2012 / Video / Animated rail-safety PSA and singalong earworm
Dumb Ways to Die
Set fire to your hair. Poke a stick at a grizzly bear. Then, somehow, remember to be safe around trains.
The original is hosted off-site; this page provides context and a link to it.
What was this?
The public-service announcement begins with a list of absurd cartoon deaths, then reserves its safety message for the final verses: platform edges, level crossings, and tracks are the risks it asks viewers to avoid.
Why it spread
The song and animation spread beyond the Melbourne campaign through YouTube, Tumblr, parodies, covers, game adaptations, and early-2010s social media.
What happened
The public-service announcement begins with a list of absurd cartoon deaths, then reserves its safety message for the final verses: platform edges, level crossings, and tracks are the risks it asks viewers to avoid.
Where it came from
Melbourne’s Metro Trains and McCann Melbourne released Dumb Ways to Die in November 2012 as a rail-safety campaign: cute bean-shaped characters, a relentlessly cheerful song, and increasingly terrible decisions ending with unsafe behaviour around tracks.
Why it mattered
Dumb Ways to Die showed that a public-safety message could gain broad attention without obscuring its purpose. The song’s memorable style helped carry its rail-safety message.
How it spread
The song and animation spread beyond the Melbourne campaign through YouTube, Tumblr, parodies, covers, game adaptations, and early-2010s social media.
Keep going
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