Push to Add Drama

July 10, 2023 4:52 PM

Somewhere in a little town in Belgium, in a square where nothing really happens, we placed a button. And waited for someone to push it. Belgian TNT Advert from 2012. [YouTube] TW: Fake violence/gunshots.

Small Forbes write-up from 2012.

#2. Somewhere in the Netherlands.

Russian edition.

And another Dutch one. (Less dramatic, but larger cast.)

In Italy, Push to add... Science. At MUSE Museo delle Scienze (but not any more science-y than the first one.)

And this strange shopping mall one, Funny Vedio.

posted by Glinn (22 comments total)

Well that escalated quickly.
posted by tafetta, darling! at 5:01 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

With all due respect, because that was kind of amazing, that is not drama, but action and spectacle.

And while I'm here, can anyone else confirm a vague memory of something similar? What I think I remember goes like this: Guy (in I think the 1970s?) owns or at least works for a company that does urban building demolition. His hobby was making little dialog-free short films. I recall seeing three or four that all went sort the same way. Regular guy is walking along a city street, and comes to a similar button on a pedestal with a bright red warning, DO NOT PUSH BUTTON. He considers for a moment, then pushes it, at which point a skyscraper way off in the background implodes and collapses in a great cloud of dust. Guy is like "oh shit!" looks around to see if anyone saw him do that, then quickly walks away.

I swear I recall seeing these when I was a kid, and they seem like the sort of thing that would have eventually ended up on the Internet, but I've not been able to track them down.
posted by Naberius at 5:06 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I thought of Fargo from Eureka and his tendency to "inappropriately push button."
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:17 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Pretty sure this was posted to MeFi when it launched. At the time, it was amusing. These days, with mass shootings and cop shootings and road rage and such, this video can go fuck itself.

Just my opinion, of course.
posted by dobbs at 5:31 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I was hoping the trigger warning would save people who didn’t want to see it. Not everything is for everybody.

Anyway, for some reason this popped up on my IG feed so I went and found it on YouTube to share with other people who might be entertained by it like I was.
posted by Glinn at 5:34 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Arthur: What happens if I press this button?
Ford: I wouldn't-
Arthur: Oh!
Ford: What happened?
Arthur: A sign lit up, saying 'Please do not press this button again.'
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:48 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

I wouldn't try this in the USA.
posted by Pembquist at 6:29 PM on July 10, 2023

Well I enjoyed it and laughed out loud a few times. The gunfight was a little too much, though. As dobbs said, it hits too close to home in these times of daily mass shootings and random killings.
posted by ashbury at 6:43 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

even the bystanders look fake
posted by glonous keming at 6:44 PM on July 10, 2023

“There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it."
"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?”
― James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games
posted by kaibutsu at 7:02 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]

Push to add Dharma
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:16 PM on July 10, 2023

Push the button, Max.
Push the button, Frank.
posted by doctornemo at 7:51 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Push the Whopper Button
posted by jabah at 8:43 PM on July 10, 2023

I've seen this before but it always makes me smile. Everyone they show reacts perfectly, but I wonder how many times they had to do it to get that? At least some people would have absolutely freaked out, I'm sure.
posted by dg at 11:16 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I swear I recall seeing these when I was a kid, and they seem like the sort of thing that would have eventually ended up on the Internet, but I've not been able to track them down.

There are scenes like this in the South African "Candid Camera"-ish show/film "Funny People." By Jamie Uys who made "The Gods Must Be Crazy"

Here's one with a smokestack demolition

CW: these are from South Africa in the 1970s, there is a lot of casual and not-so-casual racism.
posted by chavenet at 1:38 AM on July 11, 2023

Regular guy is walking along a city street, and comes to a similar button on a pedestal with a bright red warning, DO NOT PUSH BUTTON. He considers for a moment, then pushes it, at which point a skyscraper way off in the background implodes and collapses in a great cloud of dust. Guy is like "oh shit!" looks around to see if anyone saw him do that, then quickly walks away.

YES! I know the one you're talking about and I've been searching for it. Is one of the buttons made up to look like a crosswalk button or placed next to a crosswalk button?

I vaguely remember seeing it on Saturday morning at the end of some mid-to-late 1980s show. I want to say it was Dr. Fad, but it might have just been around that same era and I have only the vaguest of memories because I was like four years old at the time.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:16 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

In Russia, button pushes you.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:58 AM on July 11, 2023

YES! I know the one you're talking about and I've been searching for it. Is one of the buttons made up to look like a crosswalk button or placed next to a crosswalk button?

Oh, yeah, that rings a bell. I think there might have been one where there was a button marked "push to cross street" and another one marked "push to destroy building" or something like that.
posted by Naberius at 9:55 AM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think there might have been one where there was a button marked "push to cross street" and another one marked "push to destroy building" or something like

I definitely saw this. You are not alone. I just don't know where I saw it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:58 PM on July 12, 2023

Found it. It was from an SNL episode that aired in 1981.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:02 PM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

Come to think of it, that's probably why no one remembers it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:05 PM on July 12, 2023

Also: Pushing the Button, another film by Andy Aaron.

These short films remind me of the greatest shot in television.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:49 AM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]