Frank and Gordon
Encyclopedia
Frank and Gordon are fictional beavers that were the focal point of Bell Canada
's brand and marketing strategy from 2005 to 2008.
Originally introduced in late 2005 in Quebec
, and February 2006 in the rest of Canada, to promote Bell's sponsorship of the 2010 Olympics, the anthropomorphic CGI beaver
s were voiced in English Canada
by Norm Macdonald
(Frank) and Ken Hudson Campbell
(Gordon). Their misadventures with Frank getting flustered with the dimwitted Gordon made them two of the best known corporate mascot
s in Canada
. The animated duo were created by Montreal-based Buzz Image for the Cossette advertising agency in Quebec City.
s (tukes, or woolen hats) to enhance their Canadian patriotism in their upcoming Bell commercials to air during the 2006 Winter Olympics
. The French version took place in a plush executive suite, with a sultry-sounding (but unseen) female manager, who did not present them with toques. The next few commercials followed a similar thread, with Frank and Gordon getting accustomed to their new-found fame, and a house full of Bell TV/cell phone/internet
-aided items at their disposal while watching the 2006 Winter Olympics. However, in the English versions, they always had their maple-leaf tuques on, and appeared in somewhat rundown conditions with ratty furniture and empty beer cans littered around, while in the French versions, the toques were not seen, and their living room appeared opulent. In one commercial, Frank pauses the TV picture on the Bell digital video recorder
in the middle of figure skating
that Gordon is watching, and urges Gordon to groom as Gordon coughs up a hairball
. In another, Gordon claims to be sick of seeing himself on TV, so Frank suggests he go out of the house and exercise to lose some of his newly-gained weight. Gordon replies that the camera "adds 10 pounds".
s, although Gordon shaved his accidentally one day while Frank watched "our team" on his Bell video-equipped phone. They recorded a song at the time, singing "What's more Canadian" - than hockey and beavers. Other commercials saw them in a limousine
full of super-models while listening to music on their MP3
-enabled phones, Gordon dancing in his bedroom to music on his phone before being interrupted by a shocked Frank, or in a shopping mall buying many Bell cell phones for friends as Christmas gifts, but then being unable to navigate a revolving door out of the mall. As time went by, human characters were introduced to the commercials with the computer-generated beavers. Frank, playing the suave "ladies-man" character, tried to make conversation with a woman buying an MP3 music player in a store, saying he had to keep up with the music scene as he played in a band. The woman was unimpressed, although Frank was certain that "she wanted me...". Gordon finished the sentence with "... to do what?" A number of commercials showed them appearing on a Letterman
-style late-night TV talk show where they extolled the virtues of Bell devices to the host; while one of the last showed them in a bachelor pad with two attractive young women who had been enticed up by their offers of more high-definition television
channels and faster internet than anyone else's apartment might have. While still amusing, the commercials had lost a ongoing, engaging story-line between the two main characters, and had become simple plugs for Bell devices.
), and a spokesperson for the company said that ending the Frank and Gordon campaign (and the introduction of a new Bell logo and ad campaign later that week) was symbolic of that change.
Rock et Belles Oreilles
Frank and Gordon were parodied in French skits by Rock et Belles Oreilles' "Bye Bye 2006" show. They were featured on Télévision de Radio-Canada
Two characters named Jim and Bertrand work as rats for Bill Canada.
One skit featured Bertrand who was fired because Bill outsourced their calling centres to India
. Bertrand, trying to wash windshields on the street, gets squashed by a car. The parody commercial ends with the message: "écrasez les syndicats avec Bill Canada", which translates to "squash trade unions with Bill Canada". The skit is based on two controversial events: the Bell Subco strike of 2005, and the outsourcing of Bell Canada's phone-based customer service to foreign countries such as India
.
Another skit featured a parody of Frank and Gordon's infamous Megaphone commercial.
Videotron
To promote its Internet services, Videotron parodied the Frank & Gordon campaign with a commercial. It consists of a beaver, likely representing Bell Canada, in a wood logging
competition against a man wearing a Videotron-branded helmet. While the beaver could only cut the log using its teeth, the Videotron man could use various wood cutting equipment such as a two-man saw
or a chainsaw
to represent different speed tiers. This allowed the man to cut out five different pieces of wood from the log. At the end of the commercial, the beaver is still cutting the log with his teeth, and has not finished cutting out a single piece of the log yet.
