So there is this Mastercard commercial that I’ve seen air occasionally. It’s got this guy getting all excited about people in service-industry jobs who help him out throughout his day. He has the produce guy sign some fruit, he profusely thanks the wait staff at a restaurant when they leave for the day, and gets really excited when one of them throws him an apron.

Every time I saw it I was under the impression it was just some sports-crazy guy who transferred that fanaticism into his everyday interactions, and that was why the commercial was funny. And then I happened to see the end of the Colts v. Steelers game this weekend, where of course, one of the players they mentioned a lot was Peyton Manning. I don’t watch football, but I had heard of him.

Apparently though, I had never actually seen him, or at least paid attention to what he looks like. Because they showed a bunch of closeups of him and then cut to commercials. One of those commercials was, you guessed it, the fanatic Mastercard one.

“Hey, that looks like the football guy!” I thought.

And then it dawned on me. The reason that commercial is REALLY supposed to be funny is because it is a well-known sports figure asking regular guys for autographs and getting excited in the way that regular people get excited for professional athletes.

How was I supposed to know?! They didn’t show his name on the commercial, so they apparently just assume everyone watches football! So, while it may have been a bit of a “duh” moment, I don’t feel TOO bad. At least I get it when they show the basketball or baseball player commercials. :)

Posted at 9:21 AM |