Marcell Jankovics Animation Used In A Super Bowl Spot

Licensing old songs has been a staple of TV advertising in recent times, but could licensing animated shorts become the next trend in the world of commercials? Brew reader Joshua points out that a GMC Yukon Hybrid commercial aired during yesterday’s Super Bowl repurposed animation from Marcell Jankovic’s 1975 Oscar-nominated short Sisyphus. Watch the commercial above.

The message delivered is not entirely effective but that’s not the fault of Jankovics’s animation, rather in how they decided to use it. In fact, it’s to Jankovics’s credit that a short film he made over thirty years ago looks as fresh and vital as any contemporary piece of animation. So who’s next? Will other ad agencies take a cue and begin making use of visually striking animated shorts like Norman McLaren’s Begone Dull Care or John Hubley’s The Adventures of an *? Considering how well some of these films hold up graphically, and also the fact that the average TV viewer has never seen these films, there are a lot of fascinating possibilities.

And speaking of Marcell Jankovics, last week I wrote about his rarely seen (but must-see) animated feature Fehérlófia. The comments in that post are well worth reading including a particularly nice commentary about Jankovics’s work by Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung.