For their latest tourism spot, New York City turned to a British advertising agency and an LA-based studio. The result is This is New York City, a 60 second live-action spot with animated elements that all bring the city to life in an entirely new way. Motion Theory directors Mathew Cullen and Jesus de Francisco employed Flash, After Effects and Maya in the production pipeline, and Ella Fitzgerald's Take the A-Train as the music bed.
Head over to the nycvisit.com site for illustrated wallpapers and more info. Story spotted at vfxworld.com.
Soup2Nuts, the Massachussets-based animation studio, recently created a series of spots for a Boston seafood restaurant chain. Legal Sea Foods tapped Soup2Nuts and co-directors Evan Sussman and David Trexler to bring the spots to life. Mike Nordstrom took up the lead animator duties while Bob Thibeault designed the characters. The three spots can be seen below.
Soup2Nuts is better know for their animated series work, including original series Home Movies, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist and, more recently, WordGirl, which premiered on PBS only weeks ago. The Flash-animated series aimed at 6 to 8 year olds follows "Becky Botsford, a mild-mannered fifth grader who transforms into WordGirl, a caped crusader and definition dynamo." Here's a clip.
Comcast, the largest cable company in the US, has launched a new product called Triple Play, which combines phone, internet and cable services into a single package. Starting last week, new subscribers will also receive a free Nintendo DS gaming system, the dual screen gadget that released back in 2004. To promote this new offering, Comcast and their agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners teamed up with John Kricfalusi, or John K as he's known in the animation world. Kricfalusi is one of the founding fathers of Flash character animation, and is also the creative genius behind the Nickelodeon hit series The Ren and Stimpy Show. The result was a minute of Flash animation, featuring a 3-headed dinosaur puppet and some overly-enthusiastic kids.
John was kind enough to answer some questions about the project, and he brought along a few of the animators too, who you'll meet near the end of the interview. This is the second CHF interview with Kricfalusi - the first took place back in April of this year, and covered his work on the very first online Flash animated series - The Goddamn George Liquor Program.
AARON SIMPSON: How did Comcast get in touch with you? JOHN KRICFALUSI: Kelsie Van Deman, an account exec at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners found me through MySpace. Ian Hart had written a commercial in the style of my LOG commercials for Ren and Stimpy. At first they wanted to shoot it live with puppets, but then the art director, Mike Coyne thought, "Hell, why don’t we find John and get him to animate it?"
The LOG commercial from The Ren and Stimpy Show
AARON: How did the idea for the spot emerge? JOHN: It was their idea, but I flew up to meet with them in San Francisco and I sat down and drew the storyboard in front of them. Everyone pitched in with ideas and we basically sculpted it right there.
They originally wanted a 45 second spot, but had written a long script. The script was originally 2 1/2 pages long, which I knew from experience would turn out to be 2 1/2 minutes. I took the storyboard and had Marc Deckter make an animatic, where I recorded me doing all the voices as a temp track.
Sure enough it was 2 1/2 minutes long.
The Goodby team had explicit orders from Comcast not to let the commercial be longer than 1:15, so we all worked together to cut it down. It was hard to do, because there was more funny stuff in it.
AARON: What was the goal of the commercial? Who is it targeting? JOHN: That was the tricky part. They wanted it to pretend to be aimed at kids, but really be aimed at hip parents who would catch the satire in it.
It was a delicate balance because Goodby wanted it to be edgy, but if it was too edgy, then kids might actually see it, get their parents mad and then have irate parents yelling at Comcast.
I decided to make it as candy-like and happy as possible visually, because it is a bit cynical if you just listen to the message.
AARON: Who did the character designs and backgrounds? JOHN: I got Rex Hackelberg, the king of happy design, to create the characters and then I did most of the posing and layouts.
AARON: What type of direction did you give Rex as he set out to design the characters? JOHN: I sent him my storyboard, and said draw funny kid characters and a bored middle aged man in a 3 headed dinosaur suit.
He sent me tons of doodles and made it very hard for me to choose. There were so many great ideas for the dinosaur suit that I mixed and matched the parts I liked most and probably ruined his style!
