The San Francisco office of CURIOUS PICTURES has created a pool of five
spots for Round Table Pizza through Wieden & Kennedy (Portland, OR). There
are four 15-second spots - "Steam Dance," "Rooster," "Full," and "Freedom
of Speech" - along with a 30-second spot, "Tornado." The commercials were
directed by Michael Bade and designed by Seattle-based alternative
cartoonist Peter Bagge (HATE), marking his first foray into both animation
and television. Featuring various characters, the commercials guarantee the
pizza lover's right to have fun while eating Round Table's pizza. "When I
first saw the boards I immediately thought of Bagge, one of my comic book
heros..." said director Bade. "The creative collaboration was wonderful. We
streamlined the stories and created the expressions and gags for the
animations. Since these were :15s, we approached the spots with a 'Bazooka
Joe' comic kind of simplicity - set up the joke, tell the joke, and then
kick 'em in the butt." The spots' co-executive producers were David Starr
and Richard Winkler; Nick Hewitt was the animation director. Representing
Wieden & Kennedy were producer Arrow Kruse and creative director Jim
Riswold.