In the 1957 Disney film, "Our Friend the Atom," a friendly scientist explains nuclear fission with an imaginative illustration. An atom, he patiently explains, is like a mousetrap ready to release its energy for the betterment of mankind. He then uses ping-pong balls to illustrate how two neutrons from one split nucleus then fly off to split two more nuclei, and so forth. Poised with a 38mm celluloid "neutron" in his hand (not to scale), he stands before a table full of mousetraps, each with two ping-pong balls balanced atop their coiled mouse-murdering mechanisms. "I think you can see what is going to happen," he says with a maniacal gleam in his eye. "Watch," he says before tossing the ball into the mix, loosing chaos upon the world like Pandora. "An atomic chain reaction works in exactly the same way." If we can look past the irony of Disney, the empire that Mickey Mouse built, lending implicit endorsement to the mousetrap industry, we must admit it is a clever illustration of a scientific principle. Fast forward 63 years and we can see that it is also an enduring one. Enter Real Art, a Dayton, Ohio creative agency hired by the Ohio Department of Health to illustrate the importance of social distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19. The result was a PSA which has itself gone viral. It opens with shots of what looks like thousands of mousetraps, side by side in perfect rows, each with a ping-pong ball balanced in the traditional perch (presumably new 40mm plastic balls, unless they got not only the idea but the actual props from Disney). Then, in dramatic slow motion, a single ball drops into the scene. As you might expect, things escalate quickly. Chaos ensues, as chaos is wont to do, seemingly egged on by the frenetic percussion in the score. After the destruction, silence falls as the scene fades to black. The next thing we see is a new arrangement of traps, each armed with a ping-pong ball as before. While still in tidy rectilinear rows, the new batch has ample spacing between each trap. With dramatic silence, a ping-pong ball enters from offscreen, harmlessly bouncing in the social distance which separates the apparati. Then, to drive the point home, a message appears: "Stop the spread. Social distancing works." It took quite a bit of tedious work to set up the sequence. While originally planning to set up 3,000 armed mousetraps, the very pandemic they were fighting inhibited their efforts. "With zero production time and major shipping problems due to COVID-19, it turned into our producer's job to drive to every Dollar Store in a 50 mile radius of Dayton Ohio," explained Andy Nick of Real Art. "So, 500 is what we got. Movie magic..." The last shot of the ball bouncing blithely through the murine minefield appears to be the result of an extremely skillful toss, perhaps even the sport of the future. As Nick explains, however, there was a great deal of precautionary tedium which ultimately proved unnecessary. "I knew it was impossible to make the perfect throw in a single take," wrote Nick. "With only 1 hr left in the shoot (no room to start a chain reaction & reset), we used gel superglue to 'freeze' the traps. And then... I threw the perfect throw in 1 take." While this must have elicited a range of emotions on the set, the final cut has been received with uniform rapture. To date, the clip has been viewed over 10 million times on various platforms, a curve unlikely to flatten anytime soon. No less an authority on effective literary techniques than J.K. Rowling even re-tweeted the clip, writing, "This is such a memorable, effective bit of imagery." In the face of the worst pandemic in over a century, accurate information and responsible action are literally a matter of life and death. While Disney might bemoan the appropriation of its intellectual property, surely they can see the big picture. With their theme parks shuttered, they should be quite pleased if their old idea can help restore the "old normal." As for the noble ping-pong ball, it has served us well over the years, suffering innumerable indignities but never complaining. This newest selfless service to humanity, however, may be its finest hour.

More at The Washington Post