The 2005 Sony Bravia ad
122 comments
·March 12, 2025basisword
jjulius
>It's quite sad that something that seems like it could be universally enjoyed at the isn't now.
This happens frequently for a good many things. Collective ignorance gets replaced with the lens of hindsight.
xattt
> Collective ignorance…
… and there it is. People knew but saw through it all to just maybe enjoy the wonder of the event.
bondarchuk
Advertising is a cancer on society, just 'cause it's sometimes nice to look at doesn't really change that. IMHO of course.
basisword
I'm quite certain a fun video for a Sony Bravia TV from 20 years ago is not comparable to cancer in any way. It's ok to be happy from time to time :)
ryandvm
OP is not talking about this ad in particular being cancer.
He's talking about a couple million roadside billboards, ads on busses, ads in TV services you pay for, drug companies spending more on advertising than R&D, political machines driven by 24 hours news cycles that are funded from ragebait, social media companies that have us literally addicted to our screens due to their advertising-based revenue models. It goes on... ad infinitum indeed.
It's a fucking cancer and it truly is the root of so many of our problems and we are running out of time to start thinking clearly about the damage the industrial advertising complex causes.
jjulius
It encourages consumerism for the sake of consumerism and enables excessive e-waste. Sony has put forth plenty of effort since then to convince you that you've needed yet another new and shiny TV to replace the Bravia, and will continue to do the same.
I truly don't understand the idea of praising a commercial that exists solely to sell you something we could probably, reasonably, be making and selling a lot less of. We only keep going "because growth". When's enough? This is gross.
Edit: And after watching the video, it's extra jarring to me to feel the warm fuzzies it gives you, and then realize, "It's not asking me to be a good person or do something that's gonna match the feeling this commercial is giving me, it just wants me to buy something it's gonna want me to replace eventually". Ick. Get the fuck out of my emotions like that.
mostlysimilar
Not sure if I'd call the relentless assault on my attention to convince me to purchase things "happy", but to each their own.
amelius
+1 IMHO too.
pjc50
General thing of the internet, really. We've all become used to being rewarded for negativity and critique.
Clamchop
There's some irony in this comment. It's also a textbook ad hominem.
I love the ad and the stunt. I would have been as giddy as a child if I'd seen it in person.
It's also rings true to me that it's rather wasteful and destructive in service of selling TVs.
Shrug, what's done is done so I'm free to enjoy it guilt-free while also thinking we probably shouldn't do stunts like this anymore.
pj_mukh
“I think our bill was $74,000 on broken windows,” said Ranahan. “And the crazy thing is, everyone loved it. The people, the neighborhood, they still come out to me and talk to me about it.”
"We want to set City Hall on fire, we want to bump a blimp into the Golden Gate Bridge and we want to jump a hook-and-ladder truck over Lefty O’Doul Bridge with Roger Moore on it’ … and they were seriously like, ‘OK.’”
My main question is, where did this San Francisco go? I'd love for the city to create more memorable moments because the city is special. But today, this ad would've been buried in CEQA lawsuits. Hell, parking in the wrong public spot could get your car keyed by some irate millionaire[1].
[1]: https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/parking-wars-sf-billion...
Tade0
I would have so much fun doing various kinds of tit-for-tats with this guy.
That is until he, inevitably, would shoot me with impunity.
kurthr
First the dotcom boom pushed the artists out to Oakland by 2000, but there were still burners and hipsters in 2005. Then the subprime boom/bust took a lot of the hipsters and older businesses out, but the tech busses brought the Silicon Valley nerds in 2010. Then the rise of Uber startups through 2016 pushed the artists into warehouses until the Ghostship fire, but there were still techbros and crypto in the Mission. When the pandemic finally came for the rest of Frisco there was hardly anyone left who cared or they were so old they wanted everyone else to just leave. If you remember Market street and the Tenderloin from the old days, the tents today are kinda quaint.
