tom’s rubbish busters
As a kid I would spend an inordinate amount of time teaching myself how to draw cartoon characters. Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I can still pretty-much draw them from memory. There was nothing more coveted in this world than a stop-motion camera so I could make my own animations.
I’m still a big fan of cartoons and animation. But sadly my dream of a career as an animator never came to fruition. That is, until the day Tom’s - a Bristol-based waste and recycling company - approached me to create an animated campaign featuring their eponymous cartoon cat mascot.
the big clean-up
supertom - the big clean up (animated video)
Tom’s wanted to promote their brand via an altruistic message to kids and families encouraging them to pick up their litter and to recycle more.
I enlisted the talented independent Bristol-based animators Charlie Pullin Swan, Sophie Marsh and their team. Together we came up with the idea of Super-Tom, the superhero moggy here to save the planet.
I wrote a script and treatment, working closely with the animators to come up with fun little details like the Doctorpus surgeon. The extraordinarily versatile voice actor Marc Silk (Johnny Bravo, Go-Jetters), provided most of the voices in the cartoon. The score and “Tom’s Rubbish Busters” theme tune were composed by Jon Sweet, with lyrics by me.
Needless to say, this was an extremely fun and rewarding project to work on, and nine-year-old me would have been very very proud. Tom’s loved the video, using it as an online promo tool, and also as an in-person showcase to educate families about recycling.
social & radio
Piggybacking off the success of the video, a series of social media posts and radio adverts were also created, featuring the characters and talking about the various services offered by Tom’s.
