Beech Nut - Frosty Mint

Content

Commercial for Beech Nut Chewing gum. The packaged strips of chewing gum come to life. Snowflakes and ice crystals swirl around. They symbolise the fresh flavour. Beech Nut - Frosty mint. The jingle is still recognised by older people after many years.

Trivia

In these pre-digital days, all graphic effects were handmade. Snowflakes were cut from white paper and then moved frame by frame along a predetermined track in front of the trick film camera. Although this video copy is of low quality, you can see the shadow of the cut-out paper ice crystals. After all, everything was shot with film lights. The artwork lay flat on a table and the camera hung perpendicularly above it, in the same way as a cartoon used to be shot.

Please also note the titles that are playfully ‘wiped out’ by the eraser. As mentioned, no videographic existed at that time. Therefore, the titles were recorded separately on film with single image capture and double print technique put over the animation. This required a secure calculation beforehand to make the separately recorded titles ‘move’ with the eraser. The effect is as if the gum pushes the text away, and at other times the text wriggles between the candies. In short, a seamless interaction between image and text.

Puppet film or animation?

Some viewers may wonder: is this puppet film or computer animation? The answer is: puppet film. Better said: stop-motion film. After all, these films date back to the days when computers and video did not exist. Traditional puppets have been replaced by chewing gum strips, which sometimes take the form of a puppet.

Technique

Joop Geesink produced an extensive series of commercials for Beech Nut between 1950 and 1970. These included many variants in varying lengths (reminders).
Showing an advertising film in the cinema is much cheaper per second of ‘airtime’ than on television. This allowed longer versions to be shown in cinemas. The sung advertising jingle became hugely popular and appears in numerous variations in other Beech-Nut films. But, these commercials were also frequently shown on (US) television. For this reason, several films were made in black and white, as the TV channels broadcast exclusively in black and white images. 
The Beech-Nut song: 'More flavour to chew, more flavours to choose. The flavor starts lively, the flavor stays lively. Buy Beech-Nut, buy gum.' This tune has been used in many variations.