Here’s an embarrassing collection of old Japanese ads for starring the usually great Gene Hackman, miscast as a romantic lead. These commercials are hilarious because Hackman looks tired, confused and disorientated throughout, and has to say incomprehensible things like “dry…dry.”
Poor ol’ Gene. Laughed till I almost cried.
Wish I was here in the 80s….
Yeah, it would have been amazing then!
I wonder if this was the inspiration for Bill Murray’s whiskey commercial in Lost in Translation.
At least it is beer. Pathetic Tommy Lee Jones is relegated to coffee.
Right!
The most embarrassing was the series of ads with Dennis Hopper searching for a rubber ducky.
[...] in embarrassing and weird commercials in Japan (the likes of which I’ve posted before here.) Check it [...]
Back in the early 90′s, Arnold Schwarzenegger did an add with a pop starlet of the day, Miyazawa Rie, who married 500-pound rikishi Konishiki, for one of the revitalizing drinks sold in the little bottles. The tag line for the CM was “Daijo-bui” and they made a “V” sign at the camera. I remember Arnold’s clothing as ridiculously gaudy. All this around the time Terminator 2 was coming out! Good stuff.
Tom Berrenger did an add for a cigarette company in which he played a Bond-esque character escaping through European streets in a sports car.
Peter Falk did an add in which he played a bartender who consoles a Japanese man who’s just turned 30. He gives him whiskey. Works all the time.
Cool, I’ll have to seek those out on Youtube!
So, Konishiki married a cute starlet?
There’s hope for me yet!
[...] written in the past about the embarrassing Japanese commericals of Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford and Gene Hackman. Those guys were at the peak of their careers and shamelessly making a fast buck, but in the 1970s, [...]