The Most Famous Characters from TV Commercials

Surly little old ladies are always fun and have appeared in many ad campaigns. But the Little Old Lady commercial for Discount Tire, which first aired in 1976, is the best of the bunch. "If ever you're not satisfied with one of our tires," the announcer says, "please feel free to bring it back." And then an old woman throws a tire though the store's front window. "Thank you," says the announcer. The short but sweet 10-second spot became the longest running ad of all time in 2008, and it's still in use today, nearly 45 years after its debut. Filmed in Arizona, the 66-year-old actress wasn't strong enough to toss the tire through the glass, so a small man dressed as a little old lady did the deed.

Back in 2013 Mercedes-Benz cooked up this spot to demonstrate the benefits of its Magic Body Control system. Instead of explaining how the complex system uses a specialized camera to scan the road and transmit the data to the car's Active Body Control system in time for it to compensate for road imperfections such as ruts and speed bumps, the ad stars five chickens shaking their nuggets to Diana Ross's "Upside Down." Despite the gyrations of their breasts and thighs, their heads stay still. "There's no copy, because none is needed," we wrote at the time. "The closing supers say it all: 'Stability at all times. Magic Body Control. Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Drive.'" We also cried fowl. The ad was a bit of a rip-off. Earlier that year, Fuji had put out a similar ad showing its stabilized X-S1 camera.

After a stint on Saturday Night Live from 1980 to 1984, Eddie Murphy quickly became one of the world's biggest movie stars. By 1989 he had blown up the box office five times with 48 Hours, Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop I and II, and Coming to America. What did he do next? Toyota Celica commercials. Toyota launched the fifth generation of the Celica in 1989. It would run until 1993, but the television spots with Murphy would only last two years, airing both in the United States and Japan. In one spot he appears riding on the Celica's roof, stating, "The New Celica is the talk of the town. In New York it's almost as popular as I am." He goes on to hawk its "glamorous styling," dual-mode four-wheel steering and 10-speaker "super live" sound system. There are a few versions, and all include Murphy's signature laugh.

Also in 1989, Tina Turner could be found pushing Plymouths. A musical superstar since the 1960s, Turner had a memorable comeback in the 1980s, with such hits as "What's Love Got to Do With It," and "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)." The latter, obviously, was from the soundtrack of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the 1985 film she starred in. Plymouth was also a comeback kid at the time, with its K-car-based Sundance coupe and Acclaim sedan, the Voyager minivan, and the badge-engineered all-wheel-drive Laser, which was a Mitsubishi Eclipse in all but name. Turner's Plymouth ads were shot in a stark white studio, the vehicle shown in profile. It never moves. Turner struts around in short skirts, high heels, and big hair and talks about a questionable lineup of cars from a brand the world has essentially forgotten.

There isn't much reason to remember the Cadillac Catera. Based on the Opel Omega, it was a below-average car with a bad name. But who can forget its horrible ad campaign? The Caddy That Zigs debuted in 1997 during the Super Bowl. The original spot starred supermodel Cindy Crawford, then at the height of her powers and dressed in leather, and Ziggy, a cartoon duck taken from the Merlettes found on the brand's crest. According to Ad Age, "Cadillac stopped using the spot nearly a month after the Super Bowl, however, after some executives became concerned that Crawford's outfit and the catcall whistle weren't the best way to reach the Catera's target audience of women. The cartoon duck would continue to appear in ads."

Born Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino in Mexico on November 25, 1920, Ricardo Montalbán would go on to become a huge Hollywood star with an acting career that lasted seven decades. He played Mr. Roarke on the hugely popular television series Fantasy Island from 1977 to 1984, and Khan Noonien Singh in the original Star Trek series in 1967 and again in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982. In 1978, he won an Emmy Award for his work in How the West Was Won, a miniseries in 1978, and was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1993. But he's best known as the guy in the Chrysler ads in the 1970s and '80s. He's the guy who said "fine Corinthian leather," which became a national catchphrase. Only there's no such thing. It was a name invented by Chrysler's ad agency in 1974.

