I saw this TV commercial...sort of a corner of the eye thing since I mostly ignore them. Lot's of 'beautiful people' in it, but one sort of peripheral guy strikes me as familiar. I see it again with similar recognition. The next time it comes on (big ESPN sponsor and I usually have ESPN on while I do stuff around the house) I actually stop to watch.

Now I'm really sure that guy is recognizable...movie?...regular on a TV series? Hmmm.

This has happened before...some struggling actor does a commercial shoot and then strikes big...gives the lucky company a bonus because they have a "star" in their ad so they trot it back out, maybe years later. Or maybe some struggling actor is capitalizing on looking like someone more famous...

Curiosity gets the best of me and I do a quick check on Google, thinking at least I'll find out where I recognize the guy from.

Oh.

Turns out the whole theme of the ad is the 'celebrity pack'. Everybody in it is a "BIG STAR".

Ah well. At least I recognized some of their names along with the one face...vaguely.

I'm confused. What are we discussing?

helium reactors gone wild do to falling on hard times

TV commercials paying a lot of money for famous people instead of hiring cheap unknowns...and whether it works.

I had never heard of Nelson Mandela until after his death.

...?

Literally... no words come to mind here...

Somewhere in India http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10529952/Morgan-Freeman-mistaken-for-Nelson-Mandela-on-Indian-billboard.html commemorating Nelson Mandela was displayed with the image of Morgan Freeman mistakenly used instead of Mandela's.

Actually it is not really that surprising, depending on........ Illusivemanjr, how old are you if you don't mind my asking. Obviously I will understand if you choose not to answer. I am just curious because it seems that a lot of the younger generations do not know who he is.

And it makes sense, I have never seen a lot of stuff about Mandela (media or television) in recent years until after his death and he would only be discussed in a classroom if the course of said class called for it.

So it is really not all that unbelievable.

I personally find it hard to believe people haven't heard of Mandela. He was on a pedestal as high as Mother Theresa and Gandhi.I've only heard about him from school though.

i only learned of him through pop culture references in television, but that never told me any thing about him. then that invictus movie came out and every thing i know about him is from that.

At least it wasn't Idris Elba