elaine Joyce was the host. She was nice and pretty and everything, but had no clue what she was talking about. We had host computers that talked, and green screens we had to fill in post production. The other noteworthy thing about the show, for me, was the montage of CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) we cut together for it. I think it’s arguably the best collection of CGI from that era ever assembled. It, of course, had clips from Tron, and all the groundbreaking work of the time. It was fantastic. Worth wading through the rest of the show for. It was the gold standard. [Disney historian] Jim Fanning came up with the name for the show. I told him one day we needed a title for the show. There was a series on TV at the time called Kids Are People, Too. Jim came back into my office the next day with the title for the show. After the show had aired, I’d hear from people who’d have been in some really cool club in Hollywood, our montage of CGI from Computers Are People, Too! was playing on their video screens with early techno music!”