With Leo Burnett, Toronto and director Matt Eastman of Radke, composers Tom Westin and Dave Sorbara put together 11 nuggets of music to match the wacky vignettes comprising the Five-Alive campaign.

"For the guy with the Afro, we were thinking classic funk, like George Clinton P-Funk," says Westin. "We made it as authentic as possible with no modern edge, just stripped down old-school funk. We kept the drums fat and tight and the bass slow and slinky. We bought compressors called distressers which are amazing for effects to blow out a drum beat."

The next scene has a yuppyish man on an exercise machine being goaded by a small robot. Primarily a sound design job, an '80s Jane Fonda--esque sound was scrapped in favor of keeping the dynamic range down, which results in a more jarring impact when the spot cuts to the next scene, an anime scene whose hero draws lightning powers from the fruity beverage.

"It's not like old Japanimation; we wanted to make it like guys in Tokyo would make it now," says Sorbara. "It has electronic intensity but with rock elements: chunky guitars, driving bass line and a really hardcore polyrhythmic beat."

Next are three mascots cavorting in a hot tub, their antics fuelled by Five-Alive; laughter from the bomb-headed man, penguin and polar bear is laid over a smooth piece of stock music. Then comes a grocery clerk blandly scanning purchase codes until he hits the Five-Alive and an electronic groove with a jungle beat emerges from his station; the clerk obligingly begins to freak to the beat.

A puppet in a tiny apartment furnished with a miniature Vespa scooter appears next. "He's rocking to a wacky little piece, almost Atari music mixed with da-da-da Euro drivel," says Westin. "There is a small and tiny drum loop, wimpy and pointy beneath the vocals. When the plane goes by we added a plane sound and a sonic boom which launches the puppet off its hand. This vexes him so that he yells out 'grossmũtter,' which is grandmother in German."

Next, a sly, shirtless and self-satisfied lothario applies Five-Alive in lieu of aftershave. "The music here is pretty standard; it's a take-off of a Gillette ad from the '80s, or maybe Boston or Foreigner," says Sorbara. "Triumph here could only be accomplished by having dueling harmonized guitars as he splashes his face. Also, he is my neighbor."

A Russian scientist stimulating a disembodied brain with the beverage is set to a sci-fi sound design while the next vignette, a young lady performing a headstand while drinking Five-Alive through a straw on an Ed Sullivan--like program is accompanied by somewhat sad Midi horns and weak applause. The final vignette, set in a fake-rock-strewn gym, pits an agile wrestler against a man-sized Five-Alive box, makes use of classic Star Trek--style dramatic scoring, although Sorbara notes the track sounds as though it were "dipped in tea and put back out there."

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Grayson Matthews> www.graysonmatthews.com