Don Draper Lands Mercedes-Benz Account

If you watch Mad Men, there's no mistaking the voice now heard as the pitchman for Mercedes. Whether or not it's as good a voice as their former epic-sounding guy I don't think is even debatable. The previous guy lent a weight and authority to Mercedes that the actor Jon Hamm lacks. (Some say the former VO guy was Richard Thomas, aka John-boy Walton.) Hamm sounds wimpy in comparison, like he's not even sure he believes in this product, sort of like he's playing that wishy-washy Don Draper, who just bumbled into the studio when the real voiceover guy was sick and volunteered to read the script. And the scripts aren't helping him at all. I heard one last night where they actually used that lamest of lame lines, "The question is not whether you can afford to drive a Mercedes Benz, but whether you can afford NOT to," with, naturally, an image of a child in the backseat. Translation: "Drive a Mercedes or your kid DIES!"