Chuck Robinson, Media Watch "Fresh Guacamole,” a short animated film nominated for an Academy Award, symbolizes the success of avocado marketing in the U.S.
The film was short enough for “CBS Sunday Morning” to show it in its entirety on Feb. 24, the day of the Oscars presentation. “Fresh Guacamole” is the shortest film ever nominated.
It is an odd film. Director Adam Pesapane transformed a hand grenade into an avocado and cut it open with a knife, just like most of us have done countless times to make guacamole with real avocados. The pit is a No. 7 pool ball.
A baseball becomes an onion and when chopped with a knife it becomes dice and then smaller dice. Aren’t puns fun?
A red, squat pincushion doubles for a tomato and turns into red dice, a green golf ball plays a lime and a small light bulb serves as a chili pepper. The guac is served with lots of chips — Las Vegas poker chips.
The film is a stop-motion creation and leaves us smiling and subconsciously craving guacamole.
The L.A. Times reports the director goes by the professional moniker Pes.
This might be the director’s ticket out of filming television commercials, according to the L.A. Times.
This nomination is a sign of how avocados have arrived on the scene. Thanks to coordinated marketing and promoting by groups across growing regions and country borders, not to mention influence from our country’s growing Hispanic population, avocados have become a mainstay.
For instance, check out www.eatpes.com to find this film and more of the director’s work. You will find a live-action film titled “Dogs of War” in which World War II bombs turn into frankfurters. It is funny because hot dogs are all-American and 100% accepted across many demographic groups.
Like avocados.
Another Pes short is “Western Spaghetti,” another stop-action film where the director shows spaghetti being made. In this version pincushions reprise their role as fresh tomatoes, Rubik’s Cube cubes are onions, googly eyes are salt, Pick Up Stix are uncooked spaghetti and rubber bands are cooked spaghetti.
The film only works because spaghetti is a food loved by so many, whether we are of a specific ancestry or not.
Like avocados.
In an Oct. 29 article in The Packer, Adolfo Ochagavia, president of the Chilean Hass Avocado Association, noted how growing avocado demand seemed to be recession proof in the U.S. Ochagavia cited a recent 10-week period in which 31 million pounds of product moved through the U.S. each week.
“That’s something that was unthinkable a few years ago,” he said.
The Huffington Post reported in June that the total volume of avocados sold in 2005 the U.S. was just under 803 million pounds, and in 2011, that number jumped to about 1.14 billion pounds. That’s a 42% increase over six years.
“Fresh Guacamole” didn’t win the Oscar. Pes faced some competition with resumes that mentioned Pixar, Disney and “The Simpsons.” Disney’s “Paperman” won the Academy Award for best animated short.
However, if we had produce industry Oscars, the avocado industry would clean up.
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