Professional athletes are good at sports, but they're not always so good at television. So when someone pays an athlete a boatload of money to appear in a commercial, the results can range from decent to downright embarrassing.
Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo found that out this summer, but he’s not the first.
Here are five bizarre athlete endorsement commercials that you have to see to believe.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Japanese smile machine
That Ronaldo sure has a handsome smile, doesn’t he? But how did it get like that?
A new commercial would have you believe he uses the Facial Fitness Pao, a Japanese device designed to strengthen the face muscles. Ronaldo appears as the spokesperson for the Facial Fitness Pao in a Japanese commercial posted to YouTube last week.
The device itself is an odd one: when you use it, it looks like you’re trying to swallow a robot seagull. And that robot seagull does not want to be swallowed.
It’s an awkward-looking device, and that might be why Ronaldo never actually uses it in the commercial.
But we do get to see others use it. And it’s totally worth watching.
2. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane take creepy phone pictures
The Chicago Blackhawks’ dynamic duo of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were on top of the world in 2010 after winning their first Stanley Cup. So what did they do?
Make an awkward phone commercial, of course.
The two may be smooth on the ice, but their acting is laughably wooden in a two-minute commercial for the Dell Streak smartphone. The video shows Toews sitting at a restaurant, snapping photos of a strange girl’s food and sending them to Kane. Toews somehow turns the encounter into a pickup attempt, and approaches the girl at the table while continuing his conversation with Kane. A sportscaster narrates the whole “play,” from Toews’ initial move to his later team-up with Kane at the restaurant.
“Now Kane leads a three-on-two,” the narrator says as Kane and two women approach Toews and his new date.
The video concludes with Toews calling his new date “top shelf.”
3. Wilt Chamberlain’s mom says he gets constipated a lot
Wilt Chamberlain is one of the greatest players in basketball history. So how much money do you think it took to get him to appear with his mother in a constipation commercial?
Well, it happened in 1972, just as Wilt was nearing the end of his playing days. Wilt stands beside his mother for the entire commercial, spinning a basketball while she talks about how often he was constipated as a kid.
“When he was growing up, I just wouldn’t be without Fletcher’s Castoria,” Olivia Chamberlain says.
After Olivia Chamberlain has gone through her superstar son’s constipation woes, Wilt utters a single line: “You tell ‘em, ma.”
4. Hulk Hogan sings the days of the week
Ronaldo isn’t the first athlete to appear in a strange Japanese commercial. WWE wrestler Hulk Hogan did it years ago, singing the days of the week in an ad for an air conditioner. It wasn’t the Hulkster’s only commercial (see this aggressive Honey Nut Cheerios ad), but it’s easily the most hilarious.
5. Scott Hartnell sells cars – badly
This one is intentionally silly, but it’s still incredibly bad. Now-former Philadelphia Flyers player Scott Hartnell fumbles and stumbles his way through this commercial for a Philly-area car dealership. Hartnell can be seen bodychecking a teammate in the car lot, fumbling a handful of hockey pucks and awkwardly pointing to a website at the bottom of the screen.
And he does it all in a thick Saskatchewan accent.