Jim Teacher posted this video by OK Go:
It reminded me of this from a Mythbusters Christmas special:
If you don’t know who Rube Goldberg is, there is this video from 1940 that might help explain. You’ll probably get bored about half-way through…
Jim Teacher posted this video by OK Go:
It reminded me of this from a Mythbusters Christmas special:
If you don’t know who Rube Goldberg is, there is this video from 1940 that might help explain. You’ll probably get bored about half-way through…
8:47. What are you kidding me? Jeez!
[Told you that you’d get bored about half-way through. – B]
Don’t understand why it was rated a 1, I thought it was pretty good. Maybe it was one of the obamaidiots voting.
I assume this is a metaphor for Congress.
Now I’ll go to sleep with that tune running through my head!
Good video though.
I watched the whole thing — the middle was a little boring, but the pro-gasoline message at the end was cool. They even got a little Mythbustery with the firing pistons into the lake to show how gasoline is more powerful than gunpowder.
Reminds me of President Urkel: “Did I do That?”
The Law Of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again!
A little Rube Goldberg History:
Rube Goldberg was the first person to come up with the idea of creating a complicated machine to do a simple task that could be done better by human hands. There was usually social satire behind this, as many people were laid off from formerly all-human jobs and thus alienated by the ever-increasing automation of mechanical machines in manufacturing factories during the industrial revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Rube Goldberg soon had a syndicated cartoon strip in most newspapers for decades during the first half of the 20th century. Many animated films used moving versions (and variations) of his cartoons, all designed as tongue-in-cheek humor, and were also sometimes used as metaphors for political satire. Some (semi-) live action films used his devices also.
A 1910 film by Frenchman Emil Cole called THE AUTOMATIC MOVING COMPANY animated a series of complex miniature sets of live objects showing an entire house’s contents moving from one address to another, eliminating human involvement entirely.
Another great short 1923 silent film that used Goldberg-like gizmos extensively was called IT’S A GIFT starring silent film star Snub Pollard. Other Goldberg-like gizmos occasionally appeared in films of other comedians, well into the sound era.
Walt Disney was a fan of Goldberg, and the Disney studio used some of his designs and ideas in some of their cartoons.
In the early 60s, the Ideal Toy Company put out a series of board games that required the players to assemble one of his contraptions, then start them operating to finally win the game. The most famous of these was “Mouse trap”.
Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis used one of his contraptions at the beginning of the first BACK TO THE FUTURE movie in 1985, and variations of his gizmos have appeared in many other movies, old and new.
The OKAY GO music video was likely done (or inspired) by the same guys who produced an amazing half-hour machine for a film they made in the mid-80s called THE WAY THINGS GO, which can still be found on VHS and DVD.
Today, Rube Goldberg’s name has become synonymous with useless complexity, and even the word “Rube” is still sometimes used to define a simple-minded person who is easily fooled by a complex scam of a fast-talking con artist.
Someone (Ken or Ric Burns) at PBS should do a documentary film about Rude Goldberg, as he was a major player in the satire and criticism of our ever-increasing automated society in the early 20th century, and continues to influence our humor and artistic endeavors to this day.