Nike’s New Marvin the Martian Spot Is All Action, No Comedy
If you want to get a taste of how unfunny a Space Jam 2 might be, look no further than this Marvin the Martian/Blake Griffin mini-short for Nike, “The Dunk to End All Dunks,” that debuted on Tuesday.
Not that audiences seemed to care. The spot, which is hawking the Nike Jordan Super.Fly 4, has been a slam dunk success, racking up over 12.4 million views on Facebook and over 5 million views on YouTube in under 3 days.
What bothers me most about the spot is that someone produced a 2-minute piece with Warner Bros. characters and didn’t think to insert a single cartoon gag into the thing — I’m not saying it even had to be a funny gag, just a gag. You know, those things cartoon characters do that make audiences laugh. The only potential cartoon gag in the entire piece was the last scene where Bugs throws the exploding basketball to Marvin, and I would argue that even that was staged and timed more as dramatic action than as a gag intended for comic effect.
With five creative directors at Wieden+Kennedy working on the spot, you’d think one of them would have noticed at some point that they were working with Looney Tunes characters — comedic characters that entertain audiences by doing funny stuff. For chrissakes, they’ve even got the word looney in their name! If an entire gag was too difficult for them to conceive, then even a funny drawing would have been welcome…for old times’ sake. But this commercial for $150 foot pads is utterly bereft of anything resembling cartoon humor.
SEE ALSO: Looney Tunes Are Good for Selling Shoes, If Not Much Else
The character animation is competent but dispassionate, obviously because the animators were tied down to the live-action. It was directed by Spike Brandt at Warner Bros. Animation and animated by a crew of veteran pros: Dale Baer, Dan Haskett, John McClenahan, Jeff Siergey, Neal Sternecky, Bill Waldman, and Dean Wellins.
Below are the rest of the credits. The only gag might be that it took this many people to produce something so awful:
W+K NEW YORK
Executive Creative Directors: Jaime Robinson, David Kolbusz
Creative Directors: Jimm Lasser, Gary Van Dzura, Mike Giepert
Art Director: Jed Heuer
Copywriter: Al Merry, Laddie Peterson
Producer: Alison Hill
Assistant Producer: Kristen Johnson, Lisa Delonay
Head of Integrated Production: Nick Setounski
Account Team: Jerico Cabaysa, Jonathan Chu
Media Team: Karlo Cordova, Justin Lam, Branden Bouvia
Strategic Planner: Stéphane Missier
Project Manager: Sunjoo Ryou
Business Affairs: Team Sara Jagielski, Sonia Bisono, Carolina Hernandez, Lindsey Timko
PRODUCTION
Production Company: Pacific Rim Films
Director: Jon Favreau
Executive Producer, UPM: Annie Johnson
Head of Production: Bryan Mitchell
Line Producer: Julia Roberson
Production Supervisor: Tatiana Vallin
1st Assistant Director: Aldric Porter
Director of Photography: Jeff Cronenweth
Production Designer: Christopher Glass
EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: Arcade Edit
Editor: Geoff Hounsell, Will Hassell
Executive Producer and Managing Partner: Damian Stevens
Executive Producer: Nicole Visram
Producer: Jamie Lynn Perritt
Assistant Editor: Laura Sanford
VFX
Visual Effects Company: The Mill, New York
Executive Producer: Zu Al-Kadiri, The Mill
Producer: Katie Kolombatovich
Shoot Supervisor: Westley Sarokin and Ed Boldero
Creative Director: Westley Sarokin
2D Lead Artist: Westley Sarokin and Jade Kim
3D Lead Artist: Andres Eguiguren
2D Artists: Jeff Butler, Margolit Steiner, Sung Eun Moon, Alex Dreiblatt, Kevin Quinlan, Rob Meade, John McIntosh, Molly Intersimone, Dan DeFelice, Amanda Amalfi, Steve Koenig, Mikey Smith, Jamin Clutcher
3D Artists: Tim Kim, Corey Langelotti, Nick Couret, Hassan Taimur
Matte Painting: Cedric Menard
Design: Pierce Gibson, Jeff Buoncristiano, Chis Mennuto, Benge Li
Animation Company: Warner Bros Animation
Producer/Director: Spike Brandt
Line Producer: Monica Mitchell
Animators: Spike Brandt, Dale Baer, Dan Haskett, John McClenahan, Jeff Siergey, Neal Sternecky, Bill Waldman, Dean Wellins
EFX Animation/Compositing: Brett Hardin, Kevin O’Neil
MUSIC – ORIGINAL SCORE, COMPOSITION AND SOUND DESIGN
Music Company: tonefarmer
President/Partner/Producer: Tiffany Senft
Founder/Composer: Raymond Loewy
Composers: Jared Hunter, Sam Skarstad, Raymond Loewy
Sound Designer: Jimmy Harned
Production Manager: Elizabeth Munoz
ORIGINAL MUSIC
Artist: DJ Statik Selektah
Dunk Sequence Track: “The Dunk To End All Dunks”
MIX
Mix Company: Sonic Union
Mixer: Steve Rosen
COLOR
Color Company: The Mill LA
Colorist: Adam Scott