I didn't have to "direct" him to do designs in his own style. My new working method is possible because of the internet. When you have an actual studio in a certain city, your talent pool is limited to who lives there and is available. I have to train a lot of artists to learn my style, system and methods. That costs a lot of money, takes time and it frustrates the artists who don't get it. Their frustrations pass on by osmosis to the artists who do get it.
Now I can work with people whose styles already fit with mine or I can discover people on the blogs whose styles and skills I like. We get to try things that neither of us might have thought of on our own by mixing up our styles and techniques.
Brian Romero, on his own, inked up some Sody poses I did and sent them to me awhile ago. They were great! He kept all the organic sexy lines around her and didn't lose the flair of the originals. Inking and cleaning up stylish animation drawings without blanding them out is a very rare skill. The whole animation studio system is geared to ruin individual flair and they actually train everyone to kill everything. I usually have to spend money untraining artists whose natural spirit the evil studios have destroyed.
Online I can find talented artists that have not been killed by the system. Or they find me!
The project goes a lot smoother and there is less direction for me and more fun for all.
AARON: Who painted the background designs? Kali Fontecchio painted the most colorful background cards.
AARON: What type of art direction did you offer Kali before she started painting the BGs? JOHN: I told her to read my blog posts on color and do exactly what they say to do, and don’t do what they say not to do. I like unusual colors that evoke mood or are just plain fun.
"Every brush stroke should be pretty" "No primaries next to secondaries" "No pink, purple and green" "No pee and poo colors."
AARON: The voice actors sound familiar. Who did you bring in to voice it? JOHN: I hired 2 great voice talents: Gary Owens (Roger Ramjet, Space Ghost, Powdered Toast Man) and Eric Bauza (El Tigre, Ren & Stimpy, The Ripping Friends) to do very fun readings and that added a lot.
My whole goal was to create a light happy jovial feel.
AARON: How long did it take to produce? JOHN: A month. That’s about 10 times faster than any commercials I have ever done for TV.
I have a new streamlined system that saves a lot of time and overhead and I get to work with top people only.
AARON: What was the most difficult aspect of the spot? JOHN: Cutting out some funny side gags and bits to make it fit into the time. That's always difficult!
AARON: What's up with that unusual aspect ratio? JOHN: I’m not sure. That's the format Comcast wanted. Kelsie suggested we put curtains on either side and just put the cartoon in the middle, but I thought, "what the heck, let's see if we can just do it wide." It's a bit awkward, but I like to try new things.
AARON: Did you draw inspiration from any classic cartoons for this piece? JOHN: I know you set that up. Of course, all the Hubley commercial posts are the inspiration, as they were for LOG.
It doesn't look exactly like those great commercials and if we tried to just imitate it accurately of course we'd fail.
The style of all my cartoons is the sum total of what the individual artists and talents bring to it.
That's why I encourage everyone to take advantage of the fact that I don't have a preset notion of what every detail should be. Break out of the studio chains and make something up!
AARON: How does this effort compare to your recent Raketu project? JOHN: It's definitely different. The Comcast commercial doesn't use my existing characters and it's not a personality driven cartoon. It's meant to sell Comcast's wares and be really fun visually.
The idea behind Raketu was to give the impression that different people in a family have individual uses for each of it's features. Comcast is aiming at the parents, but pretending not to...
Also we smoothed out some bugs in the production system this time and we were able to make a more elaborate spot in less time.
I have to point out, it sure looks this TV network studio system is doomed. They can't keep up with all the natural changes technology and the internet is allowing us to take advantage of.
The blog community of artists is the greatest thing yet. All of a sudden there are thousands of cartoonists who - despite whatever minor differences we may have, they are nothing compared to the shared experiences we have in being creatively stifled by the studios.
I'm hoping that this new world will bring actual animation back to our shores and with that, creative growth and fun for the artists and the audience.
AARON: Which artists animated the spot? JOHN: Eric Pringle and Kristen McCormick were my 2 main Flash animators, but I managed to get Will Finn to animate an old fashioned drawn scene and that was great to work with him.
AARON: Eric, You've animated a great deal of John K's Flash work - dating back to the Spümcø days. ERIC PRINGLE: I animate way differently now. When I first started at Spümcø I didn't know how to animate at all. Also, the way we set up our files has evolved tremendously. We weren't hip to comps (nested timelines) and everything was animated on the mainstage. We still used instances but it was really archaic the way we were doing it back when. It's funny how we clung to our methods claiming them as "Flash secrets." Looking back on those files I'm really embarrassed. Now that I am slightly more confident in my animation, I know how to set eases on my tweens and I don't feel compelled to antic-overshoot-settle all the time. I still seek advice from John, Craig Kellman, and Matt Danner because I still have a lot to learn and need some slapping around every once and a while.
AARON: Does this type of animation differ from a TV series? ERIC: Totally. On the TV series that I've worked on, everything is stock digital puppets with a few special poses here and there. On the Comcast commercial nothing is stock - John drew layouts for everything. I enjoy working with layouts a lot more, the poses tend to be stronger and more organic. Working with stock it's always a matter of trying to Frankenstein a pose together, like getting the correct hand from the library to fit the pose, "eh, it's the wrong angle, hopefully no one will notice." However, for me, working with layouts makes the turnaround time much longer; maybe I'm just not accustomed to that kind of process anymore. From my experiences working with both layout and stock pipelines in Flash, working with stock is the best way of going about making a TV series. Layouts require too much clean up and rigging that would most likely bottleneck somewhere in the production. Though the quality is better with layouts, it is just not economical for the demands of the studios with tight budgets and tighter schedules, especially when competing with overseas shops. But for a short, like the Comcast commercial, it's totally the way to go. What was the question again?
KRISTEN MCCORMICK: I agree! Working for John K is different that any work I have ever done. Each project he does requires a different approach. He won't let you use any formulas you're used to. He hates formulas! I often start on a John K animation project animating a certain way, the way I am used to. It usually ends up being completely the wrong way, and by the end am doing something totally different, something that I would never have thought of. I always learn a lot.
AARON: This spot appears to be an homage to Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil cartoons. Did you use any reference/inspiration for timing and movement for your animation? ERIC: I've actually never watched Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil before but I did notice the resemblance when I started on the project. For some of the scenes of the commercial, John told me I should reference some of Clampett's Looney Tunes for the timing. Along with referencing Looney Tunes, I'm always referencing Foster's, since I look at it everyday. Some of the animators on the crew have some really interesting techniques that can be really helpful.
KRISTEN: I started working on this Comcast project a little late, so I was inspired by the awesome animation that had been already done by Pringle. But I had been thinking about the recent posting John had done on the Hubley salt commercial such beautiful animation. And such great use of timing. John wanted me to look back at the animation Copernicus had done on the Tenacious D video. They did some amazing work that is very humbling and inspiring to study.
AARON: What type of direction did John give you before you animated? ERIC: John's main goal was to make this commercial not look 'Flashy' but still be smooth. He didn't want too many overshoots, even timed tweens, or over distorted drawings using the transform tool. Most of the revisions he gave me were to substitute overshoots with slow ins to eliminate the jerky animation we often see in Flash cartoons. He also acted out all the shots for me, the most memorable was him rubbing the mouse on his head to demonstrate what shaving a dog should look like.
KRISTEN: He tries to be very thorough in his direction, acting it out, making timing notes or quick sketches for where the actions should happen. After taking the first pass on the animation I get a lot more direction. Their are usually several retake sessions on any given shot, especially early on I have to unlearn the typical way I do things.
AARON: The aspect ratio is so wide and atypical. Did that present any challenges? ERIC: It sure did. John drew everything in standard def (16:9 ratio), and I had animated most of the shots in standard. We didn't find out what the ratio was until halfway through the production. John improvised and added drawings to most the shots to fill the space and also broke one of the shots up into an assortment of vignettes that covered the wide ratio. He described this shot as one of those dumb things Disney used to do. It wasn't too hard, for me anyway, to make the switch from standard to extra wide. I think it all worked out.
KRISTEN: My part of the project didn't really get affected too much by that. After I was done animating, some of the drawings got modified. Also editing and other really cool things were done to make better use of the unique shape of the screen.
