Honda's

April 7, 2003 3:34 PM

Ever played Dominos as a kid? Honda's new TV ad (56K/100K) in the UK takes the concept to extremes, using parts from a car.
Yes, it's an ad, but it's very, very amusing.
posted by Mwongozi (26 comments total)

Andre (torrez.org) pointed to this cool commercial and also to the inspiration for it, "The Way Things Go". He also linked to an excerpt of the DVD. Cool stuff. I like how it's slightly random yet controlled.
posted by jonah at 3:47 PM on April 7, 2003

Oilfilter.

heh, heh
posted by blue_beetle at 3:51 PM on April 7, 2003

And here I thought that might be CGI, since no one could EVER get that to work out that well.
posted by smackfu at 3:51 PM on April 7, 2003

Oh, that kind of playing Dominos. I thought you meant matching the number of white dots.
posted by HTuttle at 4:06 PM on April 7, 2003

Dominos? Looked more like Mousetrap to me.
posted by squealy at 4:10 PM on April 7, 2003

*whistle* 5 yard penalty, bad use of analogy in FPP.
posted by xmutex at 4:15 PM on April 7, 2003

Why do I get the feeling none of you philistines have ever heard of Rube Goldberg?
posted by crunchland at 4:17 PM on April 7, 2003

I like the ad. It's good the first time around, but a tad long, I think if they showed it during a grand prix, I'd be very pissed off.
posted by riffola at 4:30 PM on April 7, 2003

Or the Rube Goldbergish videogame The Incredible Machine.
posted by jonson at 4:31 PM on April 7, 2003

"It'll also go out in viral form too. It will go round the world like that, even though it's an ad, because it looks great."
Quote from its Director from Creative Review.

According to the article it was all done in one take, with real parts and a dash of CG (Flame).
posted by richard m at 4:33 PM on April 7, 2003

Two dashes of CG, I say; the tires rolling uphill looked awful queer.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:41 PM on April 7, 2003

Errr, Heath Robinson?
posted by squealy at 4:41 PM on April 7, 2003

Tires rolling uphill: Counterweighted so they'd do that, apparently. You can check by looking at the video closely.
posted by adrianhon at 4:49 PM on April 7, 2003

I was prepared to hate a car commercial posted to the front page.

But that was WAY fucking cool.

Oh, and to echo Crunchland: Big ups to Rube Goldberg.
posted by ColdChef at 4:56 PM on April 7, 2003

I'm still confused as to what type of dominos this is likened to.
posted by rhapsodie at 5:08 PM on April 7, 2003

Anyone want to buy my copy of "The Way Things Go"? $10 + postage and it's yours.

It's not completely continuous -- there are 5 or 6 edits in it. (the doc, not the ad.)

Mad props to both Rube Goldberg and the Incredible Machine.

And rhapsodie -- I'm assuming Mwongozi is referring to lining a bunch of them up and knocking the first one over...you know.
posted by Vidiot at 5:14 PM on April 7, 2003

I liked the reference to the Calder mobiles (with the windows) and did anyone notice that the music at the end is the beginning to the "Rappers Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang? Weird.
posted by jeremias at 5:21 PM on April 7, 2003

I'd like to give a shout out to Mwongozi for posting this, to all my people out there in advertising, you know what I'm saying, doing viral marketing... I'd like to give a shout out to my man Rube Goldberg, the Incredible Machine, and umm.... um... the SugarHill Gang. [/hangs up]
posted by eddydamascene at 6:03 PM on April 7, 2003

Peace out!
posted by Vidiot at 6:15 PM on April 7, 2003

gotta love walking windshield wipers.
posted by quonsar at 6:22 PM on April 7, 2003

The wheels are definitely counter-weighted.

The whole video looks cool, but one part has me flumoxed: when the windshields are spinning, is it the movement of air they cause that push the next piece down? Because that part just didn't look right.
posted by grum@work at 6:57 PM on April 7, 2003

can anyone find a larger, better (preferably quicktime) version of this ad?
posted by rorycberger at 10:55 PM on April 7, 2003

300k download here.
posted by skallas at 11:56 PM on April 7, 2003

thanx!
posted by imaswinger at 11:08 PM on April 8, 2003

Quality, if a tad long....and it took me a while to realise it was for a car. I like that.

Now, I think it's only 25 miles to the nearest Honda dealer, so I'd better start walking.
posted by knapah at 11:48 AM on April 9, 2003

interesting Telegraph article about the ad's shoot.
posted by Vidiot at 11:09 AM on April 17, 2003