The world of people who care too much about glorified mascots was rocked to its core this month, when the Verizon Guy, as mysterious as the identity of Jack the Ripper (look, I’m just saying…), appeared in a commercial for Sprint. “I switched to Sprint, and millions more have, too,” actor Paul Marcarelli said in the ad. “Can you hear that?” Verizon Guy diehards can, and it sounds like betrayal. Darrell Hammond, who played KFC’s literally greasy founder Colonel Sanders in a number of high-profile commercials, knows how that feels.
The current voice of SNL appeared on Opie with Jim Norton last week, where he discussed being replaced as Colonel Sanders by Norm Macdonald who, in the Great Fast Food Wars of 2016, was himself usurped by Jim Gaffigan. Hammond — who was booked on the same show as Gaffigan — apparently did his homework for the role and even met with the Sanders family, something he probably wouldn’t have bothered with if he knew the gig was only going to be temporary. “That was the last time I get emotionally invested in my work, I’ll tell you that right now. I felt like a fool,” Hammond said, via Splitsider. “When you play me like that — when you strum the violin and send me books on the Colonel and send me memorabilia and I’m gonna go to his office and I’m gonna go to their mansion — when you play me like that, when all along you knew what was coming, I don’t see the point in it.”
Hang in there, buddy. Maybe McDonald’s has an opening for Grimace?
(Via Splitsider)