Dave & Buster’s Takes ‘Banana for Scale’ Meme to Absurd Heights

Mother activation touts ‘Wow Wall’ of TVs

Dallas-based Dave & Busters recently installed a 40 foot high, glow-in-the-dark banana at the Hollywood & Highland mall in Los Angeles.

Riffing on the “Bananas for Scale” meme—placing ‘nanas in photos to illustrate the size of other objects—the playful installation serves as the centerpiece of a campaign from Mother New York.

Phallic much? Well, the work’s got an Andy Warhol pop-art vibe, at any rate. It hypes D&B’s 40-foot “Wow Wall” of TV screens that can show nine different pro sports events at a time. Nine games. On one wall. That’s … bananas?

“We knew we had to make a big impression,” a rep at Mother explained, “A 40-foot banana or TV sounds big, but it can never feel as absurdly massive as it does in real life. It was our way of emulating what it’s like to feel like a tiny baby next to one of Dave & Buster’s huge Wow Walls.”

The rep continues: “It takes a lot to make a banana this big. First, we had to create a 3-D render and texture the banana. Then that design is cut out into sections that are sewn together, like a printed balloon. We even put some lights in it, so it can be seen at night from far down Hollywood Boulevard.”