Product spokesthings

Both CNN and The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Benjamin Curtis, better known as the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!” guy, was getting the pink slip after a new Dell commercial appeared without the computer company’s popular spokesman.

CNN later retracted the story after representatives at Dell and Curtis’s manager both denied the claims. The computer company was merely trying out new advertising schemes with the commercial and has no plans of dropping the Steven character from their ads.

Although it seems Curtis’ job security is steady for now, for a few scary moments he was left to imagine a life after Dell.

Enter lackadaisical banjo music.

“I was trying to help Mr. and Mrs. Fisher solve their computer quandaries by demonstrating the super qualities of the Dell computer,” says poor Steven standing in front of a white background. His shoulders cowed in awkwardness and his hands shoved in his pockets. “Then it crashed. Mr. and Mrs. Fisher asked, ‘Steven, is this the type of performance that Dell offers?’

“Why no, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, Dell is America’s number one comp – Hell, I just told them to switch to Apple. They never crash.”

Fade to apple logo.

“My name is Steven the Dell Guy, and I’m a washed up product spokesman.”

Every year our collective television-watching consciousness is littered with the remains of used up and thrown-out product spokesmen. The “Whazzup?” guys? Whazz-out. Morris the cat? Relegated to an animal shelter. And the Domino’s Noid? Yeah, I barely remember him myself.

While the Dell Dude may have escaped an early, abrupt demise, his fate raises questions over what has happened to our other favorite product spokesmen. Most of us are glad to see them go after they’ve long worn out their welcome. But no one thinks about their lives after the commercials

Take, for example, the case for finicky, freckle-faced, little Mikey – the boy who only liked Life Cereal. It has long been rumored that the king of all product spokesmen died an early death after mixing a lethal cocktail of pop rocks and soda pop. Urban legend has it that the combination caused his stomach to explode.

Then, there was the Pets.com sock puppet. After a costly $20 million lawsuit against Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on image plagiarism and the bankruptcy of his parent company, the once-perky spokespuppet now passes his time on the streets quizzing rats and pigeons with his little microphone and sleeping with other cast off pieces of laundry to feed his raging Kibbles ‘n’ Bits habit.

And how could we forget chubby-cheeked Travis Tedford, who first appeared as Spanky in the 1994 version of Little Rascals and went on to become the young spokesman for Welch’s grape juice. After only a few commercials, he was replaced by the perfectly coiffed hair of a chubby-cheeked, wide-eyed, oh-so-cute New Welch’s Grape Juice girl. Well, after the company discovered that their new spokesgirl was really just Tedford in drag, they threw Spanky and his alter-ego Spankette to the curb.

Since Taco Bell pulled their popular “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” ads because they believed the Chihuahua was presenting an unrealistic body image to other dogs, that lovable mongrel sank into a deep depression. He lost weight, his eyes began to bulge, and he has since died of a drug overdose. His last words are reported to have been “Yo quiero mas heroin.”

And you thought child actors had it bad…

But all of these tragic endings pale in comparison to the tragic fate that awaits Hallie Eisenberg, that lovable curly-haired little moppet that starred in several Pepsi commercials. She now bides her time enduring endless hours of carnal destruction in the “Pepsi Girl Wheel of Death” (http://www.humor.com/html/diversions/pepsigirl.html).

Check it out and purge your aggressions on all those annoying commercial spokespeople that have given their lives in the glory of a name brand.

Product spokesthings

Product spokesthings