Bell Canada
Bell Canada is a major Canadian telecommunications company. Including its subsidiaries such as Bell Aliant, Northwestel, Télébec, and NorthernTel, it is the incumbent local exchange carrier for telephone and DSL Internet services in most of Canada east of Manitoba and in the northern territories,...
's brand and marketing strategy from 2005 to 2008.
Originally introduced in late 2005 in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, and February 2006 in the rest of Canada, to promote Bell's sponsorship of the 2010 Olympics, the anthropomorphic CGI beaver
Beaver
The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...
s were voiced in English Canada
English Canada
English Canada is a term used to describe one of the following:# English-speaking Canadians, as opposed to French-speaking Canadians. It is employed when comparing English- and French-language literature, media, or art...
by Norm Macdonald
Norm MacDonald
Norman Gene "Norm" Macdonald is a Canadian stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He is best known for his five seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, which included anchoring Weekend Update for three years...
(Frank) and Ken Hudson Campbell
Ken Hudson Campbell
Ken Hudson Campbell is an American television and voice actor.Campbell played "Animal" on the experimental Fox TV series Herman's Head, as well as Buckman in the movie Down Periscope. He appeared in the Seinfeld episode "The Seven", where he played Ken, the husband of Susan's first cousin, Carrie...
(Gordon). Their misadventures with Frank getting flustered with the dimwitted Gordon made them two of the best known corporate mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
s in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The animated duo were created by Montreal-based Buzz Image for the Cossette advertising agency in Quebec City.
Early years
The early commercials showed Frank and Gordon on their journey to becoming Bell mascots; from waiting outside the audition room with other human and animal hopefuls, to the audition itself, and then the meeting with Bell management when they were informed that they had "got the gig" while Gordon eyed up a sandwich on the desk. This third commercial was also the first to be created in two forms, one for English Canada, and a separate version for Francophone Canada. The English version showed them in a dumpy-looking office with a tired-sounding (but unseen) male manager who presented them with maple-leaf tuqueTuque
A – variously known as a knit hat or stocking cap among other names – is a knitted cap, originally of wool though now often of synthetic fibers, that is designed to provide warmth in winter...
s (tukes, or woolen hats) to enhance their Canadian patriotism in their upcoming Bell commercials to air during the 2006 Winter Olympics
2006 Winter Olympics
The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XX Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Turin, Italy from February 10, 2006, through February 26, 2006. This marked the second time Italy hosted the Olympic Winter Games, the first being the VII Olympic Winter...
. The French version took place in a plush executive suite, with a sultry-sounding (but unseen) female manager, who did not present them with toques. The next few commercials followed a similar thread, with Frank and Gordon getting accustomed to their new-found fame, and a house full of Bell TV/cell phone/internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
-aided items at their disposal while watching the 2006 Winter Olympics. However, in the English versions, they always had their maple-leaf tuques on, and appeared in somewhat rundown conditions with ratty furniture and empty beer cans littered around, while in the French versions, the toques were not seen, and their living room appeared opulent. In one commercial, Frank pauses the TV picture on the Bell digital video recorder
Digital video recorder
A digital video recorder , sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder , is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other local or networked mass storage device...
in the middle of figure skating
Figure skating
Figure skating is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork and other intricate and challenging moves on ice skates. Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level , and at local, national, and international competitions...
that Gordon is watching, and urges Gordon to groom as Gordon coughs up a hairball
Hairball
A hairball is a small collection of hair or fur formed in the stomach of animals that is occasionally vomited up when it becomes too big. Hairballs are primarily a tight elongated cylinder of packed fur, but may include bits of other elements such as swallowed food. Cats are especially prone to...
. In another, Gordon claims to be sick of seeing himself on TV, so Frank suggests he go out of the house and exercise to lose some of his newly-gained weight. Gordon replies that the camera "adds 10 pounds".
