For a humble spokesdoll in the service of the denim cartel, Buddy Lee has displayed quite an impressive dramatic range over the last few years. Courtesy of Fallon Minneapolis, the plucky, pint-sized mannequin was last seen playing an indestructible superhero, assisting everyday folk in violent crises. And now little Buddy is back—as of initial airdate July 14—in a two-spot package created by Fallon, and directed by Dante Ariola, of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ).
Comprised of two :30s, "Emu" and "Cheese," the new Lee Dungarees campaign portrays Buddy Lee as the omniscient overseer of weird coincidences and strange happenings—miraculously bringing random events to an unexpected resolution. In this new role, Buddy loses screen time but gains a certain phantom-hipster-mystique. According to Fallon creative director Harvey Marco, the new campaign is skewed to a younger audience than previous packages, but is also "a little more cerebral and sophisticated."
"Buddy takes a bit of a back seat in these spots," continued Marco. This statement is certainly true in "Emu," a bizarre tale of good road-kill gone wild.
"Emu" opens on a wide-angle shot of a crappy, old box of a car shooting across a deserted, mountainous landscape. The next frame reveals the driver—a youth who brings to mind what Matchbox Twenty lead singer Rob Thomas must have looked like before the vagaries of pop chart success ravaged his mug.
The driver—say 22, 23 years young—intones in what can best be described as a stoner-noir tone of voice, "Driving down the road I spot a dead emu," as we cut to a shot of the lifeless carcass of the beast.
"Having just lost my girlfriend," the driver continues, "I decide it might look nice mounted in my poolroom."
The driver then proceeds to stop the car, scoop the deceased emu up in his arms and lug it back to the car—during which time a fleeting frame of the emu’s head mounted on a plaque passes the screen. The kid gets back underway, and immediately the going gets weird.
"… I quickly become paranoid he’s not dead. Not at all," confesses the driver, as the emu’s neck reanimates—Terminator 2-style—and arches up over the seat to take a peck at the nervous driver. "I was a touch worried," he continues, while the Emu, growing bolder, begins to peck savagely at the poor youngster.
Seriously panicked now, the driver begins to lose control of the car. Things start to spin out of control, as we’re treated to a quick frame of the driver’s own head mounted on the poolroom wall. Finally, he crashes into the façade of what looks like to be small town drinking establishment.
Picking up where he left off in the narrative, the driver tells us, "I awoke in a pool hall, frequented by a local sorority, and I ask you: Is this a coincidence or part of something—bigger?"
Meanwhile we see that the driver has crashed his car into a room full of nubile young coeds, who are clad in matching pink and white sorority jumpsuits emblazoned with the logo of their chapter—EMU, of course.
Cut to an image of Buddy Lee, flickering God-like over the action on a TV screen in the corner. The ad’s last shot is a quick zoom in on the driver’s jeans, which of course bare a Buddy Lee logo. That shot dissolves into a graphic for Lee Low Rise Dungarees, a new product in the line.
When asked what sort of guidelines they were provided with in creating "Emu," the Fallon art/copy team indicated they were given more or less a free hand. "The great thing about the Lee account is there’s not a whole lot of parameters," said copywriter Scott Cooney.
"Basically the assignment was to produce something as good as the stuff in years past," art director Eric Cosper chimed in, "there weren’t a bunch of marketing types sitting around and evaluating every piece of communication."
According to Cosper, "Emu" was one of the earliest ideas he and Cooney spawned in the process of creating the campaign. "Probably about five words on Cooney’s original script were changed," Cosper remembered.
"Basically we wanted to create our own urban myths for Buddy," remarked Cooney. "You hear things and you see things, but you don’t remember where from. … That’s really what we were going after."
"We also had a script in this campaign about a guy who straps himself into a lawn chair and tries to get into a jazz festival for free," Cosper laughed, "but we could only do two spots."
When asked why Fallon chose Ariola to helm the campaign, Cosper remarked that Ariola is among the list of directors every agency wants to work with, and is very selective with his projects. "I think this is the first time Fallon has worked with him," Cosper related.
"Guys like Dante," continued Cosper, "you have to give them some room and let them take some ownership over the project."
Ariola did just that with "Emu," when he suggested—and then hired—Screaming Mad George Effects (SMG), Sun Valley, Calif., to design an animatronic emu puppet for the spot. Unfortunately Ariola was unavailable for comment at press time. However, SHOOT caught up with SMG’s production coordinator for "Emu," Mike McGee, who noted that the spot’s feathered antagonist took just over five weeks to bring to life.
"We did quite a bit of research," said McGee. "We went to two different farms, took some pictures and brought home some feather samples. … Emus are actually quite docile animals; the [similar looking] ostrich gives them a bad reputation."
McGee revealed that designer/company principal Screaming Mad George was not completely unfamiliar with emu morphology, having completed an ostrich design for the 2000 feature Dude, Where’s My Car?
Other feature films making use of SMG’s puppetry include Minority Report, Faust and Freaked. The company’s work has also appeared in music videos for Korn, Eminem and Aerosmith among other acts, as well as in spots for clients including Levis, Nintendo and Goldman Sachs.
McGee said the most difficult aspect of bringing the emu to life was creating its feathers. "We had to meticulously recreate their texture," said McGee. "The eyes were also difficult, but we ended up with a really good reproduction of those."
Indeed. The reddish tint of the emu’s cornea helps adds to the spots general sense of menace, and thanks to SMG’s prowess with recreating the creature’s feathers, the Fallon and MJZ teams escaped the hassle of actually having to film a live emu. Hence, Fallon’s Marco was able to conclude with confidence: "No emus were harmed during the making of this commercial!"
