Primetime television has given us some improbable detectives over the years. Ironside, a sleuth confined to a wheel chair. Longstreet, a blind private investigator. But now we’re confronted with a detective named Bob. The most physically challenged of all, he has no arms, no legs, no eyes, no ears and no voice. Nonetheless, he does possess a sense of taste—actually, a particularly good ‘n crunchy taste—which makes him deliciously marketable in this series of spec commercials.
Bob is a Corn Nut, and despite his apparent disabilities, this P.I. manages to crack even the toughest cases. Bob’s rough-trade, crime-solving prowess, seemingly right out of a Mickey Spillane novel, is demonstrated in three spec Corn Nuts snack commercials that double as promos for a tongue-in-cheek, 1970s-style TV detective series: Bob the Corn Nut, P.I., featuring the hard-core sleuth.
The fast-moving :30 titled "High School" opens with an intro sequence that plays like a TV action series, driven by insistent background music. There’s Corn Nut protagonist Bob behind the wheel of a car, about to take off in hot pursuit. Bob, romancing a beautiful woman. Bob subduing a male criminal and breaking down a door. To see an inanimate object—a fraction of the size of its human co-stars—engage in these hard-living, crime-busting activities is a bit campy, to say the least. But bordering on the outlandish is part of the spec piece’s charm.
The spec intro for the Bob the Corn Nut, P.I. series briskly transitions to the episode itself, in which Bob goes undercover at a high school to break some nefarious crime ring. The tiny Corn Nut has donned a big Afro to help him blend in with the hip high school crowd. Dwarfed by the lockers behind him—and by the students hurrying past (we only see their feet and ankles)—Bob "stands" propped up in a school hallway. The precariousness of his undercover ruse becomes painfully apparent when a human-sized foot enters the top of the frame and arbitrarily descends upon Bob, crushing him loudly.
A super against a backdrop of three different-flavored packages of Corn Nuts then fills the screen with the slogan, "It’s the adventure that ends in a crunch."
This bizarre spec campaign was conceived by art director Kevin Gentile and copywriter Sandy Weber of 667, New York. It also comprises the spots "Bomb" and "Evil Twin," which pair the same Bob intro with plots patterned after other action series’ episodes.
In "Evil Twin," for example, Bob confronts his long-lost (and mustachioed) villainous sibling. Placed side-by-side in a classic good vs. evil match-up, they meet the same fate: grabbed by a hand and chewed by an unseen snacker—creating yet another adventure that "ends in a crunch."
Aspiring commercial-maker Chester Wong directed the three spec pieces, calling in some favors along the way. He also was the DP on "High School. A graduate from the Art Center College of Design, Wong has for the past four years served as a spot location scout/manager for such directors as Kinka Usher of House of Usher, Santa Monica, and David Ramser of bicoastal The Artists Company. Wong is fashioning a spec reel in hopes of establishing himself as a director.
Jennifer Wong freelance produced the campaign. Abbie Bowman of Homestead Editorial, New York, cut the spec package. Freelancer Scott Lange, who’s based in New York, served as motion graphics artist. Smoke compositing/effects artist was Peter Charles of Red Car New York. Music composer/sound designer/audio mixer was Mark Grant of Loud Inc., New York.
