It’s Special Agent David Duchovny of course. I was a big X-Files fan back in the day and still watch the re-runs from time to time when I can find them on. He’s done other things, but who cares. His movies, like Playing God and Evolution, are not that great. I never did watch Californication. He will always be Fox Mulder to me. However, the second video I have posted is of an unofficial music video of the Bree Sharp song David Duchovny (why won’t you love me) that the X-Files crew put together for his birthday. The first video is a sad commercial about all the puppies that need homes.
Will Lyman has been a steady working actor since before I was born but I’ve never heard of him and though I’ve seen a couple of the things that he’s been in, I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. He does a lot of voice work in movies and TV as well as a lot of on camera work and he does a pretty neat BMW commercial. I guess he is a character actor. So, good for him for making a living doing what I’m sure he loves to do. He was in an early episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent and I am a big fan of that show so I’ll have to go to netflix and rewatch the episode so I can utter the words: “Hey, It’s that guy!”
This one is kind of special for me. I started this blog in September of 2008. By October 1, I had five entries and had gotten about 6 visitors. That’s when I added this entry as a draft. But I could not find the video anywhere. Now, I have a lot more entries and get about 1000 visitors a month. I’ve been growing slowly and today I finally found the Tom Selleck Orange Juice Commercial. Yee Hah! Tom Selleck is something of an icon. He first hit it big as Magnum PI way back in the day. I never watched that show though. I was too young and I’ve never gotten into it in reruns. However, in an historical anomaly, I really loved his movie Her Alibi when I was a kid. It’s a stupid movie and Tom Selleck plays a bad mystery writer. I think I loved that movie because I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.
It’s the dude! Jeff Bridges is the star of The Big Lobowski. I love that movie, I think it’s hilarious. My wife doesn’t like it, but that’s just, like, her opinion man. I had to get that in there somehow. In addition to being el Duderino, one of Jeff Bridges earliest claims to fame was as the lead character in Tron, a cult classic among my fellow computer geeks. In between, he has been in about a thousand movies. As far as commercials go, he is the voice behind the new Hyundai Assurance spots, talking about how if you buy one of their cars, they have got your back.
Like I have to tell you, Morgan Freeman was the voice from the Olympics Visa commercials. Morgan Freeman has done more voice over work than most people have done on camera work. Sometimes he does both at the same time, as in Shawshank Redemption. He has done a ton of movies, more than I can mention here. I’ll hit the highlights with my favorites: Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Shawshank, Marching with Penguins, Million Dollar Baby, Se7en, etc. He was even on the Electric Company. He is awesome, even when he is in something pretty bad.
I see those Geico, Gecko commercials all the time. It’s hard to believe that this ad campaign has been going on for ten years now. I don’t know who does the voice now but way, way back in the day the very first Gecko was Kelsey Grammer. Kelsey Grammer played Dr. Frasier Crane for 21 years on two different tv shows: Cheers and Frasier. He also guested on an episode of Wings as Dr. Crane, winning an Emmy for best Guest Star in a Comedy. He is the only actor to win an Emmy for the same character on three different TV shows. He was also in a bunch of movies barely worth mentioning.
The voice of the water bottle in the PUR water Filter commercials is none other than Zach Braff. Zach rose to prominence as Dr. John Dorian in Scrubs. I really liked that show, at least I liked the first 3 or 4 seasons. After that it just got really bad. It was the type of show that could make you cry one minute and then the next minute have you laughing through the tears. It was a really good show for the first few years.
(I can’t find a video to put inline so here is a link to where you can watch the commercials) PURWater
Allison Janney is pretty awesome. She is most recognizable as CJ Cregg on the West Wing who started out as the White House Press Secretary, modelled after Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Meyers, and went on to become the White House Chief of Staff (I think that stretched the bounds of credibility but whatever, it was a good show). However, she has been in many other things from Private Parts, the Howard Stern vanity project, to American Beauty, to Juno, to 10 Things I hate about you, etc and so on. Now, since 2004, she has been doing the voice over for the Kaiser Permanente Thrive campaign.
I can’t stand this guy’s voice. Which makes it unfortunate that he is so ubiquitous. I also can’t stand the AFLAC commercials. Until today though I never realized that they were the same voice. I guess it was a case of willful ignorance that I failed to notice. I usually just tune it out. Gilbert though has been in about a zillions things, tv, movies, etc. I remember him most from the Problem Child movies (they suck but I watched them a few dozen times when I was a little kid). He was also the voice of the parrot, Iago, in Alladin and it’s multitude of spin off tv shows and sequels. His other credits are too numerous to list here.
This is an interesting one. Charles Shaughnessy was Maxwell Sheffield on the Nanny for 6 years opposite Fran Drescher. Now, among other things, he is the fifth Baron Shaughnessy. How many sitcoms can claim to have starred royalty(Canadian Royalty, but still)? He is also fairly well known as Shane Donovan is Days of our Lives, a show he was on for 8 years. He also was on Life With Fran, again opposite Fran Drescher, for the show’s two year run. Since then, he has done a lot of guest spots on shows like Law and Order SVU, Stargate SG-1, and Mad Men as well as doing a voice in the Tale of Despereaux. He can currently be heard as the voice over in the following Land Rover commercial.