Rube Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways.

Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts A.K.and the Self-Operating Napkin (1931). Soup spoon (A) is raised to mouth, pulling string (B) and thereby jerking ladle (C), which throws cracker (D) past toucan (E). Toucan jumps after cracker and perch (F) tilts, upsetting seeds (G) into pail (H). Extra weight in pail pulls cord (I), which opens and ignites lighter (J), setting off skyrocket (K), which causes sickle (L) to cut string (M), allowing pendulum with attached napkin to swing back and forth, thereby wiping chin.

I had always known about the high-hilarity of Goldberg’s machines but it was in 1987 when the artist team Fischel and Weiss presented Der Lauf der Dinge that an uncanny sense of anticipation and an feeling of inevitability of the future (Que será, será) was so eloquently expressed.

Inspired by their masterwork in 2003 Accord set up a chain reaction to advertise their latest model of the Accord.

The Internet is agog with chain reaction dominoes, popsicle stick bombs, cobra weaves, and other cool tricks!

OK! OK!! OK!!! You can do it too. Now open the small package that arrived on your doorstep. Time to get going with your own domino effect. Set ’em up. Knock ’em down.

 

Que será, será