It’s so weird how the character went from being an ad campaign to beloved tv and movie character.
It would be like the guy who smashed appliances saying “prices? smashed! Our competitors?! SMASHED!!!” Having a solo acting career.
Which leads me to cinematic perfection. The Advengers. A group of TV ad characters joining forces to save the world from an unstoppable force. A fed up Maytag repair man.
Don’t forget other such lovable characters as Local Town Attorney, Late Night blade master and their dauntless leader cable access QVC knockoff host.
To be fair, Varney came up with the character, so why not keep using it?
Do you know he started as a Shakespearian actor? He actually had a huge amount of range, which you can see in the highly underrated Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam.
Here’s him doing a bit of Shakespeare and then being a bit silly:
I did! That’s how I learned it started as a character for ads.
A great character. Also, the micro machines guy has to be included in the Advengers.
John Moschitta, Jr.
I used to have a cassette he put out: 10 Minute University / 10 Classics in 10 Minutes
Looks like you can’t hear the whole thing on YouTube, but here’s the Moby Dick one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKhUoFCBhNE
This one’s really good too
God Viva Variety was great. I think it isn’t available because of the music.
Thankfully, a bunch of the episodes (but not close to all) are on archive.org!
Dr Otto is a regular in our family. Mr Varney has been revered by us for years. Glad to know others do as well.
I could see Mike Rowe being a good villain
I loved watching Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs, but lately he looks like a right wing nut job pushing conspiracies, so you are probably correct.
And all it cost was the resale value of Vern’s house.
