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1. Chris O’Donnell was in a McDonald’s commercial. He played a worker getting Michael Jordan his breakfast. Somehow, I think this is less embarrassing than his role as Robin.
2. John Travolta did a shower scene for Safeguard soap in 1971 where he played a basketball player soaping up after practice… and lip-syncing to an old-fashioned song? What?
3. Keanu Reeves enjoyed a bowl of Kellogg’s corn flakes in 1987, complete with totally ‘80s music.
4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer just found out that McDonald’s hamburgers are smaller than Burger King’s hamburgers, and she is not happy. Maybe that’s where Sarah Michelle Gellar found her vampire-slaying motivation later in life: she channeled her rage from 20 years before.
5. Speaking of Burger King, Ben Affleck starred in a commercial too. Check out the hair… and the cell phone. Nice.
6. And, speaking of hair, check out Seth Green’s hair in this 1992 Nerf commercial.
7. Christina Applegate starred in a Playtex commercial with her mother in 1972 – she was only a few months old.
8. Before he was George Costanza, Jason Alexander was in a lot of commercials – Lipton Onion Soup, Hershey Kisses, and Delta Gold potato chips, to name a few. But this McDonald’s McDLT commercial really takes the cake.
9. I sincerely doubt that Bruce Willis really enjoys Wine Coolers. But I could be wrong.
10. Yeah, he’s an Oscar-nominated actor now, but let us not forget that Leonardo DiCaprio once pimped out Bubble Yum. I totally remember this commercial from my childhood and got way too excited just now.
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Comments (24)
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Wow! I totally remember the Leonardo commercial–then he was on Growning Pains and no one believed me that it was the same guy. Also, didn’t McDonald’s sue Sarah Michelle Gellar for that commercial?
ALSO, I got waaaaay too excited this afternoon when I saw your Muppet article on CNN.com.
posted by AnotherJen on 2-10-2009 at 5:01 pm
3 comments:
Keanu Reeves was a terrible actor back then too…
I owned a nerf slingshot, but did not have a flock of seagulls haircut…
and finally, check out the DiCaprio spaz out at 10 seconds.
posted by Troy in TX on 2-10-2009 at 5:08 pm
I remember those Bruce Willis ads… but I thought he got the commercials after the success of “Moonlighting”.
posted by Sarah in CA on 2-10-2009 at 5:14 pm
Darn you, work streaming media blocker! I’ll be back to check these out
posted by Lindsey on 2-10-2009 at 5:16 pm
@AnotherJen – that makes two of us that got way too excited :)
posted by stacy on 2-10-2009 at 5:27 pm
Didn’t John Travolta also make a Band-Aid commercial before he was famous? Where he sings the “I’m Stuck On Band-Aids” song?
posted by Jess on 2-10-2009 at 5:30 pm
yea i cant see the commercials at work, but i would like to say that i, too, was super excited when the muppet article popped up on CNN.com
posted by Kaitlyn on 2-10-2009 at 5:35 pm
Whoa… George has HAIR!
posted by Allison on 2-10-2009 at 5:48 pm
Is there a reason the NERF ad with Seth Green was chosen over his “Cha-Ching” ads for Rally’s? I remember those commercials started a nationwide catchphrase similar to the “Where’s the Beef?” phenomenon.
posted by Nick on 2-10-2009 at 6:44 pm
personally I’m a fan of Evangeline Lilly’s phone-sex ad.
posted by sour60 on 2-10-2009 at 7:01 pm
AnotherJen: They at the very least sued BK, because, IIRC, it was one of the first commercials (if not the first) to mention a competitor by name.
I remember watching another ad that often comes up in discussions like this: Matt LeBlanc’s Heinz ad where he puts the bottle on its side over the edge of a building and manages to run downstairs with his hot dog before the ketchup runs out of the bottle.
posted by Leaper on 2-10-2009 at 8:24 pm
AnotherJen: At the least, they sued BK, because, IIRC, it was one of the first commercials, if not the first, to mention a competitor by name.
Nick: Obviously because of the hair.
Anyway, I remember watching another ad often mentioned in discussions like this: Matt LeBlanc’s Heinz ad (in which he puts the open bottle on its side over the edge of a building, and runs downstairs with his hot dog – I think – to catch the ketchup before it runs out of the bottle).
posted by Leaper on 2-10-2009 at 8:27 pm
@Sarah in CA – I was thinking the same thing. Bruce Willis was doing “Moonlighting” already when the Seagram’s ad came out.
Also, the commercial for Seth Green is not the first time I saw him.. A couple of years before that he played Patrick Dempsey’s little brother in “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
posted by bzzyb on 2-10-2009 at 8:36 pm
I remember a local McDonald’s commercial in Detroit that had Tim Allen speaking one line — “McChicken!” He was still doing standup, but hadn’t been tapped for his HBO specials or Home Improvement.
posted by Ron on 2-10-2009 at 11:19 pm
Who is Seth Green? Is he the redhead?
posted by Miss Cellania on 2-10-2009 at 11:24 pm
Miss Cellania–Seth Green is the redhead. He was in Austin Power movies and has a tv show on adult swim(cartoon network)he also does the voice of chris griffin on family guy..
posted by Gia on 2-10-2009 at 11:57 pm
Delightful! Loved the bag phone in the Affleck ad, and lil’ Leo was quite a cutie! I think my favorite was the Nerf ad though. I don’t remember it precisely, but so many like it on Nickelodeon when I was younger. The lopsided hair, the “babe alert” and a random mime for good measure–definitely a thing of beauty. Just remember boys, there’s nothing the “babes” love more than getting hit in the head with a nerf projectile. Life lessons, right there.
posted by kate on 2-11-2009 at 12:08 am
Concur with Sarah and bzzyb.
Willis was already known. However he was trying to get his vocal/harmonic talents recognized so he could start releasing albums like “The Return of Bruno.” He also performed on Letterman.
posted by TJ Hooker on 2-11-2009 at 5:00 am
Great stuff — but almost nothing beats Christian Bale’s Ms. Pacman cereal commercial.
posted by gigi on 2-11-2009 at 8:05 am
This made my day. Is it just me, or did commercials seem WAY cheesier back in the day?
That blissed out face Keanu Reeves makes at the end of his commercial sent me into hysterics, and the entire Nerf commercial (the hair, the “babe alert!” vocabulary) was just priceless.
posted by Debbie on 2-11-2009 at 10:53 am
Phil Hartman’s screen debut was a commercial for Hockey for Atari.
My personal favorite is a commercial for Sega’s old Game Gear system. The chubby kid who beats himself in the head with a dead squirrel to see his games in color? None other than My Name is Earl’s Ethan Suplee.
posted by erak on 2-11-2009 at 10:54 am
Jack Black was in a commercial for the old Atari game Pitfall.
posted by Nicole on 2-11-2009 at 12:10 pm
I read somewhere ( an Uncle John’s bathroom reader, I believe) that Willis was a recovering alcoholic after that commercial. I believe the same thing happened to Eric Clapton with Budweiser.
posted by Sara on 2-11-2009 at 2:10 pm
Seth Green’s commercial is very \Mallrats\-ish, isn’t it?
And that’s what girls like. Idiots in the mall firing Nerf balls at them.
posted by Katie R on 8-31-2009 at 6:49 pm