Big Films director Ron Murphy is still laughing about losing his commercial virginity to Gilbert Gottfried. The Toronto-based rookie spot director, a self-proclaimed student of comedy, was thrilled to learn the focal point of his first pool of spots, for client Giant Carpet, would be American comedian Gottfried.

The creative team behind the five 30s out of Toronto agency Walsh & Associates included creative director Bill Argus, copywriter James Hill, and art directors Evan DePiero and Bob Whibbes. The spots are airing in Ontario only.

Playback caught up with Argus and Murphy at Big’s offices as they screened rushes from the shoot.

‘I’ve been laughing for two hours straight,’ says Argus, marveling at Gottfried’s comedic abilities. ‘I think I’m pretty funny, but I was humbled.’

The premise of the campaign is simple: customer from hell tests the mettle of the sales team at Giant Carpet, with Gottfried taking on his usual abrasive, on-screen persona in a number of different in-store situations.

‘It was a joy to work with someone so talented who brought so much to the table,’ says Murphy of Gottfried. ‘He’s actually a real gentleman, a real soft-spoken guy, in complete contrast to his persona. He did a lot of physical stuff that was really demanding. Just the voice going for that long alone was demanding.’

Adds Argus: ‘Being the anti-customer he is very loud and annoying, but at the same time, because he is Gilbert, there is a lovable quality to him.’

Among the challenges for the creative team was finding the funny side of flooring. ‘We wrote jokes for every department of the store,’ explains Argus. ‘We sat in a room and wrote tons of jokes pertaining to carpet, laminate and all kinds of rugs, stockpiled them into these categories and wrote the scripts according to those lists. We spent half a day making jokes about carpeting.’

The creative director says the decision to go with a first-time commercial director was not made lightly. ‘We looked at a number of comedy directors from most of the major production [houses], and there were some very good directors and a lot to choose from,’ says Argus.

‘When I first met Ron and described the concept, he immediately latched on to it. He bought into it so fast and he quickly started bringing his own vision and concepts into it. There was a real eagerness I really liked. You could tell he had worked with a lot of funny people (Murphy was at one time personal assistant to the late John Candy).’

Murphy says Rhett Morita, who manned the camera over the two days of shooting, made production on his first pool of spots relatively incident free.

‘Rhett was very generous with his time in preproduction, so when we got to the set there weren’t any rough spots,’ says Murphy. ‘He has shot a lot of long form, which is the majority of my experience, so he knew I’d come in with certain expectations from long form that wouldn’t apply to commercials. He set it up for me so there wouldn’t be any surprises.’

For Argus and Murphy one of the high points of the shoot was working with Gottfried, who continued to entertain on set even when the camera was off.

‘Every once in a while during lunch he would sting us with these amazing one-liners – Olympic-level jokes,’ says Argus. ‘They were subtle put-downs, but they were titanic. He is superhero funny.’

As for Murphy, he’s excited about the commercial business after his first taste of spot-making, but jokes that the commercials still to come in his budding career may not live up to the precedent set by his first experience.

‘I think I should retire,’ he laughs. ‘This is going to be tough to top. The combo of the great creative and Gilbert was killer. I hope to be this lucky again in the future.’

Big’s Angie Colgoni served as executive producer and James Taylor edited at Big.