If there's one thing we can count on from John Cleese, it's spectacular humor delivered with a perfect British stoicism. After all, how else would one face a 400lb lobster?
This new DirecTV commercial is yet another example of the style made famous by the "Man Your Man Could Smell Like" from Old Spice. You take a calm, relatively stationary character and surround him with a rapidly shifting set of outlandish scenes, props and interactions, all while he directly addresses the audience.
This style has already been copied by DQ, Edge Shave Gel, an insurance company (I can't remember which one, but I remember a guy in a white suit) and scores of lesser-known brands. In most cases, they are miserable failures, but in this case, I have to say I really like it. Inevitably, part of it is just John Cleese himself. He can make me laugh by saying just about anything. Beyond that though, the timing is great and the creativity of some of the scenes is excellent.