Jordan Peele's new movie Us begins with a little girl, Adelaide, watching the old style TV sets as a commercial for Hands Across America fills the screen.
The advert seems too cheesy and the task so over ambitious, that you'd be forgiven for thinking it's been made up, but it was actually a real charity event.
Hands Across America was a real charity event that aimed to raise funds for homeless charities, far less sinister than Us movie's Tethered protest.
It was part of a celebrity and entertainment industry activism that took hold at the time, mainly the mid-80s.
Benefit drives and charity songs were ten a penny, including Band Aid Do They Know It's Christmas? in 1984, and We Are the World.
The latter was the brain child of a music mogul Ken Kragen becoming the fastest-selling single of all time when it was released in 1985.
It was the charity behind it that teamed up with Geldof's celeb crew to hold Live Aid.
But it was in October 1985 that the charity USA for Africa announced it's biggest drive, Hands Across America.
The idea was to get six million Americans to hold hands and form a line stretching from New York City to Long Beach, California on May 25, 1986.
The target was to raise at least $50 million, with those taking part donating $10 each to add to sponsorship deals.
As you can imagine such a large scale event was a nightmare to organise.
The route was 4,152 miles long and the terrain in the USA didn't allow for the human chain to cover some of it, meaning while it covered 16 states there were also 10 rivers and two deserts in the way, oh, and a mountain range.
They also needed 1,320 people for every mile.
Celebrities signed up to help out knowing the possibility of holding hands with a star would be a big draw.
The We Are the World singers all signed up with co-writers Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie on board.
Hollywood names also signed up with Michael J.Fox and Lily Tomlin and Bill Cosby signed on as co-chairs.
There's actually a Hands Across America theme song which was more a commercial jingle than a big pop single, though Toto (yes, Africa's singers) sang it. The music video did have C3PO in it though.
Adding to the big names signing up President Ronald Reagan agreed to hold hands, despite his administration coming under fire for the very policies that were thought to create the homelessness issue the charity was hoping to help.
Just days before the event Reagan hit back saying there were enough resources to help the poor.
“I don’t believe that there is anyone going hungry in America simply by reason of denial or lack of ability to feed them,” Reagan said. “It is by people not knowing where or how to get this help.”
It was when the criticism picked up that he and his staff starred in a video at the White House.
On the day those that took part held hands for 15 minutes.
Radios were tuned in so they could all sing We Are The World all together as well as America the Beautiful.
Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck lent a hand in California, Hilary Clinton in Arkansas, Rev Billy Graham took part too, and Jesse Jackson in Iowa.
In Illinois 50 Abraham Lincoln impersonators joined hands and 54 Elvis look-a-likes in Memphis.
Of course, there were gaps on the day, some longer than otehrs, but farm animals, ribbons and banners were used to fill them.
But did it raise the money it wanted? Well, no. The event cost more than they had planned and some people didn't hand in their pledge money.
While $34 million In the end The Times said “only $15 million for the hungry and homeless after all costs were paid"...the same cost of the event.
When the event took place Jordan Peele was seven years old, he's spoken about how he remembered seeing the video on screen.
