It's a hit! Pete Rose mistakes a recliner for a couch and pretends to eat pastry in these awesomely awkward, sublimely stilted low-budget commercials for Muenchen's Furniture in Cincinnati. There's so much to savor: Pete's plaid pajama bottoms … his "I love baseball" T-shirt with a baseball representing the heart … the hat that makes him look like somebody's confused grandpa … Pete's 40-years-younger Playboy-model fiancée, Kiana Kim, overemoting in the last seconds of her 15 minutes of fame now that their TLC reality show, Hits & Mrs., is fading to black. "Wow, we'll take it all!" they cry at one point in the furniture showroom, displaying the same greedy attitude that led Pete to gamble on sports as a player and manager and get banned from baseball for life. I'd wager he still "smells like a man," as he did in his mid-'70s Aqua Velva commercials, and I'm betting his status as the all-time leader in base hits, celebrated in this Wheaties spot, stands for decades to come. Charlie Hustle may be barred from Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame, but the Advertising Hall of Fame should welcome him with open arms. Via With Leather.
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