Mr. Opportunity

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Mr. Opportunity (sometimes referred to as “Mr. O.”) is an animated character used in marketing by Honda Motors. He appears in Honda advertisements during their annual “Honda Clearance.” Mr. O. informs the viewers (or listeners if it’s on the radio) of the ads of the deals being offered by Honda during this clearance event. His tagline is “I’m Mr. Opportunity. I'm back [knocks on “glass”] and I’m knockin'!”

Some Mr. Opportunity television commercials were animated by Tom Rubalcava, Animation Director and co-founder of Maverix Studios in San Francisco for Vinton Studios (now Laika Entertainment House) and is voiced by Rob Paulsen. The animation was directed by Mike Smith.

[edit] Character design and look

“Mr. Opportunity” appears as a caucasian man in his mid-thirties, who sports an unbuttoned, dark green, light-weight dress-jacket over an almost cyan, casual buttoned-up shirt (tucked in). He also wears khaki-tan pants with light brown, jogging-type shoes. He “styles” his short, dark-blonde hair slightly up at the front in a kind of “cowlick” fashion. He is usually seen during TV spots with his hands in his pockets and most notably leans in and takes one hand out to “tap” on the “glass” of the television screen or on the microphone.

In radio commercials, Mr. Opportunity is, at times, joined by another person who usually expresses a certain amount of excitement upon meeting him. An example of this is as follows:

Sally: Wow, you’re so much taller in person…
Mr. O.: Sally, I’m not really real, I’m animated —
Sally: Aw, not to me, you’re not. Oh, are you married?

In these radio ads, Mr. Opportunity makes frequent reference to the fact that he is animated (i.e., not real, unlike the people around him). In one radio ad, he admits that coffee “goes right through [him]” when “Sally” asks him if he wants to get a cup with her (this obviously pokes fun at Mr. Opportunity’s “intangiblity”). The character appears as if interpolated rotoscoping was used, but “Mr. O.” himself, in an ad, has made reference to his two-dimensionality (a characteristic of squigglevision or standard animation, not rotoscoping).