It’s past midnight on a weeknight in the mid-80s, and after receiving a rather mysterious note from Propeller Film, the local Toronto advertising community watches in anticipation as David Letterman cuts to a commercial break.

Two freaky looking guys sporting full aviation gear – leather helmets, goggles, scarves and bomber jackets – sit at an anchor desk, with Propeller scrawled on the wall in the background, and stare.

Finally, after more than 10 seconds of silence passes, Carl Harvey, one of the oddities behind the desk and executive producer at Propeller, announces the addition of two new names to the Toronto shop’s roster, while Alar Kivilo, his pilot sidekick, holds up pictures of the new faces.

‘It was just dry and bizarre and it really freaked people out,’ recalls Harvey. ‘It was a great way to do something different. Isn’t that odd that to do an ad is doing something different?’

And that was just the beginning. The duo popped up again a week before the Bessies during a midnight rerun of Bonanza, and in the true western spirit of the show, galloped up to the camera on horseback. Harvey’s line ‘Got a hankering for a commercial?’

The reason behind this spot: ‘It was just something we did on the tail end of a shoot. It just furthered the mystique of our wacky existence.’

After 11 years with Propeller, Kivilo wanted to get back to work as a dop and Harvey decided to take a crack at directing, first as a name on The Partners’ Film Company roster and then at Players, where he has been since last summer.

It was Steve Conover of Doner Schur Peppler who gave Harvey his first shot at directing with a pool of three spots for Leon’s involving a character dialogue bit, a 400-pound lion, a complex chase sequence and a country couple dancing on their living room ceiling.

And being a firm believer in documenting history, the ambitious director taped the first take of his debut.

Harvey recently completed a pool of spots for the Toronto Raptors, a job for Taco Bell, and is looking to get involved in episodic tv, something he thinks he is well suited for.

Words of wisdom from the director: ‘It doesn’t take long to stitch lace on a possum.’ Meaning: no matter what you are presenting you can always make it better and more interesting if you just take the time.

‘If a possum walks in with a little lace on him you are not going to forget that possum.’ Something this possum obviously applies to his life.