Friday, December 10, 2010

FIDO DIDO

When I was in college my moms told me she saw a commercial that looked like I had drawn it. It was for 7-UP and it might have been this one:



That there's Fido Dido and when I saw him I knew I knew I wanted to draw him.

Kind of weird how things work out.

And awesome.

One of my first freelance jobs in NYC was at the Ink Tank inbetweening Fido for ABC's Saturday morning cartoon interstitials.

And then a couple years later one of the first spots I worked on at J.J. Sedelmaier Productions was this:


We did a couple more Fido spots after that and Fido creator Susan Rose and I ended up working together alot. We got on kinda famously and I was thrilled when she let me
take over drawing Fido for her studio's annual style guide since she was so busy with other stuff (ie: the early days of Pepper Ann!)

So here are a bunch of style-guide drawings I did before they got hit with the brush marker:








These were always really fun to draw and I loved seeing what kinda cool stuff Fido's graphic designer Flavia Fiorillo would do with them!


6 comments:

  1. He was really the iconic character of the late 80s for me. The younger brother of the California Raisins.

    The best of all the spots, in my opinion, was the one Tony Eastman animated in which he grabs the pencil and duels with the artist's hand.

    Great dynamics, great character, great soundtrack.

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  2. Haha! Love the comercials! haha all my sister and bro talked about when they were kids(before I was Born) according to my mom. haha

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  3. totally agree, mr. o'connor! tony's fido work was amazing! and jonathan royce was the master of keying and inking fido-- i think he was the one that coined the term "fido finger". there was no way to put the cap back on those brush markers without getting it on your hands.

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  4. One of my most grooviest experiences was working in London with animator Russell Hall who animated the first three Fido 7Up commercials. (Russell also animated Jessica "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way" Rabbit.) My second grooviest experience was going to work everyday at Ink Tank while we made the 127 intersticials. Thanks for posting, my friend. xo

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  5. LOTS of NY talent worked on those interstitials ! Tom Pomposello's tracks were stellar, too ! David Dundas' music tracks on the commercials were iconic. And who could forget that since these were international spots, Fido could NEVER drink with his left hand. . .

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  6. The interstitials were not from ABC Saturday Morning, it's from CBS Saturday Morning.

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