The opening shot is a panorama of Los Angeles, revealing a city where all of the buildings and inhabitants are some form of commercial branding: birds in the form of the Bentley and Aston Martin logos, MSN’s butterfly, pedestrians in the shape of the AIM icon, overhead highway signs mounted on Atlantic Records logos, etc.

The Pringles mascot (voiced by David Fincher) pulls into a restaurant parking lot and propositions an Esso Girl waitress (voiced by Aja Evans) who’s on a smoke break. Two Michelin Man cops in a parked cruiser (voiced by Bob Stephenson and Sherman Augustus) are introduced as they debate the morality of keeping animals in zoos. Across town, Bob’s Big Boy (voiced by Joel Michaely) and Haribo (voiced by Matt Winston) are on a tour at the zoo led by a flamboyant Mr Clean (voiced by Michaely). The two boys hate the tour and hop off the tour train. They soon begin to harass the MGM lion by mooning it and throwing a Coca-Cola bottle at it, but they are scolded by zoo security, the Green Giant.

As the cops order lunch, a call comes in over the radio about a criminal on the loose in a red delivery truck. Both cops spy Ronald McDonald (voiced by Stephenson) in the truck and give chase. The pursuit quickly veers out of control, as innocent bystanders are put in danger. Meanwhile, the kids at the zoo have finished their visit and are back on the school bus, soon nearing the Pizza Hut where Esso Girl is waiting on the Original Pringles mascot and the Pringles Hot & Spicy mascot. Ronald McDonald swerves to avoid the school bus and tips his truck over in front of the Pizza Hut. Several guns and biological weapons spill out of the back of the truck, tempting Big Boy and Haribo to steal them for sale on the black market. Ronald McDonald knocks out Haribo with his foot, takes Big Boy hostage, and runs into the Pizza Hut. Inside, Big Boy bites Ronald McDonald and runs for cover behind the counter with Esso Girl. Enraged, Ronald McDonald opens fire, giving the police the excuse to start firing on him, and he kills one of the police officers.

As the gun battle explodes into the streets, a low rumbling can be heard across the entire city. A giant earthquake opens a fissure in the shape of Microsoft’s Xbox video game console logo, which splits the streets of the city open. Big Boy and Esso Girl escape the rapidly crumbling Pizza Hut and steal a cop car. While running from the police on a stolen Grease 2 motorcycle, Ronald McDonald runs into a fallen Weight Watchers sign and is thrown off, sliding into a crevasse shaped like the Zenith logo. As he tries to pull himself out, he is run over by Esso Girl and Big Boy’s car. The duo barely escape the city, speeding along a curved highway shaped like the VAIO logo. As they near the Hollywood chewing gum Hollywood sign, it falls apart, sending the giant letters crashing onto the highway in front of them. While evading one of the letters, they veer off the highway and down a hill, crashing into a tree. Crude oil erupts from the rifts around town and floods Los Angeles. The hill that Esso Girl and Big Boy are on splits in two, revealing a giant North Face logo. Eventually, the land crumbles around them, swallowed by the sea, leaving them on a tiny island together (with Esso Girl picking up a coloured Apple and taking a bite). The film closes by zooming out to reveal that California has been separated from mainland and is now shaped like the Nike logo, but also that the entire universe is made up of even more logos. After the credits, a bald, black-eyed, and partly toothless Ronald McDonald laughs menacingly and says, “I’m lovin’ it.”

Animation by H5. Plot via Logorama’s Wikipedia page.
Logorama on IMDB. Via Debbie Millman.

Comments

The fucking clown scared me at the end of the credits…

@Anthony Hawkins

Very good question… I saw the Xbox logo and nintendo, but I didn’t see any sony or playstation… I guess I’m watching it again..

Brilliant bit of work. I especially love the part where Ronald’s driving the “Grease 2” motorcycle and dodging the falling, faltering logos of certain famous and infamous demises, commenting negatively on each, only to be brought up short by his greatest nemesis!

The outro is fabulous, too. I believe the working of the NASA logo is my favorite bit of this masterpiece.

That’s an amazing film. Glad it’s back on the site. I visited the other day and it had been removed, so I tried to find what I could on YouTube but only managed to see a couple of minutes.

I love the sense of scale in the aerial shots, as the ‘camera’ zooms into the action. Really good stuff!

One you have to watch at least 10 times to actually spot all the small acts of genius all over the movie, incredible. Would have been fun with some kind of stats over how many logos where used etc.

I’m watching the Academy Awards and came across the short film category. In the 5 seconds they played the short I was hooked and had to find this movie ASAP. It’s amazing and it expose the truths of our reality and this generation love for BIG BRAND. With over 2,500 brands in the film it’s amazing how much we are bombarded with these images daily..Bravo Frenchie you deserve that Oscar :-)~

Dumb question, what were the blue “City of Tampa Solid Waste” trucks doing tooling around 3000 miles away in L.A.? I know their bosses and they’re Pissed!!

Seriously, this was a mind blower, I’ve watched twice and it deserves any award it gets!

Im surprised nobody is wondering like I am, about copywrite issues with this film. I know there is no way they got permission from each brand to use their logo. It must be that this falls under “fair use” ?

Actually, as David mentioned, that was one of my first thoughts. Especially considering how inflammatory it is to quite a number of the brands shown.

Good to see creative minds at play. This had to have been a blast to develop. It took 6 years to build and they used over 3000 logos.
Interesting to see how we identify with some and not others. Sign of a great design.

Wonder if anyone can watch and list all the logos….throwing the challenge out there.

You would think McDonald’s would be all over this seeing what a bad guy they made Ronald. Guess I should not leave out Big Boy’s role either.

I’ve seen this film several times now, and love it. I first saw it on you tube, but they took it off of there so I tracked it down. I find it ironic that the people that made the film is going around having it removed for” copy right violations” lol

anyone spot the adidas original logo?, my favourite logo deserved more protagonism u_u

Anyone spotted the Coca Cola logo?

I know fanta and sprite are trademarks from it, but where is the most recognisable logo on the planet?

I am still laughing after 15 minutes from watching it and i love the way ronald mcdonald was the bad guy cause mcdonalds owns most of the world like disney XD. can’t wait to watch it again. also the outro song that they used was in fallout 3 so i couldn’t help but sing along to it.

Isn’t it interesting that Ronald McDonald is pretty much killed by Weight Watchers?

I love the fact that even with quite extensive reduction of the environment, during each shot the content is added to the brands that are featured. Sort of filling in all the different emotions/memories of each viewer while watching (at least that’s what happened to me). I’m not missing anything, on the contrary – less is more again!

Quite a statement about the world we live in. Dictated by brands. Smartest short film ever. I’m watching it again!

Thanks for sharing.

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