Candy brand Snickers goes to extremes to show us what happens when regular old folks get hungry. They turn into Betty White, Aretha Franklin, Danny Trejo. But health bar brand Clif addresses the issue with a more subtle touch in a new campaign promoting its kids’ snack line, from Austin agency Callen.

A pair of spots, directed by O Positive’s David Shane, shows what happens to the little ones when they’re not properly fueled: they get really boring. 

In one, a mom approaches a group of underfed babes. “What are you playing?” she asks. “Dirt,” one girls says. “What are you drawing?” she asks another. “A line,” she responds listlessly. 

In another spot, a father finds his daughter sitting in a box in the garage. Typically, she’d be on her way to the moon, soaring in her make-believe spaceship. But the girl informs her dad that she’s, well, just sitting in box. The spare script and restrained performances make for comedic gold. 

“With these spots, we looked to buck against the trends of traditional kid product advertising, grounding our ads in the daily realities of raising kids instead of the usual idealized world of impossibly happy kids with boundless energy surrounded by perfect parents,” said Callen founder and CCO Craig Allen in a statement. “We wanted these ads to capture the raw truth of the real moments that parents know all too well.”

Now if only Clif had a solution for when the munchkins are bouncing off the walls.