The four-spot campaign follows golfers who are endowed with super-human powers by a particular shipment of Footjoy golf shoes and gloves inadvertently exposed to an excess dose of magma radiation from the earth's core.

Determined to use their newfound powers for the good of the game, the Golf Gods - including Davis Love III as "DL3," Phil Mickelson as "Lefty" and Vijay Singh as "Capt. Fiji" - set out to foil the evil.

"Call to Arms," is the proverbial creation of the campaign as the gods receive their powers for the first time. Other story lines include interactions with ghoulish groundskeeper Old Man Carruthers ("All Tied Up"), a plot to change a nasty weather pattern ("The Perfect Storm"), and finally the gods are called upon to defeat the villainous Dr. Dimples ("Quicksand").

The animation of the spots is reminiscent of old Saturday morning cartoons circa the '60s and '70s, a look that Arnold deliberately set out to recreate. Arnold turned to J.J. Sedelmaier Productions to execute the campaign based on Sedelmaier's wildly successful retro animation sketches for Saturday Night Live ("X Presidents," "The Ambiguously Gay Duo"). Also, Sedelmaier has previously parlayed that old school look into a VW spot, "Speed Racer," for Arnold.

"We were trying to take the model of all these terrible cartoons that were very stiff and putting the Golf Gods stuff in that context, which gives it a nice texture. It gives it that cliché," says J.J. Sedelmaier, noting that the "Golf Gods" approach is uncharacteristic with popular perceptions of golf as a stodgy, conservative game. "I mean you can imagine it with football or basketball, where the players are viewed on this monumental scale. Somehow, that seems consistent with those sports...but golf? So it becomes this marvelously absurd, over-the-top approach."

In order to enhance the plot line of golfers as superheroes, rigid, simple animation, washed-out colors and film grain are coupled with overbearing narration and cartoon-style effects, complete with audibly glowing shoes and gloves.

"If you're doing animation you should be doing it for something that you can't use other techniques to do," says Sedelmaier of the crude but effective "Golf Gods" delivery. "There should be a conscious choice as to why you're using it. In this case, it's two-fold: you've got the fantasy aspect, which allows you to make them into superhero caricatures, doing superhero things with superhero effects. Also, the drawing style puts it into a kind of nostalgic context that people hark back to and there is this automatic response to it. You recognize it and you're attracted to it."

"Golf Gods" is being marketed cross-media; the spots are available to view on the Web at www.footjoy.com, in addition to TV, print and poster coverage. Sedelmaier has also designed trading cards for all 11 Footjoy Golf Gods, and there has been talk of creating action figures, though is it unknown if either of these ventures will materialize.

Designer/director/producer Sedelmaier was assisted by designers/animators Sean Lattrel, Dave Lovelace, Dan Madia, designer Andrea Gonzalez and animator Irene Cerdas. The witty dialog for the campaign came from Arnold copywriter Grady Winch, and the retro sound design and music came from Fred Weinberg of HSR Studios.

Webfiles:

Arnold> http://www.arn.com
Footjoy> http://www.footjoy.com