AARON: Compared to your Spümcø work, do you animate any differently now or use any new tricks? ERIC: Everyday I'm learning some kind of new shortcut that makes lives easier. On the Comcast commercial I used some shape tween methods we use on Foster's. After setting the shape tween, I keyframe it out and use the layer frame distributor plug-in and then export the FLA (Flash file) to an Illustrator file and apply the art brushes and import that stuff back into flash. I did that with the dinosaur's neck and the dog's nose animation. Also I used the tween2keys plug-in to eliminate some of the tweeny animation in some of the shots, but that's not really a trick. For the vibrating fx on the burst and weird shapes I just made some shape tweens and then clicked the smooth tool a few times to slightly distort the shapes on each frame. Other than that stuff, I didn't do anything other than slide John's drawings into each other and hope for something nice.
AARON: Thanks everyone. For more on the Comcast spot, head over to John K's blog and check out his posts.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Character Design Rex Hackelberg
Animation Eric Pringle Kristen McCormick Leo Riley Greg Franklin Will Finn
Inks Brian Romero Corbett Vanoni
Background Designs Kali Fontecchio
Voices Gary Owens Eric Bauza Deneo Harris Kelsie Van Deman Amy Maloof Production Coordinator Marc Deckter
Producto Studios, a new media studio in Redondo Beach, California, recently animated a series of Flash banners for the Principal Financial Group. Working alongside New York-based Tequila, John Santos and his team at Producto brought the iconic, two-haired Principal mascot to life.
Producto Studios, based in Redondo Beach, California, was recently commissioned by Intel to create a series of cartoon spots to promote a new processor. The wrote the scripts, designed the characters, created the storyboards, animated and completed post. All 4 episodes can be seen here, or check out this one titled Wireless Connectivity.
Back in March, CHF spotted an Italian TV spot for Tucanourbano, a manufacturer of scooters. The commercial is a Flash-animated homage to Wacky Races, the Hanna-Barbera road rally series from 1968. The Italian animation studio Effigie has released a follow up spot titled Orso Arrosto.
DJ Pierce and his team at Lowe Worldwide, the ad agency, have created a series of high-energy TV spots for XM Radio. The commercials, two of which can be seen below, were created in Flash, and then prepped for air in After Effects. For the campaign, the team also built banners, apps and custom send-to-a-friend cards in Flash.
Adidas has harnessed the possibilities of Flash animation to create The Impossible Story, a viral, user-upload experience. The website asks visitors to upload a headshot and choose 5 'impossible' scenarios your character will overcome. The results can be emailed to a friend, or you can simply view one that I made this morning.
This application was created by glue London, who also created several Flash-animated, expandable banners for the campaign.
Matt Smithson, better known as Man vs Magnet, added his animation talents to a recent Adidas TV spot titled Table Football. The commercial features two foosball players who are joined by some unexpected competitors.
Man vs Magnet, who is rep'd by both Curious Pictures and Not to Scale, used After Effects, Photoshop and Flash, which he employed for the character animation.
You may already know the work of Man vs Magnet. Remember Battle of the Bands?
Renault, the French auto maker, is dabbling in animation these days. They've filled a website full of creepy Flash-animated Snow White-esque drawfs, and their agency Publicis created a far-stronger animated TV spot with a similar theme, which appears to have been animated in a traditional manner.
Below is the work of the production company named Caviar. This TV spot is titled Conditions Géantes and it was directed by Jan Bultheel.
Anyone here speak French? A translation would be great.
Alexandra Perrin, a French illustrator and animator who goes by the handle Kabuki, recently created a 30-second, Flash-animated TV spot for the publication Troisième Oeil. She had help from her friends Croco and Pandoudou.
Hornet Inc., lead by Executive Producer Michael Feder, recently teamed up with Ogilvy & Mather to create a series of Flash-animated TV spots for SNY, a regional sports network in the New York area. The 3 satirical spots, directed by Hornet Inc's Aaron Stewart, are part of a $1 million marketing campaign aimed at bumping up Mets games' TV ratings.
Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen are the core of the Mets broadcasting team, and Stewart created caricatures, while Dan Abdo and Masako Miyazaki animated the spots. Below is Ron's Arm.
