SOK ja Kuu-ukko: A Bizarre Coffee Commercial from the Past

Wait, what did I just watch?

If you're looking for a serious narrative, keep walking. SOK ja Kuu-ukko is basically a long-form ad for SOK's various goods, and honestly, it’s a trip.

Is it worth your time? Maybe for five minutes if you’re into animation history or just really, really love vintage shoe polish ads. If you hate blatant corporate plugs in your art, you’ll probably want to claw your eyes out.

Coffee, Chocolate, and the Moon

The whole thing centers on this guy and a moon-dweller, and it’s just so aggressively wholesome it hurts. They start talking about Glory shoe polish like it’s a life-altering experience. I mean, I get that brands need to sell things, but watching an animated creature get hyped about garment care is a special kind of surreal.

There's this one moment where the animation gets all choppy. It’s almost charming in how much it fails to hide its low budget.

A weirdly specific vibe

It reminds me a bit of the frantic, slightly disjointed energy found in Serdtse dyavola, though without the actual plot to anchor it. It’s just product placement, one after the other. First coffee, then the shoes, then some ladies' clothes for good measure.

The pacing is a disaster, obviously. It just stops when the marketing quota is met. No resolution, no real ending. Just a fade out once the pitch is done.

• The moon-dweller is honestly kind of creepy if you stare at him too long.
• The way they transition from coffee to shoe polish is so abrupt it gave me whiplash.
• Hjalmar Löfving’s delivery is so dry it makes the animation feel even more wooden.

It’s not a film in the way Souls on the Road is a film. It’s a commercial. But there’s something fascinating about how much effort they put into making a shoe polish commercial look like a storybook.

Would I watch it again? Not a chance. But I’m weirdly glad it exists. It’s a strange, dusty little corner of history that makes you realize even back then, they were trying to sell us a dream. ☕️🌑