Post-Torino 2006
After the 2006 Winter Olympics, the different versions of commercials for English and French Canada seemed to be discontinued, with similar versions just being prepared with different voices. Frank and Gordon tapped into Canada's love of hockey in time for the 2006 NHL playoffs, both growing playoff beardPlayoff beard
A playoff beard is the practice of a National Hockey League player not shaving his beard during the Stanley Cup playoffs. The player stops shaving when his team enters the playoffs and does not shave until his team is eliminated or wins the Stanley Cup. The tradition was started in the 1980s by...
s, although Gordon shaved his accidentally one day while Frank watched "our team" on his Bell video-equipped phone. They recorded a song at the time, singing "What's more Canadian" - than hockey and beavers. Other commercials saw them in a limousine
Limousine
A limousine is a luxury sedan or saloon car, especially one with a lengthened wheelbase or driven by a chauffeur. The chassis of a limousine may have been extended by the manufacturer or by an independent coachbuilder. These are called "stretch" limousines and are traditionally black or white....
full of super-models while listening to music on their MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
-enabled phones, Gordon dancing in his bedroom to music on his phone before being interrupted by a shocked Frank, or in a shopping mall buying many Bell cell phones for friends as Christmas gifts, but then being unable to navigate a revolving door out of the mall. As time went by, human characters were introduced to the commercials with the computer-generated beavers. Frank, playing the suave "ladies-man" character, tried to make conversation with a woman buying an MP3 music player in a store, saying he had to keep up with the music scene as he played in a band. The woman was unimpressed, although Frank was certain that "she wanted me...". Gordon finished the sentence with "... to do what?" A number of commercials showed them appearing on a Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman is a U.S. late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and is produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. The show's music director and band-leader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is...
-style late-night TV talk show where they extolled the virtues of Bell devices to the host; while one of the last showed them in a bachelor pad with two attractive young women who had been enticed up by their offers of more high-definition television
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
channels and faster internet than anyone else's apartment might have. While still amusing, the commercials had lost a ongoing, engaging story-line between the two main characters, and had become simple plugs for Bell devices.
Campaign end
The beavers appeared in their final ad for Bell on August 1, 2008 – more than a year before the Vancouver Olympics the pair was purportedly created to promote. Bell had recently been taken over by a new management team (in connection to its then-pending, but later canceled, sale to a group led by the Ontario Teachers' Pension PlanOntario Teachers' Pension Plan
The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan , commonly referred to as Teachers, is the organization responsible for administering pensions for public school teachers of the Canadian province of Ontario. The OTPP also invests the plan's pension fund, making it one of the largest and most powerful investment...
), and a spokesperson for the company said that ending the Frank and Gordon campaign (and the introduction of a new Bell logo and ad campaign later that week) was symbolic of that change.
Rock et Belles OreillesRock et Belles OreillesRock et Belles Oreilles, often referred to as R.B.O., was a Québécois radio and television comedy group that was very popular in the essentially French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec during the 1980s. Its name was a pun on the name of the famous Hanna-Barbera blue dog character Huckleberry...
Frank and Gordon were parodied in French skits by Rock et Belles Oreilles' "Bye Bye 2006" show. They were featured on Télévision de Radio-CanadaTélévision de Radio-Canada
Télévision de Radio-Canada is a Canadian French language television network. It is owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, known in French as Société Radio-Canada. Headquarters are at Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal, which is also home to the network's flagship station, CBFT-DT...
Two characters named Jim and Bertrand work as rats for Bill Canada.
One skit featured Bertrand who was fired because Bill outsourced their calling centres to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Bertrand, trying to wash windshields on the street, gets squashed by a car. The parody commercial ends with the message: "écrasez les syndicats avec Bill Canada", which translates to "squash trade unions with Bill Canada". The skit is based on two controversial events: the Bell Subco strike of 2005, and the outsourcing of Bell Canada's phone-based customer service to foreign countries such as India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
Another skit featured a parody of Frank and Gordon's infamous Megaphone commercial.
VideotronVidéotronVidéotron GP is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Currently, the company primarily serves Quebec, as well as the francophone...
To promote its Internet services, Videotron parodied the Frank & Gordon campaign with a commercial. It consists of a beaver, likely representing Bell Canada, in a wood loggingLogging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
competition against a man wearing a Videotron-branded helmet. While the beaver could only cut the log using its teeth, the Videotron man could use various wood cutting equipment such as a two-man saw
Two-man saw
A two-man saw is a saw designed for use by two sawyers. While some modern chainsaws are so large that they require two persons to control, two-man crosscut saws were primarily important when human power was used. Such a saw would typically be 4 to 12 feet long , and sometimes up to 16 feet , with...
or a chainsaw
Chainsaw
A chainsaw is a portable mechanical saw, powered by electricity, compressed air, hydraulic power, or most commonly a two-stroke engine...
to represent different speed tiers. This allowed the man to cut out five different pieces of wood from the log. At the end of the commercial, the beaver is still cutting the log with his teeth, and has not finished cutting out a single piece of the log yet.