Before Breaking Bad, before Malcolm in the Middle, and even before his hilarious guest role as Jerry's dentist on Seinfeld, Bryan Cranston was a "working" actor - meaning he would take pretty much anything offered to him. One such commercial featured him as the "doubter" of Carnation Coffeemate's creamy goodness in this 1988 thirty second TV spot. I believe I first saw this on The Tonight Show, as Jay Leno loves to dig up old and embarrassing clips from a famous guest's past. Jay also showed an old clip of Cranston's guest role as the villain on the helicopter-based classic Airwolf.
That white powdery substance isn't instant creamer , is it?
The Super Soaker was a valued toy in the 80's and 90's; it represented a big upgrade in water weapon technology. Remember what we kids had to work with before SS? Single shot water pistols with a range of 18 inches. By the way, could you imagine this commercial airing today, with its spurned teen vigilantes out to exact revenge with (water) guns, complete with a kid spilling red punch that looks exactly like blood all over herself?
Before Futurama, legendary voice actor Billy West was a member of the The Howard Stern Show, providing the voices to a wide assortment of hilarious characters. One of my favorite characters that West performed on the Stern show was that of Stern writer and on-air personality Jackie "the joke man" Martling.
The voice West provided was for the Jackie Puppet, which was an actual puppet that was used in the show and was supposed to represent the rude, crude, and loud side of Martling - saying things Martling himself would never say on air. If one of the Jackie Puppet's corny jokes failed to get a laugh, it would angrily demand "Laugh, Damnit, laaaaugggh!" in a wheezy yell that was a comedically exaggerated interpretation of the real Martling's voice.
The Jackie puppet
How cool would it be to have a puppet for the exclusive purpose of making fun of one of your coworkers? Of course, Martling and West have said in many interviews that it was a strange dynamic with the Jackie Puppet, as Martling would often be the one writing the vicious humor directed at himself and feeding it to West via notes in real time.
The Jackie Puppet was hard drinking and partying, and was high all the time, which contributed to one of the best bits with Billy West as the Jackie Puppet - when the puppet got high on Jimsonweed. Enjoy.
