The last time I ventured near a single-issue VVC, it was for the Hoff (that's Mr Hasslehoff to you) so it takes something pretty darn special to tempt me back.
This time - despite toying with the both the top twenty walrus polishing videos and highlights of Vogon poetry - I've settled on dominoes.
Hear me out...
Turns out there's a wealth of internet gold in them there domino hills, even after I've removed the adult titles. And it's a rather democratic sub-genre, as it happens, with everyone from ad agencies to bored students in on the game.
Clearly the bar is as low for French daytime TV as it is for the UK (sorry Trisha), because this chap managed to get his 15 minutes by rigging up some kind of pool table/domino combo. And I can't even get the balls in the pockets with the "racquet" thing, let alone by lining up a few hundred dominoes to do it for me.
And lo, it came to pass... that we realised during the compilation of the chart there are many, many bored and lonely people in the world that need challenges involving things that topple over and cause other things to topple over.
Some of them are paid, like the guys at Dare Digital who produced this very slick two-minute ad for Sky One series The Big Idea that offers young inventors £10,000 for their idea. They took £10,000, in pound coins, and stacked them up round the office. The trick is a small dab of Vaseline on the base of each one, I am told.
The suspense isn't quite the same in one of them new-fangled online games, but there's just as much (if not more) work involved. And flying melons.
My favourites by far are the ramshackle home-made set-ups, like this (clearly English) extravaganza, and this one (with extra points for use of wind-up frog) that made me think I have some horrible condition. But then that's how advertising works, isn't it?
Guardian Viral Video news chart for news: compiled by viralvideochart.com
1 Diet Coke & Mentos: L'effet domino
No mentos were hurt during the making of this film. (Well, maybe a few thousand.)
2 Honda Accord
Sublime, classic TV ad.
3 Computer dominoes
If you ever can't get through to the tech department, it's because they're doing something like this.
4 Dominoes pool
I believe she said "un-cre-yab-blur". Quite.
5 £10,000 coin domino effect
Who pulled the short straw collecting this lot from the bank?
6 Crazy chain reaction domino thing
Return of Slinky - and not before time.
7 Tekserve dominos commercial
Cheeky US ad. Contains iPod abuse.
8 Oblivion domino day
Virtual dominoes, with added stunts.
9 Dominoes
Another natty advert.
10 Domino
And again. I see what you did there.
11 Amazing domino video for Restless Legs
I'm not a hyperchondriac, but I think I have that.
12 Maxtor domino
Not the longest, but certainly the most expensive: €14,500 worth of terabytes. Madness.
13 Library dominoes
Those bored students I mentioned earlier.
14 Domino's introduces cheesy garlic bread pizza with...
Hang on - did we mean that kind of Domino's?
15 Millions of dominos
Industrial scale dominoes. Not the same without Norris McWhirter though.
16 Pet Shop Boys: Domino dancing
Nice try sunshine (and the other one(, but did I say this was an eighties chart? No. I don't think I did, did I?
17 Domino's fudgems commercial
Yawn.
18 Derek & the Dominoes on Johnny Cash Show
Venturing further into tenuous territory.
19 Japanese dominoes
Experimental dominoes. (I'm liking the use of shoes here.)
20 Domino fall down 1
Effort 10, plane 10, music 0.
Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 22:00 on 16 August 2007. The Weekly Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately two million blogs.