I'm sure somebody has a similar timeline for NYC.
JohnFen
This is the first time I'd ever heard of or seen that ad. I guess my efforts to avoid advertising work really well, hooray!
It is visually stunning for sure, but I have to not think too hard about the implications of it.
II2II
Don't get me wrong: as a piece of advertising, this is one of the few I would be willing to watch again. On the other hand, I am left asking: what is the point? It is not as though there were many venues where you could enjoy the vibrance of it. It certainly looks better on my modern monitors than on my Bravia TV of that era.
As for children, I would be strongly opposed to showing a child that commercial. It isn't hard to imagine them trying to haul buckets of bouncy balls to the roof after being ... inspired.
s1artibartfast
Seems like hyperactive concern to me. I would want my child climbing up on the roof with a bucket of bouncy balls. I would even buy them.
officeplant
Just a side point from the article
>When Conner was checking in to his hotel later that night, a ball bounced by on the sidewalk. He was 4 or 5 miles away.
I have to assume there was so many they never found just left to the ecosystem.
As much as I loved bouncy balls as an 80s kid, anytime I see them now it just reminds me of the sheer amount of useless plastic/rubber waste we produce. Even if bouncy balls in and of themselves are a tiny portion of that overall waste.
For example I live in the South, Mardi Gras is huge here and after every parade it looks like a god damn war zone of trash and waste left behind for prison labor to clean up as best they can. If it was me I would do a ban on plastic beads entirely as throwable parade objects.
> It's quite sad that something that seems like it could be universally enjoyed at the isn't now.
IMO at some point we all have to look back at the reality of past actions and be cognizant of our waste and abuse of the planet even if it was a fun time.
timewizard
> As much as I loved bouncy balls as an 80s kid, anytime I see them now it just reminds me of the sheer amount of useless plastic/rubber waste we produce.
They're not useless. As you've just pointed out you enjoyed them as a kid. For a few cents in plastic how many hours of enjoyment did you get? What was wasted here?
> after every parade it looks like a god damn war zone
Yea but when you stack up the tax receipts it suddenly looks very worthwhile.
> reality of past actions and be cognizant of our waste and abuse of the planet even if it was a fun time.
Humans are always going to want to have fun. From my point of view have all the plastic beads you want. It's the nuclear weapons and daily war that gives me pause.
zusammen
I was in San Francisco that week. Ecological issues aside, it was the last time San Francisco felt different in a good way rather than a bad one. The “negative energy” is now too much for me and, when I travel to the Bay Area, I pretty much just stay on-track. I wonder if people who lived in San Francisco from 1965-2005 expected it to last forever.
basisword
I think this is bigger than just SF. After the great recession the generally positive atmosphere in the western world never really recovered. Any time it even got close to recovering some new horrible event happened.
supportengineer
You hit the nail on the head. It's the repeated traumas, year-after-year, with no break.
deadbabe
As the world grows more interconnected, the proliferation of news about horrible events happening spreads faster, and even if you personally ignore the news, other people don’t, and this colors the overall mood of society.
There is horror everywhere, and always will be until the end of our days.
LaundroMat
Suppose you lived in a village where there was no outside news. You'd learn of about two murders and a dozen deadly accidents in your lifetime. Imagine how safer you'd feel compared to a villager who's getting outside news beamed to her face every hour of the day.
I'm not advocating isolation, but our primitive minds are not able to really understand that what is projected in front of us is not the same as what happens in front of us. I don't know how anyone could solve that.
hinkley
And how can you support funding this beautiful park proposal when there are children starving in ${country}??
I can’t remember where I heard this, but it was someone questioning joy and frivolity in a time of war. And the answer back was that people need to remember what they are fighting for otherwise what’s the point?
If you don’t allow yourself joy until the problems are gone, there will never be joy and the problems will multiply for lack of it.
whycome
> and this colors the overall mood of society.
