Poor old Kevin Bacon. That's almost certainly the thought you had when you saw the veteran Hollywood actor appearing in a series of ads for mobile network EE, even before said commercials began to mine the actor's stable of famous characters to get you to buy a new iPhone or upgrade to 4G (totally unnecessary FYI). At least he's got a good excuse: a few years ago Bacon and his wife bought into a Ponzi scheme and had basically all of their money ripped off by an unscrupulous businessman. You see some of these celebrity endorsements and thing they're entirely motivated by greed, and shouldn't these Hollywood stars have enough money as it is? For Kevin, it seems like the move was made out of necessity, to try and earn back some of the considerable scratch that went completely down the drain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ1mbOIfTpo Not that that knowledge makes watching the EE adverts any easier. They were weird enough when it was just Kevin Bacon walking down English streets trying to make sense of our slang, but things got seriously surreal with the cinema ads that saw him reprising multiple old roles he's played, with the characters all sharing a house. There was camp counsellor Jack from the original Friday The 13th, with an arrow lodged through his stomach rather than his throat (possibly a little less suitable for all ages); rebellious teen dancer Ren McCormack from Footloose, looking a little less youthful; Captain Jack Ross from military courtroom drama A Few Good Men, making a pretty good crack about people not being able to handle the truth; astronaut Jack Swigert from Apollo 13; and the eponymous Hollow Man. Wait, hang on, that dude uses his invisibility to become a rapist, that is WAY less okay than a guy with an arrow through his neck. WTF, EE? Anyway, it is kind of fun to see Bacon reprising all these characters. You forget quite how many iconic roles he's had over the years, and the adverts making knowing references to some others (Flatliners Bacon can't be contacted by phone, noted by a dying ringtone, and Tremors Bacon is said to be "deep underground"), and some of these are characters we wouldn't mind being resurrected. But some of the choices are downright weird, and seeing the middle-aged actor pretending to be a teenage dancer again's a bit off. But, well, it's better than Yoda innit.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
