The origin story of Oscar Mayer's cheese dog

Director Anthony Farquhar-Smith and Not To Scale New York team up with Johannes Leonardo to create the latest stop motion spot for Oscar Mayer. 

In an iconic showdown, a hot dog car and a cheese car collide together to create one of Oscar’s many meaty offerings, the Cheese Dog. With his flair for storytelling and masterful ability to inject personality into almost anything and everything, Not To Scale Director Anthony Farquhar-Smith was the perfect fit to transport Oscar Mayer's Cheese Dogs into the world of stop motion animation for the first time. 

The Cheese Dog’s origin story traces back to the Wild West. Anthony's aesthetic approach channelled action and Western movies to recreate the tension of a classic standoff in a dusty desert. The spot is brimming with grit and adrenalin; with their big tires and exaggerated exhausts, the cars emulate the hot rods of the ‘70s to create that pop-art ‘Keep it Oscar’ aesthetic. No detail is spared in creating the set; with pickles standing tall like cacti and a lone tumbleweed frolicking in the wind, the attention to detail only adds to the humorous surrealism. 

“There is a certain amount of surreal humor to be had from two food based cars facing of at each other, but by being faithful and accurate to the source material of Western and race movies, even more humor comes from trying to play something so silly in such a straightfashion.” adds Anthony Farquhar-Smith 

Ensuring maximum taste appeal of the Cheese Dog was always of the upmost importance. Anthony worked with a food stylist, John Bentham, and the model-makers to ensure the replica cars looked as tasty and realistic as possible. Yet, the real challenge was to capture an epic sense of scale via stop motion, requiring thorough collaboration with the camera department and the model-makers.