Glendale-based Renegade Animation has gone cuckoo. Earlier this year, General Mill’s cereal-loving mascot Sonny was lovingly animated for a brand new Cocoa Puffs TV spot. The 30-second ad features a redesigned Sonny model, which was also done by Renegade, and the team relied on Flash to deliver the appropriate look for this spot titled ‘Mr. Parrot.’ This isn’t anything out of the ordinary for Renegade. They’ve been pushing the Flash envelope for years now, and you’ve enjoyed their work on Cartoon Network’s ‘Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi.’

While ‘Puffy’ relies a great deal on re-use, this Cocoa Puffs spot contains a much heavier dose of drawings. In this situation, Flash becomes a turbo-charged ink and paint program. Wait – why don’t I let the press release explain:

Renegade employs Flash animation to expedite parts of the animation process while still relying on traditional cel technique to create the animation’s rich look and to give the character motion its fluidity. “Flash allows us to reuse assets and that speeds up some of the more routine aspects of the animation process,” said Renegade Animation director Darrell Van Citters. “But for us, Flash is more than a practical tool. We have integrated it into our creative process and take advantage of its strengths to enhance the aesthetics or our work.”

One way Renegade capitalizes on the unique qualities of Flash animation is by using it to introduce design elements into their animation. The environments in the Cocoa Puffs spot are highly stylized and dominated by geometric shapes. Renegade uses Flash techniques to change the environments’ color or shape, to evolve them, or to cause them to melt into kaleidoscopic patterns reflective of the swings in Sonny’s mood. “The background effects that we are able to achieve would be difficult to replicate using cel technique alone,” (Renegade Animation director Darrell) Van Citters said. “At the same time, we are able to retain artistic integrity and quality.”

I spoke with Ashley Postlewaite, Executive Producer over at Renegade, to learn a bit more about their pipeline. She explained that the Renegade team uses DigiCel for pencil tests, then the drawings are cleaned up, scanned, run through Adobe Streamline and then brought into Flash as vector art. It’s luxurious when compared to the type of methods applied to a TV production, and one that surely comes alive on screen. Check out the spot here (Quicktime).

I stumbled upon a blog focusing on Russian graphic and commercial art, and I spotted an article about a Russian Flash ad. The TV spot is for an Easter egg dye product called Mageta, and it was produced by the D.V.A. Company out of St Petersburg, Russia. It’s a fairly simplistic production, with a low drawing count, but it’s a fun spot nonetheless. My wife, who is Eastern European, explained the scene with the onion and the odd-colored egg. Before the dye packs became popular, her family would wrap the eggs in onion skins, tie them up with string and then boil them. You can watch the full 15-second ad here (mpg).

Pepsico’s Croky Chips brand recently contracted Dutch animator Michiel Hoving to produce a series of Flash shorts for broadcast on Dutch television. The two shorts I’ve seen so far, which are both online, feature a chip-loving parrot (that’s a parrot, right?) who plays to adoring crowds at the airport and on a very serious-looking talk show. I’m assuming the panel guests on the talk show are caricatures of known Dutch personalities, but I can’t say for sure. It’s all well-animated, and I’d venture to say he draws directly into the computer with a tablet. Michiel’s signature wavy line-style seems indicative of a Wacom, and it really gives his work a unique appeal. Both shorts are cut tight, and a ‘more to come’ card is posted on his rep’s site, so I’ll keep my eyes trained to make sure we don’t miss the next installments of Michiel’s Croky ads. And if you just can’t have enough Hoving in your diet, head over to his homepage where you can see plenty more, and news about his upcoming 20-minute animated feature.

Thanks to Stefan de Groot, another Dutch animator, who sent along this story tip. You can see his work on his website, or you can go directly to ‘The Amazing World of Herr Professor Von Maulheim.’

****UPDATE****

Stefan sent along a few interesting updates to the story above…

The talkshow you see in the add is the most watched talkshow in The Netherlands called Barend&VanDorp. The Croky add aired during the commercial break of the Talkshow and the Talkshow hosts were not pleased; they did not know they were in the commercial. One of the guys advertises the competitor brand (Lacy Chips). It is not known if they’re management filed a lawsuit, but Croky Chips has withdrawn the Croky add with the talkshow hosts in it!!!! At the moment Michiel Hoving is working on a new Croky commercial.

