When I was a kid, my brother used to try to gross me out by showing me his mouthful of semi-masticated food. So I’m a veteran of what goes on in people’s mouths when they’re eating, but I’ve never seen anything like this.

Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup has a new trio of 15s that bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘mouth feel’ – and a whole new meaning to the term ‘zap proof.’ You have to watch them repeatedly to catch half of what’s going on, so I imagine it’s going to be quite a while before viewers tire of them.

The spots feature claymation kids extolling the virtues of the soup while the viewer takes a visual voyage into a zany world of rockin’ chickens and wild noodles – inside the children’s mouths.

In ‘Bumper Cars,’ a little boy explains ‘It tastes like little bumper cars crashing all over my mouth!’ while we watch a crazy scene of chickens and noodles in said vehicles colliding and ricocheting around on his tongue to the strains of a typical fairground soundtrack.

In ‘Surfing,’ a little girl says ‘It’s like huge chickeny, noodly waves rolling over my tongue!’ The viewer is treated to what can only be described as a twisted version of a beach blanket movie of the early ’60s, with noodles in cat glasses and chickens in sporty outfits catching a wave to the tune of a soundtrack worthy of Hawaii Five-0.

The just-released ‘Noodleoids’ caps the pool with a bespectacled youth proclaiming ‘It feels like an invasion of noodleoids! And they’re taking over my mouth!’ His teeth turn into Gotham skyscrapers as the wacky invasion of chickenoids and noodleoids wreak havoc in his oral cavity. The music is a strangely appropriate dip into opera.

Words cannot really describe these spots. They have to be seen to be believed. But I can say that they’re mini-masterpieces of claymation cartooning. They surpass advertising and enter the realm of entertainment.

It was a painstaking process. Lipton brand manager Greg Shewchuk, who was in England for five weeks overseeing the production at Aardman Animation in Bristol, reports that it took the animators a day to capture each second of action.

Why England when it’s a Canadian campaign? Shewchuk explains they had seen Aardman’s Academy Award-winning Wallace and Gromit series and loved its look and feel. Using Aardman meant Lipton had to ‘rejig the budget,’ but Shewchuk says that although the move was expensive it was worth it.

The spots were the brainchild of Shewchuk and the creative team at Saint-Jacques Vallee Young & Rubicam in Montreal, copywriter Ron Caplan and art director Pascal Hierholtz. by Paula Costello

Roll credits

Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup ‘Bumper Cars’/’Surfing’/’Noodleoids’

Director: Sam Fell

Production house: Aardman Animation, Bristol, Eng.

Production house producer: Julie Lockhart

Agency: Saint-Jacques Vallee Young & Rubicam, Montreal

Copywriter: Ron Caplan

Art director: Pascal Hierholtz

Vice-president: Suzanne Bourret

Music: stock