Thanks to the movie Ford vs. Ferrari, a new generation has heard of Lee Iococca. Undeniably one of the greatest auto execs of all time, he gave us the Mustang while he was at Ford and the minivan while leading Chrysler. In the 1980s, he was so well known he became his own pitchman, staring in Chrysler's commercials while CEO of the company. "If you can find a better car, buy it," he would say. They were crappy K-cars, but so many Americans listened to Lee that he pulled the automaker out of dire straights. His commercials are remembered so fondly, he returned in 2005 for another, this time teaming up with rap icon Sno0p Dogg. The ad ends with Snoop delivering his own version of Iacocca's famous pitch, "If the ride is more fly, then you must buy," the D-o-double-g says.

If you don't remember Plymouth, you probably don't remember Isuzu, either. It left the U.S. market in 2009, but in the 1980s the Japanese manufacturer was pushing a line of cars and popular SUVs, including the Rodeo and Trooper. It entered the American market in 1981, and by the middle of the decade had an extensive line that included the sporty Impulse and a small pickup called the Pup. From 1986 to 1990, they were pitched by funny fictional spokesperson Joe Isuzu. Portrayed by actor David Leisure, the character was a spoof on pitchmen and the car salesman cliché. With a huge fake smile, he would make outrageous claims about Isuzu's vehicle with a disclaimer, "He's lying," flashing on the screen. The writing was fun: "I swear on my mother's grave the quality of this Isuzu!" Phone rings, "Hello? Oh hi, Mom!" And the visuals were clever. Joe Isuzu became a thing.

As far as we know, O.J. is the only pitchman on this list to stand trial for double homicide. And he's the only one to spend time in a federal prison. Long before all of that, however, Simpson was a football star, a movie star, and he appeared in many television commercials, promoting everything from orange juice and chicken restaurants to rental cars. One of his first commercials was for Chevrolet, and he didn't say much in this one-minute spot for the 1970 Chevy Nova. In fact, he doesn't say anything. He just stands there in his football uniform. Meanwhile, did you know that a 1970 Nova has 2917 cubic inches of padding? We did not.

At first, the world laughed at Lincoln's cryptic ad campaign featuring Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey sometimes wearing a tuxedo, always waxing philosophical. Our favorite is when he confronts an 1800-pound bull standing in the road. "That's a big bull," he says dramatically. The campaign debuted in 2014 and was soon spoofed so often even the spoofs were spoofed. One of the best is by Jim Carrey on Saturday Night Live. But the ads worked. Matt VanDyke, then Lincoln's global director of marketing, sales, and service, said the McConaughey campaign immediately drove dealer traffic, tripled Lincoln's website traffic, and increased its market share. The long-running campaign continues today and has only gotten more cryptic. In the latest spot for the Aviator, McConaughey never says a word, he just whistles.

Long before Pixar and John Lasseter created the first Cars movie in 2006, Chevron was using similar talking cars in its commercials. The Chevron Cars campaign lasted from 1995 to 2009, and its characters were created by Academy Award-winning Aardman Animation, creators of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, and many other animated films. According to Chevron, "Using models hand-built from plasticine modeling clay, Aardman brought the cars to life using the painstaking stop-motion animation technique they are so famous for. Shooting one frame of film at a time, each 30-second commercial took about 30 days to film. Over the years, Aardman created more than 50 Chevron Car commercials using the stop-motion technique." It also created a sizable toy business. Over the 15-year period, more than 60 toy car models were created and sold at Chevron gas stations across America.

Hip-hop hamsters. That just might be crazy enough to work. And it was. Kia busted out its rapping rodents in 2010 when it launched the first Soul. It even bought time during the Super Bowl. Basically a spoof of every rap video ever made, the ads were brilliantly executed, with an old-school beat, a Run DMC vibe, and enough vehicle highlights to satisfy the dealers. Most important, the message didn't get lost in the fun. It was clear, don't just buy some generic box or appliance, buy a Soul, "a new way to roll." The Soul was a hit. And so were the hamsters. Kia kept them around for a while, with new spots from 2011 to 2017.

Turn back the clock to 2006. The DaimlerChrysler merger has just gone through, and most still thought it was a good idea. Most. There were plenty of critics. In an attempt to satiate those critics, the company's likable German chief executive Dieter Zetsche, who had lead Chrysler for five years before returning to DaimlerChrysler's headquarters in Germany, decided to take a page out of Lee Iacocca's playbook and become his own pitchman. The campaign was called "Ask Dr. Z" and featured cutesy ads meant to make Zetsche endearing and tout the positive results of fusing German and American engineering. The independent rear suspension of the Dodge Charger/Chrysler 300 was a consistent theme.