Would thousands of colored balls careening down streets bouncing off objects and each other and damaging things in their path be an okay metaphor for this?
basisword
I hadn’t thought of it in this way. Interesting point.
ianmcgowan
I moved to "the city" in 1989 from England, and people were complaining then about yuppies and it wasn't the same as the good ol' days of the 60's.
SF seems to be a lot more in-flux compared to other cities, so if you don't like the scene now just wait a few years and a new one will be along :-)
keoneflick
The San Francisco I experience is full of positive energy. Sure, maybe if you're visiting and stay in Union Square, that's not what you see. But if you live in the residential neighborhoods and work somewhere nice (such as in the Presidio), there isn't another city in the world I would rather be.
jf
It seems to me like working from home has transformed the residential neighborhoods. I recently visited Inner Sunset as was astonished at how many people were out and about.
kemiller
Things got significantly darker after 9/11.
finnthehuman
When I visited in the 90's I remember conversations mentioning seeing the signs and trying to delay the inevitable end. Whether someone sees that as dooming or prescient is probably a matter of if they moved in before or after 2005.
realityfactchex
What city regions have better energy, are good economically, and have natural beauty (ocean, mountain, plants)?
It is easy to find faults with the SF bay area (politics, costs, and derivative issues), but is somewhere actually better?
EDIT: Thanks for the downvotes. It was an honest question, and I badly wanted to be informed, having given the issue in-depth consideration over the years. I wasn't being snarky.
throw8404948k
SF is good economicaly? Super expensive, high taxes with no matching infrastructure, hiring people...
Weather is cold and moisty...
There are thousands better places around the world. I would like to hear a pitch, why start company in SF today.
realityfactchex
Yeah, it's good economically in the sense that it's still near top of market, due to having a large-ish existing economy (even if aspects of said economy seem fundamentally whack).
As in: if you want something at decent quality you can pretty much get it pretty easily with a bunch of options (assuming you can afford it).
Caveat - not necessarily the top of everything for all markets is available, but overall stuff is still around -- even as some things are disappearing from the area.
In contrast, other places are just poor, and you "cannot" find as large a variety of lots of goods and services, I imagine. But I could be wrong -- I'll check my assumptions. Thanks.
groby_b
Because you meet tons of talented engineers whenever you go for lunch, and they just need to cross the street and walk in to ask for a job.
Because you're around a ton of people who are interested in the same thing as you are. Caveat: If you're not interested in the things SF engineers are interested in, that means you're surrounded by masses of incredibly boring - to you - folks :)
Because that introduction you need to make things pop is super-easy compared to other places.
Doesn't mean you _have_ to start in SF, but for certain classes of ventures, it's the place that makes it the easiest.
pj_mukh
I'd say Lisbon, Portugal is probably the closest (including Weather, which places like Seattle are lacking), especially because you didn't mention pre-existing tech industry which is probably SF's main differential versus everywhere else. It even has a big red bridge?
P.S: I'm sorry Lisboetas..you are already getting swamped by Digi Nomads, but it's true.
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fossuser
I visited lisbon last year and was kind of shocked how similar to SF it was, weather, hills, general feel - that it has its own golden gate bridge really just sealed it.
bombcar
Really depends on what you mean by all those. Some would say Sandy Eggo has the beauty, others would contest that Seattle has the economy and mountains.
The people left there are those who like what it has become or are trapped in someway; others have moved.
indoordin0saur
It really is surrounded by amazing natural beauty. However, everything to do with humans has slowly morphed into an unfixable nightmare and it's heartbreaking. I think it's time to throw in the towel, evacuate everyone from the city and let it return to nature as a wildlife preserve.
wrs
Seattle has those things, IMO. (You didn’t mention weather!)
qingcharles
Seattle is awesome and the people are the friendliest I've encountered in the USA. Feels Canadian.
