Rube Goldberg--PBL pioneer?

Cindy Stephenson, a new member to this group (welcome, Cindy!), has posed a question that got me thinking: "Any suggestion for Forces. Motion and Energy? I want to have the
students build and present Rube Goldberg machines."
When it comes to project design, it's often useful to ask yourself, how would this play out in the real world? Which discipline is involved? Then, you can use the approaches of that discipline to guide research and project design. (Historians look for a different sort of evidence, for instance, than scientists.)
Enter Rube Goldberg. He was both an engineer AND a cartoonist. Hence, his ability to turn the simplest tasks into crazy-complicated machines. His creations follow the laws of physics, but to comic effect.
So, I started thinking about real-life applications of this wonderful combination. Where else have we seen it? As an entry event for your project, you might have kids watch a clip from "Home Alone," where the young protagonist sets a series of traps (operating on simple mechanical principles you could have students look for) to outwit the (bigger) villains.
I'm sure there are other examples that combine comedy with engineering smarts.
Ideas?