In today’s fast-paced world, it’s not always possible to get home at a reasonable hour to cook a healthy meal. More moms work, dads stay late at the office, kids have soccer practice—and then there’s the occasional family pet that gets rabies and attacks everyone in the house, making cooking unfeasible. Huh?
In Lowe & Partners/SMS, New York’s :30 "Trippy," promoting Perdue Farms instant entrées, a rabid guinea pig named Trippy turns on its owners and starts mauling the kids, mom, the dog and the cheery dad as he walks through the front door. As domestic chaos ensues and each family member tries to wrest free from the psychotic rodent, spokesperson Jim Perdue stands calmly in the foreground holding a plate of Perdue’s chicken (ready in three minutes!). He explains that sometimes it’s not convenient to make a home-cooked meal.
Indeed, such bizarre and unlikely circumstances would make it difficult to cook, but the agency contended that the spot’s extreme, bordering on ridiculous approach was simply a continuation of Perdue’s humorous marketing campaign. "Perdue has been going with comedy spots for a while, and they’ve gotten increasingly funnier. I think this just seemed like a natural outcome of some of the nice work they’ve been doing over the last couple of years," said Lowe & Partners/SMS producer Elizabeth Hodge.
What makes the comedy in "Trippy" effective is the juxtaposition of Jim Perdue’s calm demeanor against a backdrop of utter absurdity. To achieve this effect, director Tom Routson of Santa Monica-based Tool of North America was careful to set the tone of the spot at a level indicating that this is comedy. "We didn’t want to make it too scary, because it [the guinea pig] does attack kids and bites a dog, so everybody had to be in on the gag and see that it actually is a puppet," Routson said.
To establish a lighthearted mood, Routson created a perfect family setting complete with bright kitchen, mom unpacking groceries and kids happily playing with their cuddly pet Trippy. The scene is shattered when Trippy begins to foam at the mouth, but due to a crude wiring system, the puppet’s movements are so unnatural that the viewer knows the guinea pig is not real. And no blood is incorporated into the attack scene.
The calculated simplicity of the spot allowed Routson to achieve all the effects on camera, alternating between shooting a live guinea pig and a puppet guinea pig crafted by Rick Lazzarini of Chatsworth, Calif.-based The Character Shop. "The real challenge of the spot was that you had two puppets, a live guinea pig, two children, a spokesperson who is not a real actor, a dog and a food shot," said Routson with a deep sigh. The crew did run into some difficulties with the dog, which attacked the puppet guinea pig every time it was attached to the canine’s tail for the shot.
Despite the inherent challenges of incorporating so many different characters into one shoot, Routson ultimately tipped his hat to the creatives for selling the idea to Perdue in the first place. "I would just credit the guys for having the guts to push it through, because you could see how easily a concept like that could die," said Routson, who had been an creative director/art director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco for several years and understands the approval process. "The whole time, I kept wondering when someone was going to realize what’s going on here [and stop it], but it turned out funny and good and I think that’s what’s important."
