Creepy 7-Eleven Animated Commercial: Brainfreeze
August 5, 2015 6:33 PM Subscribe
In the 90s or early 00s, there was a 7-Eleven commercial that looked like it was inspired by Brothers Quay animations. I have not been able to find either a video or even mention of the commercial itself anywhere. Halp?
Inspired by this comment in the Stress Fantasy/Stress Reality thread, I figured I'd ask the wise AskMe denizens for help on finding this commercial:
Style: stop motion animation, very Brothers Quay, or alternatively, Undertow-era Tool videos like Prison Sex or Sober.
Setting: a cluster of leafless trees under moonlight.
Action: A bird lands on a branch. The back of the bird's head is hollow, clear glass. It dips its beak into a 7-Eleven Slurpee cup. The glass fills with frost, then explodes. The bird's head droops down in apparent death. A voiceover whispers "brainfreeze" as the camera tracks backward, where you see tiny pops of the heads of other little birds exploding.
Both my google-fu (which is decent) and my wife's google-fu (which is professional-grade) have failed to turn up a video or even a mention of this particular commercial online. Even if it's just corroboration that I haven't confabulated this will be very helpful, but I would be incredibly grateful for a video link or a page that discusses the commercial, if one can be found.
Inspired by this comment in the Stress Fantasy/Stress Reality thread, I figured I'd ask the wise AskMe denizens for help on finding this commercial:
Style: stop motion animation, very Brothers Quay, or alternatively, Undertow-era Tool videos like Prison Sex or Sober.
Setting: a cluster of leafless trees under moonlight.
Action: A bird lands on a branch. The back of the bird's head is hollow, clear glass. It dips its beak into a 7-Eleven Slurpee cup. The glass fills with frost, then explodes. The bird's head droops down in apparent death. A voiceover whispers "brainfreeze" as the camera tracks backward, where you see tiny pops of the heads of other little birds exploding.
Both my google-fu (which is decent) and my wife's google-fu (which is professional-grade) have failed to turn up a video or even a mention of this particular commercial online. Even if it's just corroboration that I haven't confabulated this will be very helpful, but I would be incredibly grateful for a video link or a page that discusses the commercial, if one can be found.
Response by poster: Nope, that wasn't me. But it's nice to see someone else wondered about it, even if it didn't get resolved.
posted by chimaera at 6:38 PM on August 5, 2015
posted by chimaera at 6:38 PM on August 5, 2015
The slurpee Wikipedia page discusses it under the heading promotions. Looks like it was the Quay brothers.
posted by griseus at 6:52 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by griseus at 6:52 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
And here's a 1995 article on the ads linked from the Wiki page.
posted by griseus at 6:56 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by griseus at 6:56 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
If it's the Quay brothers, I think this page almost gets us there, but the link to follow is dead.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:02 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:02 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
link 1
link 2
(i can't actually see it (linux so don't know how to display quicktime), but from reading another page i think it might be a different one with a contortionist)
posted by andrewcooke at 8:13 PM on August 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
link 2
(i can't actually see it (linux so don't know how to display quicktime), but from reading another page i think it might be a different one with a contortionist)
posted by andrewcooke at 8:13 PM on August 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Actually, the description of the commercial they did sounds different... I was able to view the archived page, and no birds. Just an upside down woman behind a curtain drinking a slurpee, which matches the commercial description elsewhere.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:16 PM on August 5, 2015
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:16 PM on August 5, 2015
It's so weird these days to not be able to find something on the internet that you know existed at one time. I don't know if it's out there.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:21 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:21 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: From griseus's link above, there's this bit:
Ultimately JWT opted for four 15-second stop-motion animation pieces, three from Olive Jar (SHOOT, 6/23, p. 30) and one from the Quays.
Looks like the one I described isn't the Quay Brothers' spot (with the contortionist) but one of the spots made by Olive Jar.
posted by chimaera at 8:54 PM on August 5, 2015
Ultimately JWT opted for four 15-second stop-motion animation pieces, three from Olive Jar (SHOOT, 6/23, p. 30) and one from the Quays.
Looks like the one I described isn't the Quay Brothers' spot (with the contortionist) but one of the spots made by Olive Jar.
posted by chimaera at 8:54 PM on August 5, 2015
Looks like the one I described isn't the Quay Brothers' spot (with the contortionist) but one of the spots made by Olive Jar.
I fear not. The ad you described sounded so familiar, so I did some searching and found that the Olive Jar ad is on this page under stop-motion, the 4th ad down. They describe it as part of the Brain Freeze campaign, made when they were working at Olive Jar. It involves cowboys getting brain freeze, not a bird.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:30 AM on August 6, 2015
I fear not. The ad you described sounded so familiar, so I did some searching and found that the Olive Jar ad is on this page under stop-motion, the 4th ad down. They describe it as part of the Brain Freeze campaign, made when they were working at Olive Jar. It involves cowboys getting brain freeze, not a bird.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:30 AM on August 6, 2015
there were three from olive jar (see "1995 article" above).
posted by andrewcooke at 2:35 AM on August 6, 2015
posted by andrewcooke at 2:35 AM on August 6, 2015
This guy's resume says that he worked on the spots at Olive Jar (they're not on his demo reel). Since it's relatively recent, I assume the contact info still works.
posted by General Malaise at 8:29 AM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by General Malaise at 8:29 AM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you contact the guy and he has it, this could be a genuine addition to the internet that (arguably) didn't exist prior (outside of non-searchable places). I would be so excited if that happened.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:16 AM on August 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:16 AM on August 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I did drop him a note and pointed him to our discussion.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:54 AM on August 6, 2015
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:54 AM on August 6, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jessamyn at 6:36 PM on August 5, 2015