Rube Goldberg, Honda, and the gift of silliness

The good people at In4mador made mention of this faith-restoring, Rube Goldberg-like car ad that Honda had launched last year, and I gotta tellya, Rube should have lived so long. It's a Rube Goldberg machine event, made entirely out of Honda car parts. O, it's a glorious thing, watching the precision and playfulness as the chain reaction unfolds. I think it was the walking windshield wipers what did me in.

The cartoon illustrating today's story is by Rube Goldberg himself. I thought maybe you might want to get a perspective on both the source and the remarkable evolution of this gift of silliness. Here's the caption:

"As aviator jumps from plane, force of wind opens umbrella (A) which pulls cord (B) and closes shears (C), cutting off corner of feather pillow (D). As white feathers (E) fly from pillow, penguin (F) mistakes them for snow flakes and flaps his wings for joy which draws buck-saw (G) back and forth cutting log of wood (H). As piece of wood falls into basket (I), its weight causes rope (J) to pull trigger of gun (K) which explodes and shoots lock from cage (L), releasing giant Umpha Bird (M) which flies and keeps aviator afloat with rope (N). Aviator breaks paper bag of corn (O), causing corn to fall to ground when bird swoops down to eat corn. Flier unhooks apparatus and walks home. The biggest problem is where to get the Umpha Bird. Write your Congressman."