Best. Commercial. Ever.

And it never aired on TV, as far as I know. It's the best Rube Goldberg machine I've even seen, though better ones may be out there. (Pyromaniacs will certainly prefer this one.)

According to the lore (not all of it verified), the 2-minute sequence cost over $6E+6, was months in the making, required the dismantling of two of the six hand-built Honda Accords, and the first 605 takes didn't "just work." But enough of my jibber-jabber. Watch the Honda Cog ad.



"Simple," you say. The battle scenes from Lord of the Rings made better use of CGI. No doubt. The punch line is that there was no CGI or trick photography used in thise sequence. It all happened pretty much as you see it.

Snopes.com has a pretty thorough page detailing the backstory. London's Daily Telegraph has an in-depth story. There's even a The Making of Honda Cog video companion to the ad.

At two minutes, it's too expensive to run on TV. Honda seems to have hoped for viral distribution. I'm happy to join the party (if a wee bit late). Any big corporation that wants my services as a shameless shill can have them free of charge if they produce an ad as good as this one. Maybe something with magnets.

I've added it to my Web Video page, but I do not--as yet--have a corresponding lesson presentation or worksheet for it.

Thanks to NCNAAPT Webmaster, Tim Erickson, for turning me on to this groovy vid. It's over four years old, but I would have missed it completely without Tim's link on the NCNAAPT page.