Warhol Was Close
By Mitch Berg
In the future, everyone will have a cult following for fifteen minutes.
Including actresses in commercials:
She’s bubbly and beaming, high-volume, with a flip of dark hair and a face like a lollipop. She irks as she endears, bemuses as she bewitches. She’s a bundle of energetic contradictions, bursting here, retracting there. Her expressions blink and change like a neon sign. Her eyes are popping globes. And she just sold you a bunch of car insurance.
Well…close.
Flo is her name. She’s the spokeswoman for Progressive Auto Insurance…First she caught our eye; now she’s snatched our heart. Viewers are smitten. They’re crushin’. They want to know: Who’s that girl?
From a recent blog at HoustonPress.com, with the headline “The Cult of the Progressive Car Insurance Chick”:
“Am I the only one completely and totally enamored of the woman in the television ads for Progressive car insurance? You know, the ones starring that babelicious brunette named Flo with her ‘tricked-out name tag’ and her ’60s style eye makeup and her kissable red, red lips?”
No, sir, you are not. There’s more where that mash-note came from, out there in the blogosphere’s infinite confessional space: “She’s hot.” “She’s weird but, God, she’s fine!”
“It’s so weird,” says Stephanie Courtney, the actress who plays Flo.
Or at least, plays her after two hours in makeup:
In related car-insurance-cult news, I found out a while ago that I was not the only one who thought Dennis “David Palmer” Haysbert…
…was actually saying “That’s Allstate, Stan” during the first run of his spots a few years back (which is why he enunciates the “d” in “stanD” so hard these days).
June 4th, 2009 at 8:01 am
She’s cute the same was Abby on NCIS is cute, something about the mix of slightly weird but cute and bubbly but competent.
Don’t get me started about Dennis Haysbert-damn CBS for canceling The Unit. Every time I saw one of those commercials (often run during the show), I expected him to pull out his .45 and hold it at low ready before saying “Are you in good hands?”
June 4th, 2009 at 8:06 am
She’s cute in the same way Abby from NCIS is cute, slightly weird looking but bubbly, and competent.
Don’t get me started about Dennis Haysbert; damn CBS for canceling The Unit. Whenever I saw one of those commercials (often during the show) I half expected him to draw his .45 and hold low ready before saying “Are you in good hands?”
June 4th, 2009 at 9:03 am
I was watching an episode of “Everyone Loves Raymond” about a month ago, and Stephanie Courtney had a very brief appearance as a mom passing by on the street. When she spoke, I literally shouted “That’s Flo!” My wife thought I’d gone crazy.
June 4th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Angryclown would totally tap that.
June 4th, 2009 at 9:54 am
She’s hot the same way Abby on NCIS is hot; cute, ditzy, competent, and a little weird.
I’m going to miss The Unit, damn CBS for canceling it. Whenever they would run one of those commercials during the show, I always waited for Dennis to draw his .45 before saying “Are you in good hands?”
June 4th, 2009 at 9:58 am
yes! heehee Everytime I saw that commercial, I thought I was in Rumack in the “Airplane” movie “and stop calling me Shirley.” 😉
June 4th, 2009 at 10:33 am
The fact that David Palmer AND Pedro Cerrano came from the same man says a lot about Dennis Haysbert’s acting skill.
Oh, and the other gal in the commercial from the screen cap above? “Why..that’s a new purse!” “Yeah or a big tricked out nametag”
She’s hawt.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Angryclown would totally tap that.
Which?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
June 4th, 2009 at 11:27 am
You’re in good hands with Jobu?
June 4th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Clown,
All kidding aside, you’re right.
NW,
{{{whooshes over head}}}
June 4th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
LOL @ NW
Do you want an explanation, Mitch?
June 4th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I’m afraid so…
June 4th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Mitch, you’re so tall I didn’t think I’d ever get anything over your head, but I was going with Bill C’s Pedro Cerrano/David Palmer linkage. The Cerrano character was the Cuban first-baseman in “Major League” who kept an icon of a little demon or demi-god named Jobu in his locker. He’d make offerings of incense, cigarettes and booze to Jobu to avoid slumps or for help hitting a curve ball. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when, in the biggest game of the year, Pedro swings and misses at two curve-balls and steps out of the batter’s box and berates Jobu for not helping him after all he’s done for him, concluding with, “F* you, Jobu, I do it myself!” (And he does, of course).
June 4th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Exactly. Hence why I commented that the same man who was able to be a whacky voodoo worshipping baseball player, also created David Palmer; a man more “presidential” than just about any president in my lifetime. Palmer even gives Reagan a run for the money, IMHO.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Ah. I never saw “Major League”; that’d be my problem.
But my stepson was an extra in “Little Big League”; he even got fairly prominently on-camera.
Apropos not much. And thanks for the explanation.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
wow, tripletap…
June 4th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
“Angryclown would totally tap that.”
Nah, you’d be totally dissapointed AssClown. The chick doesn’t have the proper equipment to teabag you with.
Stick with the walk-in trade you’re getting in the West Village.