I was cleaning off the ol' hard drive last week and came across this -- and I have to tell you, it's been hanging around in my Screenshots folder since 2015, and for more than three years I have had no idea what to do with it.
This was a short-lived campaign for the Lunchables brand of pre-packed food by Kraft. Specifically for the then-new Lunchables Uploaded, which is basically a microwavable Lunchables with more food and a drink.
So they got... Malcolm McDowell to be part of the product launch.
Whuh?
Yeah, the actor most famous for playing rapey killer Alex in A Clockwork Orange, who also played Mick Travis in a series of bizarre Lindsay Anderson films, the dastard Harry Flashman in Royal Flash, and even Caligula in the eponymous X-rated film, signed on to peddle... luncheon meat. This is an actor so cruel that he played a evil professor in a collegiate sitcom; so horrible that he couldn't do a cartoon except as villains like Metallo or Zarm; so scary he played the bad Mr. Roarke in the revival of Fantasy Island; so awful that he played himself in The Player... selling kids' food in 2015.
Eh, it's a living.
Actually, reports are that McDowell is a nice enough guy, apparently friendlier than a lot of movie actors, with a lot of gratitude for his bizarre career, so I guess the evil stuff just kind of got attached to him. Plus, if you're British, you have to play villains, no matter how decent a chap you are. It's been scientifically proven!
Still, McDowell has a history of brilliant performances, often in the service of unworthy vehicles, and the lunch meat thing has to be among the lowest of them all. The gimmick, using the hashtag Are You Down With Up, was that McDowell would be miscast as a teenager in a commercial for teenagers and... well, just have a look. And then go here and have another look. They're supposed to be painful in a funny way, but they're just kind of painful. Not McDowell's fault. He's game, but the campaign makes no sense.
Plus: Did teenagers in 2015 even know who this guy was? They should have, of course, but teens are not usually known for paying attention to cultural history, or any other kind of history. They are, for the most part, meatheads. They were when I was one, and I have seen nothing to convince me they've gotten better since.
Well, I say, caps off to Malcolm McDowell, who is a fine actor and who obviously has a sense of humor about himself. Plus, his whole career he has been a working actor, which is almost as big an oxymoron as "wealthy author." And I'm sure he'll be able to keep working as long as he wants to. We'll never run out of the need for screen villains. Or lunch.
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UPDATE: Mr. Philbin alerts me that McDowell is also known as the guy who killed Captain Kirk, which means he has a lot of experience dealing with ham. Once again Mr. Philbin has bested me, and he shall pay for this outrage.
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