Santa Claus went out with a banquet in his honor and a temperamental Spiderman took the time to perfect his golf game. Now joining them in retirement are two of the most famous animated television icons, Gumby and Pokey.

The claymation characters, ironically, have recently come out of retirement to star in the latest agf mutual fund spot. Produced by The Animation House, the commercial division of Evening Sky Productions, and Young & Rubicam, the spot is part of the campaign centered around the tag line, ‘What are you doing after work?’

The campaign had its genesis a couple years ago with ‘Actor,’ a spot parodying retirement commercials. From there, the creative team, including copywriter Tim Kavander and art director Doug Bramar, came up with a list of icons who no one would ever consider retiring and that the fortysomething target could relate to.

‘We looked at all North American advertising on the subject and there was a sameness to it,’ says y&r exec vp and cocreative director John Farquhar. ‘What we decided to do was take the cliches of the category and turn them upside down, making it funnier and a little more intrusive.’

The stop-motion spot opens with two balls of Plasticine, one green and one orange, rolling along a real-life book shelf and morphing into the famous duo. Faced with the prospect of retiring, Gumby and Pokey decide to peruse the pages of a book entitled Island Paradise and then walk into a picture-perfect Plasticine paradise.

Remaining true to the original Gumby and Pokey series and keeping the look nostalgic was key to animation director Philip Marcus and creative director Bob Fortier, who say they raised the production values to a commercial level without changing any of the ideas.

The animated stars of yesteryear are as authentic as possible, having been sculpted by original series creator Arthur Clokey, who provided a plethora of latex models and a lump of clay in each color for the opening shot.

Once the characters pass into the pages of the book, the Plasticine Gumby and Pokey are replaced with easier-to-work-with latex models, who stroll down the sandy beach inhabited by flamingoes playing in a pond, a dolphin jumping in the waves and a crab crawling by. Each element on the beach was made from Plasticine and shot in one layer with a stop-motion camera pan.

‘We didn’t want to populate the world with other characters, but it was looking desolate,’ says Fortier. ‘We didn’t want them to look shipwrecked, so Philip brought life to the environment without taking away from the principal characters.’

If you remember the original series, you’ll remember that it wasn’t done entirely in Plasticine. Instead, Clokey used actual toy cars, for example, as well as other props. While this would have made the nine-week commercial project quicker, the animation team felt that when people thought about the series they would imagine it all in Plasticine. Doing it this way also allowed the animators to encapsulate the contrast between the real world at the beginning and the fantasy world the duo enters later.

Everything up until the sunset, which has Gumby stretching out on a lounge chair and Pokey getting cozy next to him in the sand, was done as it was for the 1950s series, in-camera. But, when it came time for the big finish, the animators upped the ante by taking advantage of contemporary production techniques.

Each element – water, sun, clouds – was shot separately and composed and color-corrected in Jaleo by Optix senior compositing artist David Hedley. Doing it this way instead of in-camera, like the rest of the spot, gave animators more lighting control.

The challenge of the spot, according to Marcus, was to remain true to everyone’s memory of the characters while going to air with a sophisticated version of them that didn’t look computer enhanced.

Who’s going to retire next? Farquhar won’t say, but assures we will be equally surprised by what’s coming.

Susie Rucska was executive producer on the spot, Michael Crabtree was producer, Graham Mears was dop. Agency producer was Diane Kirk.