Adventures in Advertising: I Love What You Do for Me, Chuck - Let's Go Places

If it wasn’t for celebrity ad appearances, I wouldn’t know that [s]Jim Rockford[/s] James Garner thinks the Mazda 626 is a great buy, or that Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling chooses the Ford LTD over all other domestic two-door hardtops, simply for the cabin noise level. Meanwhile, red-blooded males across America still can’t shake those recurring thoughts of the Mercury Milan AWD V6.

We owe a great debt to Hollywood.

And Toyota now owes a big, fat check to Chuck Norris, a 78-year-old man famous for driving a Dodge Ram pickup in a show where violent men routinely and inexplicably dropped their guns in order to engage each other with fists. The automaker gets playful in its latest spot for a truck it can’t help but sell boatloads of.

Chuck Norris — martial arts star, film star, TV star, impervious to the aging process — signed on for a new Toyota TV spot (“Tough as Chuck”) featuring both himself and the Toyota Tacoma. And it’s remarkably cheeky and unserious in a way that’s sure to please adults with a sense of humor. Since most ads are such god-awful crap, this one stands out among recent entries.

We first see Chuck, decked out in his usual uniform of jeans and a comfortable cotton shirt, plowing his paw through a pile of concrete blocks placed outside a hardware store. It’s implied he randomly felt compelled to do this, despite the fact those blocks are simply on sale (half off, actually). A passer-by with a Tacoma asks him to autograph his truck. Norris, with a steely gaze capable of shattering tempered glass, says he’d be glad to. In a panned-out shot, we see he’s been at the hardware store all day, laying waste to concrete.

It seems there’s no resisting that urge.