Kermit the flog

Filmhouse is doing a fantabulous little season on the muppets, much to many people's delight. I attended a showing of Jim Henson's "Commercials and Experiments" on Monday night and discovered that Mr Henson was one hell of a great ad creative.

Did you know the muppets started out doing commercials as part of their repertoire? I knew the furry critters moved into ads, but had no idea they started out on them so early on in their career.

Here is a selection of some of my favourites I saw. They are often supremely violent and have a tangible hard sell that is difficult to package up without turning people right off. However, Henson manages it without any effort whatsoever.

There are a lot of 8 second spots, so sit back and enjoy the muppet advertising madness...My favourite is the "ideal toys" spot last on the list.












So what do you think? Advertising genius or naive attempts? I am definitely going for the former.

If you want to catch the full show reel on the big screen you'll need to be quick! It's on again tomorrow (Thur 21 April) and you can get more details here. It's a must for any curious creatives, ad fans, muppet lovers or folk that just love a good chuckle.

Now, I'm off to have some of those noodles made with real dragon fire...