In a lifetime of selling, Ed McMahon never lost the magic touch

Ed McMahon, who died on Tuesday at age 86, may have been second banana all those years on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, but he was a full-fledged star in the shilling department. His early work for Budweiser included a politically suspect commercial where he and a baby-faced Frank Sinatra played cowboys roughed up by Indians (was that the dawning of the "Drinkability" message?) and one at the African-themed Busch Gardens, where tourists downed some of that beechwood-aged beer. (Alas, the '60s are long gone, and there's no brew at the Tampa park these days.) Toss in the Publishers Clearing House giveaways (you might've already won $10 million smackers!) and the recent FreeCreditReport raps and Super Bowl Cash4Gold spots (shown here), and you have a commerce-boosting career. With the latter ads, the debt-ridden McMahon joked about selling off his gold hip-replacement joint, proving that after decades of cracking up at his boss's jokes, he could also laugh at himself. Hey-yo!

—Posted by T.L. Stanley