Disney Channel's Smart House turns 20 -- and got a lot of things about the future right, from Alexa to Siri

Slate

LeVar Burton is stunned that the Disney Channel Original Movie he directed is turning 20 this month. Smart House stars Katey Sagal as Pat, a Personal Applied Technology or Smart House. "June 26, 1999, was a momentous day in the history of the internet of things, though the phrase itself had only barely been born," says Jennifer Huddleston. "Twenty years ago, an artificial intelligence system named 'Pat' revolutionized, and then terrorized, the lives of the Cooper family in the Disney Channel Original Movie Smart House. For millennials like me, these movies were a classic part of tweendom and still hold a fond place in our hearts. By accident or by design, this late-’90s Disney Channel movie got a surprising number of things about future smart home technologies right. We also grapple with a few similar (if less-outlandish) fears over these technologies. Fortunately, most of these fears will be overcome or remain fiction." Asked about his film, Burton says: "I think the spirit of that movie is very much alive and well in the fields of architecture, design and technology. Siri and Alexa are obviously precursors to Pat.” ALSO: Here's what Smart House got right and wrong.