The weather kills me, though. The weather is too British.
drewcoo
Seattle weather keeps strangers away. And drives sunglasses sales.
testfrequency
You’re conveniently leaving out how pretentious and insufferable many Seattleites are…
It has been far and wide the least welcoming, interesting, and lackluster food city I’ve ever lived in.
Also, the coffee scene there is worse than SF, Chicago, LA..rare stop for bands and musicians touring, and unpleasant transit.
The only people I know who are genuinely happy there are people who moved from Florida, and wealthy white families with young children who moved there (from California) “because taxes and better education”.
Don’t even get me started on the lack of diversity and casual racism.
SF is far from perfect, but Seattle isn’t even in the conversation for places I’d ever recommend someone leaving SF to shortlist.
Clamchop
I've grown rather fond of San Diego.
oofbaroomf
The Seattle/Bellevue area.
GuinansEyebrows
Ah, Bellevue, for when you want to feel like you live inside of a shopping mall.
VoodooJuJu
[dead]
LeoPanthera
Tango, a British fruit soda, made their own version in Swansea, Wales, which is delightfully funny:
residentraspber
Love that they kept the frog in this one! That part really surprised me about the original.
etrautmann
I lived in SF then and picked up a 5 gallon bucket of bouncy balls at a garage sale. I didn't realize until now that this is where they almost certainly came from.
bananicorn
The video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spB4ezsQ6II
diggan
Absolute travesty to view that video via YouTube though, as the compression destroys the frames when there are hundreds of colorful balls in view.
Anyone know of an alternative source, ideally without the typical internet-friendly/heavy compression?
tantalor
Here's a 4k "remaster"
diggan
The problem is not "1080p vs 4K on YouTube" but using YouTube at all for quality video. It's always been bad on YouTube, but videos like this make it extra obvious. For example, this shot: https://i.imgur.com/NRT0AOW.jpeg even in 4K it looks horrible, because of the compression YouTube does even to 4K.
I've tried finding some better version (not on YouTube) but been unable to, maybe it is lost to the passage of time.
frereubu
Something's a bit wrong with the colour on that though - it looks really oversaturated.
bredren
Tagging onto this, curious if anyone has preferred AI-based 1080 -> 4k+ upscale workflows.
dredmorbius
The same problem with confetti and snow in videos, due to compression:
<https://tensorpix.ai/blog/video-compression-snow-confetti>
Video compression functions best where little of the shot changes frame-to-frame. This is also why rapid-cut video performs poorly online.
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n1b0m
So many iconic adverts from the 2000s. One of my favourite is the Honda Cog: https://youtu.be/bl2U1p3fVRk?si=Z1Oqz8SAMjIAg7Mn
alkonaut
It’s such a simple setup that you could make it in CGI in 2005 far cheaper than this. The balls barely affect the environment and the physics is really simple. I thought for 20 years that it was CGI because obviously ”who would do that cleanup?”. TIL. Really cool that they did this in real life.
joezydeco
The follow up ad was impressive, too. Although I'm not sure what why there's a clown in the middle of it.
maaarghk
Same guy who made the remaster linked in the article also remastered this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY0bxhbPi3Q - seems he had a retail DVD from Sony with a better original source on it
Duanemclemore
I hadn't thought about this in years. It was absolutely dazzling to see at the time, I can't imagine what it was like in person. In retrospect I would also probably chalk this up as the first truly "internet" moment.
abridgett
Their "paint" advert wasn't bad either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-ut_2GWIm4 though it can't compete with the music.
adzm
The cover of Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez is truly beautiful as well. I can't imagine this video without it.
macNchz
The ad actually sticks out in my mind not only for the visuals but because it introduced me to both Jose Gonzalez and The Knife.
vincnetas
It's such a memorable ad. It's like the dream of a child actually brought to life.
I've seen this story discussed around the internet over the last few days and found it interesting how younger generations seemed to only view it negatively (pollution, excess, etc). It's quite sad that something that seems like it could be universally enjoyed at the isn't now.