For me it will always be Jimmie Walker doing commercials for Medicare Advantage plans. Particularly his pronunciation of “MON-EEEE!!”
I mean, I get it. It’s been a long time since Good Times was on the air, and he’s gotta make a living. But still…
Joe Namath hawking Medicare Advantage plans and hearing aids.
Patricia Neal pretending in ads that Maxim freeze-dried instant coffee tasted like the real thing.
I think the idea of being in a commercial sullying an actor’s reputation is an outdated concept. In the past a-listers would only do commercials in Japan where they knew it wouldn’t be seen in America. That’s gone away. Just being in a commercial isn’t a hit to the reputation that it used to be. Being in a scammy commercial like for a psychic network still is.
Some still equate being famous with being rich. Being famous and poor is the worst of both worlds. I don’t blame some has been actor for taking a job.
Snoop Dogg’s rep as a hard-edged kind of guy has been left behind long ago. He’s been the cool uncle/grandpa for a while now, but even that role for him probably has been overexposed for several years now.
If there was a “jumping the shark” moment, it was probably when he started doing commercials with Martha Stewart. Maybe not initially, as the juxtaposition was fresh for a time. But after a while, it became apparent that Snoop now has more in common with Martha than with his erstwhile homies.
Dionne Warwick’s reputation fell off a cliff after she took a numerologist’s advice and changed her name to Dionne Warwicke. People thought she was a knockoff of herself and she was sometimes even billed as Dionne Warwick(e). She dropped the extra “e",” but the damage was done.
That’s a good one, but begs the difference between jumping the shark and selling out. The former seems a little more desperate.
Snoop has also been “MAGA adjacent” too, having DJ’d a party for crypto bro David Saks in honor of Trump’s second inauguration. People are very upset at that - especially since in 2017 he tweeted about how performing for the president was bad. From what I see coming from Black Twitter, Snoop is now considered an “Uncle Tom.”
And now add Niki Minaj to the list. She’s been pretty distasteful for years but she moon-shotted over the shark by her recent involvement with Trump. She’s very, very over.
I mentioned the Jon Hamm gambling commercials in the ‘Annoying Commercials’ thread. I agree with Loach that it is much more normalized these days for celebrity actors to do commercials, and for the most part, I don’t begrudge them doing it, or think any less of them. Strike while the iron’s hot, right?
But why does Jon Hamm, who seems to be having a very active career, and appears or does vioceovers in several other commercials, need to also hawk online gambling? I’m disappointed in him, and all the other celebrities like Kevin Hart and Neil Patrick Harris, who take an easy cash grab to do those awful, ubiquitous gambling commercials.
One that doesn’t really have much to do with commercials: NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Earlier in his career, while he did come across as sometimes prickly, he was a great quarterback, was seen as approachable enough that he was a spokesperson on State Farm ads for years, and had a reputation for being among the smartest players in the NFL – he even won the Celebrity Jeopardy! tournament in 2015, and was considered to be a possible replacement for Alex Trebek.
But, starting around 2020, the crazy started to take hold. It became clear, especially though his appearances on sports talk shows, that he had become (or, maybe, always was, but was now talking publicly about it) a conspiracy theorist, a serious practitioner of woo, a devotee of RFK Jr. (who considered Rodgers as his running mate for his 2024 independent campaign for President) and just generally an insufferable egotistical asshole.
No, they’re not great, but for people in a certain demographic it can ensure sufficient funds to have them buried without bankrupting the family. Not everyone is able to get good insurance products for various reasons.
William Shatner has been doing commercials in the past few years for one company or another (Priceline and SoClean come to mind). Then again, he’s now in his 90’s, doing a commercial shoot is probably less physically taxing than being in a TV series or movie. And I don’t think those have done damage to his reputation, it’s just that he’s not a leading man type anymore.
Those commercials started when I was just ten years old, and they were actually the first screen appearance I ever saw (or was even aware of) for Orson Welles. I didn’t realize who he was or the significance of Citizen Kane until many years later. So his stint as a wine pitchman is indelibly linked in my mind. When I think of Orson Welles, I think of those commercials.
He also has been a TV spokesperson for a personal-injury firm in Wisconsin for a number of years. I’m pretty sure that Shatner is doing OK financially; I think he just likes to work (and be visible), and doesn’t terribly care much about who he’s doing ads for.
Same here. By the '70s, his career as a successful actor and director was essentially over. He was still congenial and charismatic, so he was a frequent talk-show guest, as well as the wine commercials, but I suspect that all of it came down to “he needed the money.”
Tom Selleck selling reverse mortgages.
ProActive late night infomercials featured a long list of A-list celebrities.
Depends on the celebrity, but I usually think “well somebody invested his Magnum PI money poorly.
In the case of ProActive I think the must just throw a huge fat check at the stars for an hour of work.
Micheal Caine has a famous quote about Jaws IV. Paraphrasing “sure it’s a crappy movie but you should see the house it bought me”
There used to be a Detroit area morning radio show that loved to play outtakes of Orson Welles’ commercials. There are a number of them from the frozen peas commercial where he came across as a ridiculously awful prima donna. Then there are outtakes from a Paul Masson wine commercial in which he clearly has oversampled the product beforehand.
Back in the 80s or 90s Mad magazine did an article about this, something about the different levels of Celebrity Hell. Only one I remember is when they are reduced to hawking one of those 1-800 collect numbers, which I guess aren’t even a thing anymore.
The actual quote is worth repeating. He said: “I have never seen it [the movie], but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built and it is terrific.”
Shatner’s current regular gig is hosting a show called “The UnXplained” on The History Channel. It’s one of those “paranormal investigation” shows, where all Bill has to do is sit in a studio and give dramatic and portentous-sounding introductions to the “mysteries.” Probably an easy and not very physically demanding job.
Dan Aykroyd has a similar show called “The Unbelievable,” also on The History Channel.
More evidence of The History Channel’s transition from “The Hitler Channel” to “The Conspiracy Theorist Channel.” 
The future is bright, indeed.
I don’t bet on sports, so those commercials tend to go in one ear and out the other. But I can understand where the money comes from to make them a thing.
I scratch my head over the ads for online games, with the likes of Courtney Cox and Lisa Kudrow. Do those games really make enough money for their creators to be worth hiring big-name celebrities to endorse them? I guess they must.