David Lynch’s 1991 PSA: Don’t Litter in NYC, Lest the Demon-Rats Rise (Video)


YouTube/Screen capture

Hey New Yorkers, says David Lynch, stop throwing your garbage on the streets, because a disease-infested rat army lurks below our feet, and they are sharpening their teeth.

The message goes something like that, I suppose, in what is admittedly the most interesting environmental public service announcement I’ve seen to date. The 1991 David Lynch-directed PSA bears his trademark style, what with the queasy close-ups, long shadows, and crisply dressed, wholesome-looking actors.

As Grist’s Jess Zimmerman says, “It’s almost exactly what you would expect from a David Lynch PSA about littering — there’s even weird jerky dancing AND coffee! — except there should probably be scarier lighting and at least one torch song.”

Some may be surprised that Lynch would do seemingly trivial commercial work, but he’s actually done lots of it—and much of it is interesting. Motherboard has a nice collection of YouTube cuts of his spots, which range from the predictable (Sci-Fi channel) to way left-field (Doritos). And after you discover Lynch did a bunch of those Calvin Klein spots, your reaction is probably: of course he did.

So, because this is Treehugger, I’ll leave you with a spot he directed called ‘Nuclear Winter’:

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