‘Gil Scott-Heron did the closing voiceover. He was giggling away, saying, “You English guys are crazy!”’
My creative partner Al Young and I had been on the dole for 18 months when we landed our dream jobs at Howell Henry ad agency. We had to prove ourselves fast. Tango’s brief was basically to get talked about. They told us: “We want Coca-Cola to be afraid of this little British brand.” The campaign was based around the hit of real fruit. We decided to escalate that concept, making the hit a physical thing.
Most ads were cause and effect – consume the product and something pleasant happens. We flipped that, so something unpleasant happens in a farcical way. It was almost anti-advertising. I loved Charlie Chaplin kicking people up the bum, then running off. A boot up the backside was deemed too aggressive but we figured we’d get away with a Morecambe and Wise-style slap. We shot tests with a camcorder but the slap didn’t look big enough. We ended up putting our arms straight out to the sides, pause, then “whack!”.
At first, it was just a fat guy. Al said: “Let’s make him orange, so he’s more a manifestation of the drink.” He became this shirtless orange genie. We auditioned loads of actors. Peter Geeves, who got the job, was a proper thespian. He had this funny way of running with his tummy thrust forward and head back, which clinched it. When the ad got pulled by the agency, we got him to redo it with a kiss instead of a slap and Peter told us: “I can’t get parts any more. Everybody just sees me as this fat orange bloke.” Gil Scott-Heron did the closing voiceover. I was terrified – asking one of my heroes to say, “You know when you’ve been Tango’d” at the end of our silly ad. But Gil was giggling away, saying, “You English guys are crazy!”
