Creative: Critique

The Next Action Hero Buddy Lee looks to save the day, and sell some jeans. AGENCY: Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Bill Westbrook CREATIVE GROUP HEADS: Harvey Marco, Peter McHugh ART DIRECTOR: Andy Azula COPYWRITER: Greg Hahn EXEC. PRODUCER: Judy Brink PRODUCER: Monica Prince DIRECTOR: Spike Jonze/Satellite Films Never mind Mary. There's something about Buddy, that spooky little homunculus now promoting Lee "Can't Bust 'Em" Dungarees. Buddy Lee appeared on city streets last spring in posters (no text, all oversized image) showing the moon-faced, round-bellied apparition dressed in the striped denim hat and overalls of a train engineer. The faded image seemed to have the eerie, artificial quality of digital data; I assumed he was some kind of toddler answer to the Dancing Baby who haunts Ally McBeal. Looking closer, however, it appeared to me that Buddy had a secret. What's up with those delicate Bette Davis eyebrows plucked to within an inch of his life, those beautiful eyelashes and that rosebud mouth? And then I saw the spots ("Buddy Lee is Buddy Lee in Buddy Lee, Man of Action"), with Buddy starring as a Lee-clad action hero who doesn't move, can't speak but survives car explosions, plane crashes and a tornado. After each near tragedy, Buddy is found without a dent, causing his human friend to say, "Some jeans!" (I hate to burst your Buddy bubble, but for the big action scenes, the producers used a body double or, in this case, a Buddy double.) The new commercials have been shown on Fox in prime time and have been seen more widely than "The Buddy Lee Story," a two-part pseudo-documentary in which we learn of his rise and fall--and subsequent rise. (Three minutes each, the spots ran on E! and Comedy Central.) After seeing the commercials, I still thought Buddy was a '90s invention, a fish-out-of-water spokes-thing that looks hilarious in human clothing. But the ads, reminiscent of This Is Spinal Tap, are only semifictional. Buddy has made a comeback. He was created in the 1920s by Lee as a promotional giveaway, a Kewpie doll in working-man's clothing. An immediate hit, Buddy Lee became a sort of one-boy precursor to the Village People, later appearing as a cowboy, milkman, etc.--embodying macho before there was such a word. (He cost $1.50 then, and now goes for between $500 and $1000.) Buddy was resurrected to launch Lee Dungarees, a new line aimed at those same damn elusive 17-22-year-olds who have spurned Lee and Levi's alike in favor of fashion jeans, and most of whom had never before heard the word "dungarees." In focus groups, it came out that kids were looking for "durability and heritage" (that's our Buddy!) and took to the weird little guy immediately, seeing him as a Li'l Penny figure. In the documentary, Buddy is Zelig, showing up at important historical moments, even sitting next to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his jaunty open roadster. The announcer (Peter Graves) tells us that although Buddy came from a humble background, "his determined spirit and his remarkable ability to survive encounters with heavy machinery" made him a natural spokesdoll for Lee. "Those were the days when product demos meant something," says Buddy's former agent, who speaks of the days before digital special effects. "Ever see a computer dragged 25 miles by a horse?" There's also an ex-wife: Ginger Romaine, obviously an ex-showgirl, who survives to tell the tale of Buddy. "He promised to buy me a puppy," she says, wiping a tear from her false eyelashes. "He picked me up." In addition to the dead-on parodies of the various movie, TV and show-biz forms, there are also inside jokes about the vicissitudes of the ad biz. In combing the Lee archives (the company was founded in 1889), the Fallon McElligott creative team found something else that made its way into the Buddy Lee story. There's a bit about the much-hated "big marketing consultant" who came to Lee in the late 1960s and gave Buddy the ax. (The consultant is shown on film, in Nixon-era tie and brown glasses, saying, "Kids don't want hard work and integrity. They want flash and entertainment.") The resulting Buddy Lee-free ad, which features a group of mod, mellow, bell-bottomed types relaxing around a guitar, was headlined "GroovLee." And it actually ran! But in our story, Buddy was sent packing. So after "tremendous highs," Buddy Lee experienced some "staggering lows." (Sounds about right for our manic-depressive times.) For his comeback, Buddy is described as "a man 14 inches high, with a backbone the size of Missouri." The campaign, in all of its elements, is brilliantly directed by Spike Jonze. The action spots--with their hideous explosions and disasters combined with an immovable Buddy--are strangely poignant. (It's like the boy version of little girls who try to mutilate their Barbies, with Barbie remaining impervious.) Indeed, Buddy has come to save us, and we imbue upon him all sorts of human qualities (without the frailties) and read his blankness as profundity. But I finally figured out what troubles me about Buddy. It's not the lying, and it's not the spooky Howdy Doody element. It's that our original Buddy boy, with his round, angel face and his flannel shirt covering a Teletubby-like belly, reminds me of a photo I've seen of a young Bill Clinton. I guess he was about seven, with his hair combed back, just like Buddy. (And didn't Clinton name his new best friend, the one he carefully carries on and off Air Force One, Buddy?) Clinton also appears able, in an almost superhuman way, to sidestep disaster, even if he seems to be hanging on by a thread.

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Creative: Critique

Barbara Lippert

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Barbara Lippert