In Dec. 2018, Amazon launched its Big Mouth Billy Bass with Alexa compatibility. Sure, it sounds like a goofy premise, especially when juxtaposed with Stanley Kubrick's sprawling vision in his genre-defining sci-fi film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Still, the Alexa Big Mouth Billy Bass touts (or trouts?) a nifty set of skills which posit it as a hybrid of smart home and consumer tech. Back in 2016, developer Brian Kane hacked a Big Mouth Billy Bass and, with Alexa's API, added artificial intelligence (AI) support via Alexa. Now, an official version from Gemmy Industries offers an Alexa-enabled Big Mouth Billy Bass. Unlike the majority of smart assistants such as Amazon Echo devices or Google Assistant speakers, the Big Mouth Billy Bass comes in a decidedly non-smart home form factor.

Big Mouth Billy Bass is making a return and the updated version connects with Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa. Remember Big Mouth Billy Bass? That strange wall-mounted fish from the '90s that sings "Take Me to the River?" Well, now it connects to Amazon Alexa's voice assistant, and its lips will move in-sync with Alexa's voice commands. The fish can respond to inquiries about the weather, your commute, news, random facts and more.

It is one of the most irritating toys ever made - and has been given a hi-tech makeover. The original Big Mouth Billy Bass infuriated many with its incessant flapping and singing. Now, it can lip sync to anything Alexa says, and even dance along to music. The original Big Mouth Billy Bass infuriated many with its incessant flapping and singing. Now, it can lip sync to anything Alexa says, and even dance along to music.

It is one of the most irritating toys ever made - and has been given a hi-tech makeover. The original Big Mouth Billy Bass infuriated many with its incessant flapping and singing. Now, it can lip sync to anything Alexa says, and even dance along to music. The original Big Mouth Billy Bass infuriated many with its incessant flapping and singing. Now, it can lip sync to anything Alexa says, and even dance along to music.

You probably caught video a few weeks back of Alexa speaking through Big Mouth Billy Bass, a singing fish that got popular in the late 1990s. If you haven't seen it yet, take a moment to watch and enjoy. The animatronic fish is a good reminder that Amazon's Alexa does not just come in speakers like Amazon Echo or Echo Dot. The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) can be used to put Alexa inside a wide range of devices, and since it's in the cloud, Alexa can operate without dependency on a local device for computing power. With Amazon deep learning services, the Lex bot framework, and a smarter Alexa Skills Kit announced at AWS re:Invent this week, people can expect to see and interact with Alexa in places way beyond an Echo or animatronic fish.

Forget Black Mirror, nothing screams'we are headed towards the singularity' like a Big Mouth Billy Bass that responds to voice commands. The early 2000s Christmas present has long terrified us, even nearly provoking a panic attack in Tony Soprano. Today, a video is doing the rounds of an altered Billy who essentially has the brain of Alexa - Android's digital assistant answer to Apple's Siri. The fish even mimics the speech pattern of the disembodied voice, and is perhaps most chilling when initially springing to life to acknowledge its creator's weather request. Big Mouth Billy Bass is an enduring toy oddity much like the Furby, which is soon to be the subject of a big screen live-action/CGI adaptation for some reason.

A developer named Brian Kane has hacked his Alexa to speak through the avatar of a wall-mounted Big Mouth Billy Bass. It's not clear exactly how he did it, but it's probably related to the Alexa API -- opened in April just after the release of the Dot -- which allows developers to embed the smart assistant in third-party hardware. In the Facebook video, you can clearly see the animatronic fish responding to Alexa's wake word and moving its mouth in sync with her commands. The results, embedded above, are unsettling to say the least. The Big Mouth Billy Bass is a classic of novelty shops and Wal-Marts, designed to sing "Take Me To The River" or "Don't Worry Be Happy" when its motion sensor is activated.

The video is simply captioned, "the future" ― and it's a dystopian vision indeed. Gizmodo suggests that Kane could have accomplished this feat by using Amazon's API that lets people embed the Alexa technology in third-party devices. TechCrunch noted he also could have just shoved an Amazon Echo -- the wireless voice command device where you usually hear Alexa's voice -- inside the fish. Please just no one let this guy get his hands on a Teddy Ruxpin.