The folks behind the Scion marketing campaign seem to really get it. They've made what appear to be sincere efforts to not only reach out to the artist community, but to also offer support. With an art show (and several before that), the brand seems to know how to get cred while still pushing the 'buy a car' message. The team behind a great deal of this push is ATTIK, lead by Simon Needham, co-founder of the global creative agency.
The latest Scion project is called Want2BSquare, which includes a sprawling Flash website featuring interactive experiences, video and a contest. ATTIK teamed up with many independent artists and studios, including The Vacuum, who were part of the initial concept phase for the site and contributed design and Flash production to the Gray Matter and Urban Wasteland worlds. The site takes some time to understand and navigate, but the experience is worth the trouble.
They also tapped Cole Gerst at option-g, who produced two short, animated pieces - Broken Glass and Root Down. Gerst works in Flash and After Effects, and I've also included a third video in here titled Round To Square, which was animated by Shilo Design.
Dave Wasson, the creator of Time Squad, recently produced a TV spot for PowerShares titled Escape Average. The commercial was produced through Acme Filmworks for Euro RSCG McConnaughy Tatham, Chicago.
Below, Dave details the exceptionally quick production.
The whole spot was created in three weeks believe it or not! The client had already purchased air time for it even before the idea was conceived so the schedule built to hit that air date. That was certainly the fastest I have ever had to pull together something of this scale. Dave Knott and I did the storyboard over two days (some of it drawn directly in Flash, some of it drawn traditionally and then scanned).
Then I built the animatic in Flash. After that was approved and the timing was locked, I did the final character designs in Flash. Then the guys at Six Point Harness took care of the character animation while I designed all of the backgrounds in Flash. Finally we composited the whole thing together in After Effects.
An Italian animation studio called Effigie has just posted a Hanna-Barbera-inspired commercial for Tucanourbano, a manufacturer of scooters. On the Effigie blog, they pay homage to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera's penchant for repeating background cycles, and explain that the production utilized both Flash and After Effects.
John Kricfalusi, the creator of The Ren and Stimpy Show, has teamed up with Raketu, the VOIP provider, to produce a few new Flash-animated cartoons.
On the Raketu.com website, you can now see George Liquor, Sody Pop and Bobby Bigloaf promoting different aspects of Raketu's product line.
John K has been chronicling his latest project on his extremely popular blog All Kinds of Stuff. He recently posted a short Quicktime file of the mouth cycles from the Bobby Bigloaf short. For anyone trying to harness the wonders of limited animation, look no further. Using Roger Ramjet as an example, John offers a clinic in how to make every drawing count.
The Brothers McLeod, who recently premiered Fuggy Fuggy 2 here at CHF, have produced a two new shorts for the 2007 IPA Effectiveness Awards. Working through their rep's Aardman Animations, Greg and Myles teamed up with MCBD, an ad agency in London to create 2 Flash-animated 'viral' shorts. Over at boardsmag.com you can see one titled Helen, which features an Advertising Planner with a planet sized brain.
An all-star team of Los Angeles animation artists have teamed up for a Nabisco TV spot for Roasted Vegetable Ritz. The commercial was overseen by ACME Filmworks and directed by Dave Wasson. Dave was joined by Gabe Swarr, who provided storyboards and Sean Szeles who added layouts and animation. Sean posted a great write-up on the spot over at his blog, and included some stills and an animatic clip.
This isn't the first or even second time Ritz spots have been discussed here. The most recent post came in September of '06, when Devin Roth's work was on display (again with direction from Wasson).
B&T Studio in China, the team behind the BoBo&ToTo series, has produced a long-form, Flash-animated commercial for Honda Civic. This music video promotes a slightly-modified Civic, which is being assembled by the Beijing-based Dongfeng Honda, a partnership Honda built with Dongfeng Motor Corporation. Click here to see the original Flash film (slow loading 14mb).
Devin Roth and his fellow animators at Nethatco made quite a splash a few months back, unveiling some extremely strong Flash work. John Martz at Drawn wrote them up in May of this year, posting mainly about Alex Hirsch's phenomenal work.
