The World’s Worst Endorsers

As I was readying my Jonah Hex post the other day, I was struck by the juxtaposition of two ads in that particular comic. They’re real doozies in that wonderful thing known as retrospect. First we have that wife-beating, murdering son of a bitch and friend to children, O.J. Simpson:

It’s an added bonus that it’s for footwear and one of the most highly quotable lines from his murder trail was “ugly ass shoes.” Remember when O.J. was the nice guy that everybody liked? When he was Nordberg in the Naked Gun movies and was jumping over stuff in Hertz commercials? I do, and I feel old. It’s like being able to remember when Michael Jackson was cool to most people and not a skeevy weirdo.

Next there’s the degenerate gambler and also friend to children (I guess he and O.J. are similar to Gamera in that regard), disgraced hit king Pete Rose:

Apart from the jail term and the lifetime ban from baseball, the thing that turns so many people off from Rose is the tawdriness of everything he does. Anything for a buck, like taking a face full of an obese wrestler’s ass:

He’s all class. But at least he never killed anyone. That we know of. Yet.

Just for the hell of it, here’s my favorite goofy celebrity endorsement of all time — a dancing Sam Neill sharing with us the wonders of red meat in a series of spots:

“Red meat. We were meant to eat it.” Indeed.