animatronicadj.n.

1976 Washington Post 7 Mar. m2/3 Expensive ride technology—such as the animatronic mechanical figures in the pirates of the Caribbean ride.

1990 20/20 July 21/3 Jim Henson had come up with an animatronic process of remote control for the facial expressions of the turtle heads.

1993 Daily Tel. 27 Mar. (Weekend Suppl.) p. xxxiii/8 An automatic piano plays, complete with large-as-life animatronic pianist.

2007 Chicago Tribune (Midwest ed.) 19 Jan. (Life section) 3 (caption) Jurassic Park seems one step closer to reality with the arrival of this..animatronic torosaurus.

1983 Financial Times 16 Apr. 11/4 A Disney engineer..waxed eloquently on the sophistication of ‘animatronics’... Singing bears, drunken pirates and gambolling elephants do not merely look ‘realistic’; their programmed movements are uncannily natural.

1989 Creative Rev. June 54/3 Sitting in their office in a Winston Churchill-style suit is a life-size animatronic of the Prime Minister, which moves and talks according to the taped programme.

2003 New Yorker 1 Dec. 58/3 When an animatronic doesn't move smoothly, the F/X artists in Winston's shop say it has the ‘wagga waggas’.