I was watching the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards 2005 on Saturday night, and during a commercial break a Burger King spot played several times that I’m dead certain was produced with Flash. It was a promo created exclusively for the Kids’ Choice Awards, as it parodies a voting scenario, but instead of pop stars and best actors nominees, we were introduced to The Honbatz. I don’t frequent the fine establishment known as Burger King, so I can’t say for sure if this is a new promotion for them, but I’d venture to say that this is the first time The Honbatz have appeared on TV. And I’m going to come out and say that I love these little guys. They’re well designed (if a bit derivative of the whole Ugly Doll craze), well animated, and they’re not half as saccharine and do-goody as the McDonald’s mascots.

Head on over to The Honbatz site, and click around. There’s a good deal of animation on the site, and if you click on the ‘Vote’ icon in the upper left corner, you can see the spot that aired last night during the KCAs. If you drill down into the ‘Who’s Who’ section, you’ll be treated to 5 different shorts. They’re all fairly tight, and timed well.

For the life of me – I can’t figure out whose behind The Honbatz design and animation. I pride myself on being able to complete nearly any type of information search on the web, but I’m stumped. I’m thinking the answer is Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the agency responsible for the new wave of peculiar Burger King live action commercials. My particular favorite is ‘Wake Up With the King,’ (click on video link below the photo) a creepy take on a fast food breakfast morning. CP+B was also behind the ‘Subservient Chicken‘ website. Very Clever.

The CP+B website is full of Burger King work they’ve completed, but no animation, so I’m guessing they probably outsourced to an animation house. A few message boards and blogs mentioned that The Honbatz appear on product packaging, and the BK website features a few cameos, so it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing more of these little burger-loving creatures. Please post below if you figure out who animated these pieces.

***UPDATE #1***
Not entirely sure, but I think Minneapolis-based Boing is responsible for the Honbatz. They’re an off-shoot of Campbell Mithun, the relatively large advertising and marketing company. I still think they outsourced to an animation house, so I’ll keep digging…

***UPDATE #2***
I found a hidden page that I’m guessing is an earlier version of the site. A fairly funny reveal.

***UPDATE #3***
My search for the animator behind the Honbatz TV spots is finally over. And I wish I could say I sleuthed it out – but, in the end, I stumbled on the answer. The animator is Monkmus, the artist behind Kid Koala’s ‘Basin Street Blues’ video. I know Monkmus is an After Effects fan, so I can no longer say with certainty that these spots were animated in Flash, but I’d guess they are. Check out other work by Monkmus over at his Kachew director page.

We all remember Napster – the free music download application that caused enough hub-bub a few years back to warrant an upcoming Paramount/MTV biopic about its founder, Shawn Fanning. The company was sued by the world, and they went away, and now they’re back. Not only are they back, but the new Napster (Napster 2.0) ran a live-action, super-expensive Superbowl ad with a “do the math” theme that wasn’t that super (see the bottom of this article for proof).

Napster has actually been back for a while now. The restructured company relaunched in 2003 with a series of Flash-animated, episodic stories that were reportedly viewed over a million times before making the leap to TV. You can still see these ads on the Napster site (as streaming video files), and the production company, Mekanism, has them posted on their site in the original SWF format (spots: jailbreak, EKG, the deal, hip hop, metal, reggae, blues, indie, reunion and napster 360). These fun little stories developed by VBP out of San Francisco have just enough edge to break through the clutter, and I love the designs and slick, simple production. It’s no wonder, as they were designed by Geoff McFetridge, the talented artist who created the title sequence for Sofia Coppolla’s ‘Virgin Suicides.’

While the recent Superbowl ad might not have been a standout, the postgame shows saw an animated version of the “do the math” campaign, also animated in Flash. I’m not sure if Mekanism animated this country music spot as well, but it seems likely. You can also see these spots on the Napster website in a streaming video format.