But we shouldn't overlook the rest of the Nethatco gang, including Devin Roth, who recently updated his blog with a feast of Flash animation clips. First and foremost is a Flash-animated spot that he animated on. This Ritz commercial was directed by Dave Wasson and produced by Acme Filmworks.
It's not the first Ritz spot to be animated in Flash. Pascal Campion animated a commercial in the same campaign, and you can also see Aaron Stewart's version at the Hornet Inc. website.
Devin also posted 'Bubblebeard,' a short he created along with Alex Hirsch and Sean Jimen.
And lastly, Devin has assembled his Flash animation reel, which includes clips from some 'Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends' commercials.
David Firth, the creator of 'Salad Fingers,' recently created an intersticial animation for the BBC show 'Screen Wipe.' The piece is a spoof commercial for Twinkle Tits bras, and it featured David's signature dark humor and hysterical reads.
Just when you think you know all of the great Flash animators out there, you stumble onto another. Well, it shouldn't have taken me so long - Ian Culbard, who hails from the UK, has been following this site and posting here for a while now. But then once he turned me onto a Golden Nuggets TV spot he animated, I was hooked. Then, about 2 days later, I'd finally gotten all the way through his body of work, and I was ready to share. So cancel your meeting, skip your class and turn up your volume. Ian Culbard has been busy.
We'll start with 'Death Metal,' a short film he made only a few weeks ago.
Next is a short Ian animated and directed called 'Dagmar's Friend,' which was written by Ian Carney.
Had enough? Me neither. Here's a trailer Ian made for 'Biteneck Beatniks,' a series he's working on with Curtis Jobling.
He's got another half-dozen projects in motion, including a series for the BBC based on Curtis Jobling's book 'Frankenstein's Cat,' a Dark Horse comic he drew in Flash, a TV commercial he can't talk about just yet, his own indie feature project 'Grimmwood,' for which he's hoping to incorporate some Swift 3D shots. Whew! And lastly, I'd like to direct your attention over to the Message Boards where you can see the aforementioned Golden Nuggets commercial he did through Picasso Pictures. Great stuff, Ian!
Nate Pacheco's work has been mentioned here several times, but his fake ad for Bombay Gin never received the welcoming it deserved. It was posted over on his blog back in March, and he noted that he and Renegade Animation chief-creative, Darrell Van Citters, were illustrating a point - simple can be good. Well, it is simple, and it is extremely good. Point taken!
According to a post over in the CHF message boards, a recenty Fruity Pebbles TV spot was animated in 3D Studio Max and Flash. It was produced at Venice, California-based Wit Animation, and 3 animators handled the bulk of the 2D work - Mike Polvani, Craig Clark and Dave Courtland.
It's not the first cereal commercial to call on Flash for help - Renegade Animation produced a Cocoa Puffs spot last year and relied heavily on Flash for painting and effects.
Comcast, the largest cable company in the US, has recently been rebranded, as Cold, Hard Flash reported back in October. And now Comcast is broadcasting a Flash-animated 30-second commercial for their 'On Demand' movies. The spot was created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, and animated by Matt Clark. You might remember Matt Clark from his awesome 'Run, world run' commercial that was featured here back in July of this year.
According to Matt, he animated most of the spot in August, and then polished off the post-production in September. He did most of his work in Flash, with the exception of the blurring and the film grain effects. Great work, Matt.
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.
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).
John was kind enough to answer some questions about the project, and he brought along a few of the animators too, who you'll meet near the end of the interview. This is the second CHF interview with Kricfalusi - the first took place 
I didn't have to "direct" him to do designs in his own style. My new working method is possible because of the internet. When you have an actual studio in a certain city, your talent pool is limited to who lives there and is available. I have to train a lot of artists to learn my style, system and methods. That costs a lot of money, takes time and it frustrates the artists who don't get it. Their frustrations pass on by osmosis to the artists who do get it. 
Also we smoothed out some bugs in the production system this time and we were able to make a more elaborate spot in less time.
Hornet Inc., lead by Executive Producer Michael Feder, recently teamed up with 
The folks behind the 
They also tapped Cole Gerst at 
CHF message boards, a recenty 
as Cold, Hard Flash 
and commercial art, and I spotted an 
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 
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