HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from Honda - The Cog Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Honda - The Cog

WebRidesTV
Other
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this video1 month2011–2024 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Cited as an ad worth enjoying and as an example of practical effects so good they were mistaken for CGI.

Honda's 2003 'Cog' commercial for the Accord, a two-minute Rube Goldberg chain reaction of car parts. It was filmed practically rather than with CGI.

“Rube Goldberg machine all done without CGI (5 months of pre-work, then 605 takes until they got to one that didn't screw up somewhere)” (HN, 2011)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · Other

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@pitdesi Nov 2011 Recommends
on HN thread Stop motion video shot over 2 years with 288,000 jelly beans
Read more
This is the type of thing that you wouldn't have done 10 years ago because noone would have found out about it. Reminds me of the Amazing Honda Accord commercial - the Cog... Rube Goldberg machine all done without CGI (5 months of pre-work, then 605 takes until they got to one that didn't screw up somewhere) [this video] They did a lot of work that they could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be? Making of video: [link] Another good one that is similar in the sense that they went through a whole lot of trouble is the Sony Bravia commercial [link] They did a lot of work that they could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be? BTW, it seems Jelly Belly was in on the fun a little bit... [link] At the very least, I'd imagine that she didn't pay for the jelly beans
Honda ad done as a real Rube Goldberg machine without CGI

Citations, criticism and jokes

@pdpi Aug 2021 Cites it
on HN thread HBO is about to lose 5M customers, and it isn’t concerned
Read more
Advertising comes in many flavours, and different flavours work for different people. E.g. I find that most tech-y people I know who say "advertising doesn't work on me" are very susceptible to the "laundry-list of features" type of advertising that tricks them into thinking they're being rational and objective about their decision process, while not questioning why they should care about any of those features. For me, there's ads I actively enjoy watching. The old Cog[0] ad for the Honda Accord is one such case, as is the He-Man/Skeletor[1] ad for Money Supermarket (well, that and every other ad in that campaign). These work incredibly well on me as the brand awareness sort of marketing, and I'm sufficiently aware that I can correct for it — but I'm almost certainly unaware of my susceptibility to other sorts. 0. [this video] 1. [link]
Example of an ad the commenter enjoys

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close