Aaron Burr (advertisement)

"Aaron Burr" is a television advertisement created in 1993. It was the first commercial in the Got Milk? advertising campaign.^[3]

Synopsis

Created by advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the ad takes place in a private museum filled with many artifacts revolving around the Burr–Hamilton duel. It is owned by a hapless history buff (portrayed by Sean Whalen), who is first shown spreading peanut butter over a piece of bread. He is listening to a classical radio station, which then halts to a radio announcer (voiced by Rob Paulsen) who then announces they will make a "random call" to a person to see if they can answer the question, "Who shot Hamilton in that famous duel?", making the man, while eating a curled bread slice, knowingly look around in his museum. His phone then rings, and he interrupts the radio announcer mid-sentence, answering the question correctly by saying "Aaron Burr". However, because of the peanut butter sandwich in his mouth, the announcer cannot hear him correctly. The man then tries to pour some milk into a glass, but is mortified to discover he only has a drop left. He only has a few seconds left and tries to say the answer again and again, but because the announcer cannot hear him, he hangs up. The ad ends with the history buff staring sadly at his phone, whispering "Aaron Burr...", as we fade out and the words "got milk?" appear.

Reception

The ad helped increase sales of fluid milk, totaling 23.3 billion pounds from 1994 to 1995. In 2002, the ad was named one of the ten best commercials of all time by a USA Today poll, and ran again nationwide the same year. It also appeared on the Reader's Digest VHS compilation Laugh? I Thought I'd Die!.

In popular culture

The commercial's premise was parodied in The Simpsons episode "Jaws Wired Shut", where character Homer Simpson knows the answer to a trivia question that would win him free beer for life, but, because his jaws are wired shut, he is unable to vocally give the answer and doesn't win the prize as a result.

In 2015 the commercial was parodied by the cast of the Broadway musical Hamilton. In this video the history buff is played by Leslie Odom, Jr., who plays Aaron Burr in Hamilton.^[4]

A bumper for the Sirius XM satellite radio station '90s on 9 parodies this ad.

References