We start at a Mennonite community where those wacky Mennonites are at it again! This time they’re building a water pump! What next?!?!? Anyway, from there we go to the year 1980 and some eggheads are trying to build a pump to help out in developing nations. The eggheads can’t figure out a way to make a pump that will function in the hellscape that is Africa, until they realize that using an old-school pump would do pretty well. Some lady, via a translator, says “You Canadians have such modern ideas,” and the Canadian is like “Tell her it’s actually a very old idea.” And then they all laugh, including the woman for whom the remark hasn’t yet been translated. Happy End. Of course, the line “Tell her it’s actually a very old idea” seems like it should be followed up with “but your country is still so backwards that you haven’t caught up yet.” Hilarious!

Quotability: “Light weight, rust proof, so simple you could fix it with a rubber band and a bent nail.” That;s a pretty decent rant that I love in the context of the commercial, but it doesn’t have a lot of use outside of it. “Maybe today’s technology is the problem!” is one that definitely stuck in my brain and, though I haven’t used it in daily life, I definitely could. I’m not sure I even noticed as a kid the repeated line “Water. Lifeblood of a farm.” said in non-English languages. That’s actually kind of a neat touch.

And helping get water to people is a thing I support, so I’m okay with the commercial from that standpoint as well. PDR is a pretty big fan of water. I’m going to go as high as Four and a Half Pieces out of Six of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It’s one of the ones that crams a lot in, and it does a good job cramming it.