Kipper

Kipper

The titular kipper and the submarine in the ad
Agency	TBWA/London
Client	LEGO UK Ltd
Language	English
Media	Television
Running time	45 seconds
Release date(s)	29 October 1980 (1980-10-29)
Slogan	It's a new toy every day
Written by	Mike Cozens (copywriter) Graham Watson (art director)
Directed by	Ken Turner
Starring	Roger Kitter (voice-over)
Production company	Clearwater Films
Produced by	David Mitton Jane Bearman (agency)
Country	United Kingdom

Kipper is a British stop-motion television commercial first aired in 1980.

Summary

The advertisement features two LEGO creatures battling by changing into new forms to defeat the other. A small LEGO mouse, who narrates the film, is standing by a mousehole when a LEGO cat appears. The mouse turns into a dog to scare the cat, but the cat becomes a fire-breathing dragon. The dog becomes a fire engine and extinguishes the dragon's flame. The back-and-forth transformation goes on as the two become a submarine that emerges from a puddle, a submarine-eating kipper (initially misheard as "slipper"), an "anti-kipper ballistic missile", a "missile cruncher", and finally an elephant. As the missile cruncher is about to be stepped on by the elephant, it changes back into a mouse, scaring the elephant and causing it to fall over.

Production

Kipper was created at the London branch of the advertising agency TBWA by copywritter Mike Cozens and art director Graham Watson. Cozens and Watson had joined TBWA in February 1980 and had developed two print advertisements for the LEGO Group before being briefed on a television project. The commercial had to be created on a limited budget; the two did not want to resort to making a "dull" presenter commercial, and spent numerous late nights developing the concept and working with the accounting team to get script approval. (They later also credited young relatives of theirs, David Cozens and Jamie Watson, with "advisory" roles.) The initial version of the script was completed by 25 April; this version did not contain the kipper/slipper pun and featured a tractor to tow the missile launcher away instead of the missile cruncher.

The dragon model used in Kipper; in the ad, only its front half is visible

David Lyall holding the mouse model

The advertisement was managed on LEGO's end by Clive Nicholls, the advertising manager of LEGO UK Ltd. The LEGO models for the film were created by David Lyall, the chief model designer at LEGO UK. The models were designed by mid-July and were finalised following adjustment suggestions given to Lyall on 23 July. The largest LEGO model in the film, the dragon, contained around 20,000 LEGO bricks. Lyall made two versions of each model: one glued version and one to be assembled and disassembled for stop motion filming. The stop motion models were built in stages during filming, with a few frames of footage being shot between each stage. Animation was done by Denis Russo, while camera work and lighting were done by Tom Harrison.

Production was done by Clearwater Films, a studio founded by former Century 21 directors Ken Turner and David Mitton. Turner and Mitton worked on Kipper as its director and producer, respectively. In a meeting with Cozens and Watson, Clearwater suggested building a detailed set with wallpaper and carpets for filming against, but Watson wanted to direct it "simply", using "just the skirting board and a reflective [glass] floor." Director Turner and his team planned out the timing for both the building sequences and for zooming and panning the camera, having to make sure the camera movement lined up with each stage of the models. Filming took place over the course of seventeen days, and was done without any retakes. Watson later likened the filming process to watching paint dry.

TBWA initially considered comedian Mike Reid for the advertisement’s voice-over. They instead decided on Tommy Cooper, as his performances had done well in research at the time even among international audiences. Cooper was ill at the time of recording, however, so impressionist Roger Kitter was hired to impersonate him; audiences were allegedly unable to tell the voice not Cooper's.

Reception

Kipper was first aired on 29 October 1980.

TBWA London co-founder John Hegarty told Watson that Kipper would most likely win silver at best.

• It won the gold award for film advertising at the Designers and Art Directors Association Awards.
• It won the 1981 Cannes Lions Grand Prix.
• It won gold in the Consumer Television: 60 Seconds Single category at The One Show's 1981 awards.
  • Later in 1990 it was one of the finalist nominees for The One Club's ten best advertisements of the 1980s decade.
• ITV Award for Best Commercial of the Year at the British Television Advertising Awards in 1981.

In 2000 Kipper was featured in The 100 Greatest TV Ads, being voted at number 74 by Channel 4 viewers.

In a 2016 interview Mike Cozens considered Kipper to still be as funny as when it had been written.