Celebrity spokesmen

Using celebrities in product advertisements in a time-honored tradition. Ordinary, ugly folks want to be like famous, beautiful folks and if that means buying the same brand of soda, so be it.

But with the explosion of commercial air time, products we can waste our disposable income on and the ever-loosening definition of "celebrity", we're starting to see confusing things. Mainly, the sorta celebrity endorsement.

Take the Right Guard cool spray commercial featuring Xhibit and some cracker jumping out of an airplane. The first time I saw this spot I thought, "Hey, Busta Rhymes got an haircut." And the second time I saw it I thought, "Wait, who the fuck is this guy?" Nowadays when theyrun this ad, a helpful little graphic points to Xhibit and shows his name, Xhibit. But that raises a bit of a question. Obviously Right Guard started worrying that not enough people knew Xhibit, so they needed to identify him. But if that's the case, why hire him at all? And now that you've identified him, what does that do? Do you think people out there will think, "This fella is named Xhibit. I don't know who he is or what he does, but if he likes Right Guard, so do I!" And, of course, the 15 people in America that could actually be persuaded by Xhibit to buy aerosol deodorant don't need his name tag. So really, what does this accomplish? Tell me, O mighty gods of Rigth Guard marketing!

But despite the fact that he needs a nametag, Xhibit might still be bigger than Frank from the Ball Park franks commercials. Here's what we know about the character of Frank: he's fat, he voted for Bush twice, he likes meat, his wife is mostly unsastified in bed. But here's the really interesting thing about Frank: he's played by the co-star of According to Jim. Now, usually when you have a character in a series of ads, it's played by some no name actor. But Larry Joe Campbell has maintained such anonymice by starring on an abysmal show, he can still pull off unknown actor for these commercials. And if that's not a sorta celebrity endorsement, I don't know what is.

Then again, both of these ads are better than the Kay Jewlers spot where the most Jewish-looking guy on the face of the Earth asks his girlfriend is she believe in Santa Claus, then pulls out a ringbox while smirking, "He told me to give you this." I don't know if Kay was going for meta-irony with this commercial or if they think this guy can pull off "Italian," but watching a WWII politcal cartoon character give a blond chick a Christmas gift always brightens my holidays.