Founded in 1990 by two high school students – Chris McCawley and Craig Macnaughton – Mise-en-chien Productions is a Toronto-based production company that makes live-action and animated shorts for television and internet. After a number of films and awards, the company launched the video comedy project All Day Breakfast in 2000. Macnaughton is the cameraman and editor, while McCawley performs along with Cathy Gordon and Christina Jol. All four ADB team members help write the shorts.
The videos on the ADB menu vary in comedic style, from improv to sketch, and slapstick to satire, but many focus on food, and not necessarily breakfast (except for Peaches and Scream, which is a pretty sick interpretation of breakfast). There is a slew of David Cross-like false advertisements for hamburgers, as well as animated shorts of a puppet named Puppo, who’s a robot and a boy, and his best friend Fleetloop, who looks like a vacuum cleaner. Besides Dog Given Rights, a 10-minute film about a indignant dog which was screened at a number of festivals, each video is generally a minute or two long and the quality of shooting and editing ranges from very professional to simply a guy holding a camera.
My favorite ADB video is probably One bite burger – a poke at the fast food restaurant’s constant reinvention of the hamburger into increasingly bizarre forms as well as the industry’s laughably transparent advertising techniques. A sexy voice whispers, “this burger is so good, we’ve already taken a bite out of it,” imitating the ubiquitous ads that seek to lure customers with sweeping close-up shots of their sandwiches, creating a little land of hamburger deliciousness in which to entice the viewer.
