Not that I held him in high regard but I still remember how sad I was at how low Mickey Rooney had fallen at the end of his life, washing make believe dishes while his wife shilled old people insurance.
It was worst than that. Per this article Mickey Rooney's Final Years
His wife probably made him do the commercial, while hitting him in private.
For me, if the celeb is known to be doing well finacially, not a guy that blew it all.
I think it’s shitty to hawk known bullshit insurance/health products/ get rich schemes for even more money.
If they got $20 mill in the bank and/or a hot show…and they’re helping to sell snakeoil and spread stupidity for a few million more, I think they’re pretty shitty
Lee Major’s Bionic Hearing Aid comes to mind.
Yeah, but not many of the under-30 crowd are likely to be that interested in reverse mortgages ;). The target demographics for that ad skews just a wee bit higher.
Liberty Medical, not Liberty Mutual. They sell medical testing supplies.
I remember when the Rolling Stones were sliced and diced in the early 1980s for having a tour sponsor, which IIRC was a perfume company. Other artists jumped on similar bandwagons, with mixed results.
Ben Stein appeared in a ridiculous commercial for a scammy outfit called FreeScore.com (which promised free access to credit reports—which you can get free on your own—but slammed people with $30 monthly fees if they forgot to opt out after a 7-day free trial). Stein should have known better.
How about a shirtless Pat Boone sitting in a walk-in tub? Singing a peppy little diddy. Burns out my eyeballs, everytime I see it.
Some hot dog company (Ball Park I think?) got Richard Karn to do some TV and print ads for their new hot dogs in about 2000ish. All I could think of was “The best sitcom character you could get was the straight-laced sidekick of the main character who’s only in a quarter of the episode?”
He also does commercials for some kind of self-draining pocket garden hose.
And also some discount flooring company (50Floor?).
“Ben Stein” and “know better” do not belong in the same sentence.
When you say he’s “not some master thespian,” do you mean to imply that he’s a one-hit wonder or a hack? Winkler is a well-respected journeyman comic actor who has done a lot of roles over the years, including live stage appearances.
Some sort of … … Heh. When I was a kid in the 1980s, Sally Struthers was the premiere celebrity charity spokesperson and any mention of her was to invoke her weepy pleas for contributions to the Christian Children’s Fund. There were a lot of parodies of her on late night and sketch shows.
Stein was smart enough on one thing: he avoided investing with Bernie Madoff, saying he and his advisers couldn’t figure out how Madoff was getting his returns.
Bob Dylan and Victoria’s Secret lingerie. Sounds like an article from the Onion but it happened. But Zimmerman has almost 60 years of pulling our legs
Men of a certain age and socioeconomic status sip Jim Beam. Mila looks like she should be drinking jello shots, Cosmopolitans, or chardonnay.
Celebrities always have done commercials. I heard they make commercials overseas in Japan and so on for tractor-trailer loads of money. Really ridiculous commercials we never see here in 'Murica. All for money, they need all the money, always.
He is also a well-respected and desired producer.
My opinion of Mickey Rooney actually went up when I saw his ads for Rainier beer back in the day.
Jane Russell and the cross-your-heart playtex bra. Who the hell is Jane Russell anyway?
Snoop Dogg is selling boner pills.