Night of the Living Deadenbacher

An article I wrote for City, Rochester's alt-weekly newspaper. You can read it here or look below:
If you're one of the 20 million people who tuned into the Golden Globes on January 15, then you may have witnessed the new spokesman for Orville Redenbacher popcorn --- Orville Redenbacher himself. Well, not quite, since Redenbacher died almost 12 years ago. Instead, the new ad features a "composite" Redenbacher employing three actors (one each for the body, the face, and the voice) and the efforts of Digital Domain (the CG team behind The Lord of the Rings and Titanic) to digitally graft Redenbacher's mannerisms and facial features onto the actors frame by frame.
The effect is a creepy, bobble-headed Redenbacher replete with an oversized bowtie that seems to be keeping his head from teetering off his neck. If you saw the commercial, you probably did a double take. (If you haven't seen it, it's available on the Orville Redenbacher website, http://www.orville.com/.) And you realized that something's not quite right --- beyond the creep factor of having a dead guy schilling snack foods.
Sure, dead celebs have been used to pitch products in the past. The trend started in 1991 with a Diet Coke ad featuring Elton John performing before a crowd of gone-but-not-forgotten celebs, including Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Louis Armstrong. And most people remember more recent efforts like Mustang's invocation of Steve McQueen, Fred Astaire being sold to the (Dirt) Devil and Audrey Hepburn dancing for The Gap. But this is the first time a company has digitally recreated a walking, talking, zombie-spokesman that it can use to do and say as it pleases. It's a chilling concept that is only augmented by the awkwardness and eeriness of the ad itself.
As if the whole thing couldn't get any stranger, the "Deadenbacher" commercial was also directed by David Fincher --- yes, that David Fincher, director of Fight Club, Seven, and Panic Room. Just what is it that draws a big-name Hollywood director to a popcorn commercial? ConAgra Foods, the company that owns the Orville Redenbacher brand, won't disclose how much it paid to raise the dead, but it has declared it the most expensive ad it has ever made for the brand. And as the technology gets easier and cheaper (as technology does), we're apt to see zombie-stars popping up faster than the light-and-fluffy treat itself.