The mention of a classic coke commercial in the “iconic commercials” thread made me think about the made-for-TV movie based on it, The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid starring Mean Joe Greene and Elliot. There was also a more recent short-lived series based on the Geico cavemen commercials. So what else?
Jim Varney’s character Ernest P. Worrell was featured in many advertising campaigns in the 1980s. Those spawned a TV series and several movies. KnowWhutIMean, Vern?
The Ernest P. Worrell character that had his own films series starting with *Ernest Goes to Camp *(released in 1987) originated from television commercials created by the Nashville advertising agency Carden & Cherry.
There’s also the 1991 film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.
Also the Kool Aid Man starred in the 1983 comic book series The Adventures Of Kool Aid Man.
Also the 2012 animated film Foodfight! features Mrs. Butterworth, Mr. Clean, Chef Boyardee, and Charlie Tuna among other. It was supposed to feature a lot more advertising characters but it’s troubled production resulted in many companies refusing to cooperate.
The biggest one is probably Space Jam which started as a Nike Commercial.
The best part of the series was the GEICO commercial after the series had been cancelled, with the eponymous cavemen expressing disbelief that someone would produce a show based on themselves.
With an intermediate step…
In the early 1970s, Bill Fries (a creative director at an ad agency in Omaha) created a series of ads for Old Home Bread, featuring a trucker named C.W. McCall. The ads spawned a series of country songs (written by Fries and Chip Davis, later of Mannheim Steamroller), and one of those songs, “Convoy,” became a massive hit. That song then spawned the movie Convoy, in 1978.
Between ‘em, Adam Arkin and Joely Fisher and Elliott Gould and Holland Taylor have a double-digit number of Emmy nominations — plus Golden Globe nominations, plus an Oscar nomination. So you’d think you could build a comedy around them.
What they got was BABY BOB, based on the talking-baby commercial.
The California Raisins had a Saturday morning cartoon for a while.
And a Christmas special.
Not exactly what the OP is looking for but Mad Men did a whole story arc about the iconic Coke commercial (“I’d like to buy the world a Coke”)
My first thought, as well as mentioned by the OP.
Checking some “lists” in this category we’ve pretty much run the table, it seems.
An earlier thread mentions Max Headroom. It started with the British TV show, then a New Coke ad campaign and that lead to the late lamented US TV series. I still miss Blank Reg.
There was an action figure line in the early 1990s called The Incredible Crash Dummies. Fox aired an animated special feature them in 1993.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Crash_Dummies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Crash_Dummies_(film)
They are based on crash test dummy characters used in a public service advertising campaign of the late 1980s, to educate people on the safety of wearing seat belts.