The Fast Food Restaurant That Once Aired A 13-Hour Commercial

"Slow cinema" is a genre of art film that features languid pacing and long, unbroken takes where seemingly very little is happening. It's a tough sell in the TikTok era, but some of the greatest directors in history are scions of slow cinema: Chantal Akerman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr, and, of course, the guy who directed "The Arby's 13-Hour Smokehouse Brisket 13-Hour Commercial." That's right: Arby's, the roast beef and curly fry aficionados beloved by Alton Brown, once aired a commercial where it smoked a brisket in real time, in what was then the longest TV commercial in history.

Arby's clearly went into the experience with a chip on its shoulder. The company has long been hounded by rumors that its meat comes from some sinister, unwholesome process: a liquid or a paste that is coaxed into a meat-adjacent shape. This isn't true, of course. While its famous roast beef is formed into bricks much like how lunch meat is made, it's far from the Soylent Green nightmare the rumors suggested. But the myth lingered all the same, and as the chain was set to introduce a sandwich featuring a brisket smoked for 13 hours, it wanted to show people exactly how it was made. And doggone it, that's just what it did.

Arby's 13-hour commercial can be best described as a mix between Andy Warhol's "Empire," a film that makes the audience stare at the Empire State Building for eight hours, and one of those ambience videos on YouTube intended to evoke a luxury alpine chalet or an old library. When Arby's head chef Neville Craw places the brisket in the smoker (in an undisclosed location — perhaps the world's largest Arby's?) and shuts the latch, a timer begins, and for the next thirteen hours we watch the brisket slowly, slowly, sloooooowly cook. Once the thirteen-hour timer is done, Craw takes the brisket out of the smoker, cuts it, and prepares a sandwich using the meat.

As ads go, it's much too long to fit into traditional time slots — there's a reason it was only aired once in its entirety, in Duluth, Minnesota. But as a viewing experience, it's oddly compelling, even hypnotic. Soundtracked only by the fwoom and crackle of smoke and fire, we watch the brisket transform, subtly but unmistakably, beneath the dim amber glow of a light fixture. The hushed atmosphere is its own little Rorschach test — depending on your perspective, it can feel eerie, as though you're cooking the last brisket on Earth, or comforting, as though you're taking part in some private, monastic ritual. You can even call it beautiful, although the sudden transition into jaunty banjo music as Craw prepares a sandwich is certainly jarring.