Bagger 288!

Rathergood · 4.8M views · 2009-05-01 · 2:18

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

A short, absurd happy-hardcore song and animation celebrating the Bagger 288, the enormous bucket-wheel excavator, in dramatic over-the-top terms.

On Hacker News

HN mostly drops it as a joke whenever giant machines or huge ships and excavators come up.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2021–2025

Topics

Music performance & songs Satire & parody Internet culture & memes

What people said

fragmede · 2025-10 · Reference
You should see this one! [VIDEO] It's a bit dated (completed in 1978) and cost approximately $100 million. At one point it was the heaviest land vehicle, clocking in at 13,500 tons. It's since been succeded, but this bucket-wheel excavator needed only five people to operate. Those five people could mine 240,000 tons of coal[8] or 240,000 cubic metres of overburden (rock/soil on top of the coal) per day . That's 2400 coal wagons! After totally tapping out all of the coal at the Tagebau Hambach mine, in 2001, it took a crew of 70 together to move it 14 miles to the next mine. This move cost 15 million German Marks. (Just watch the linked documentary.)
Read the original HN comment ↗

dan-robertson · 2021-11 · Joke / meme
I’ve heard ideas[1] about supersized machines and they terrify me. Thankfully it is probably NP-hard in size to make a thing so we’re probably fine. [1] [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

Arrath · 2021-03 · Joke / meme
Just bring in a Bagger 288[1] and use it to excavate a new diversion canal in front of the ship long enough to get it out of the main canal, bada-bing bada-boom. Simple! [1]Obligatory: [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Rathergood, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks

SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources