Mike O’Malley and very funny commercials
You may remember Mike O'Malley from Yes, Dear, more recently a recurring role in My Name is Earl, and for a generation younger than mine, as the host of Guts on Nickelodeon. The first thing I think of, though, are his humorous turns in a series of ESPN commercials as "The Rick," a rabid Boston sports fan. O'Malley also appears right now in ads for Time Warner Cable, and on Sunday night, he'll host World's Funniest Office Commercials on TBS. The showcase coincides with a redesign the cable network gave to its commercial-based site, Very Funny Ads. I had the chance to chat with O'Malley recently. First, here are a couple of examples of his ad work: O'Malley is quick to point out he's not a stand-up comedian, although I saw him singlehandedly keep a crowd laughing during a Red Sox charity auction a few years ago. On his ESPN work: "One of the things about doing 'the Rick' campaign with Christopher Guest was so great was…rather than making a character who was the stereotypical face-painting loud fan guy," he said. "Just a guy who takes it completely serious." The type of guy who would not only keep a napkin that Cal Ripken Jr. had sneezed into, but maintain a holy reverence for it. On Time Warner Cable: "It's an everyguy kind of thing that I had done on...
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