Before 'The Office:' Steve Carell's History As A Fast Food Commercial Star
You probably didn't realize that Steve Carell's resume includes an early stint as a fast food commercial star. Most of us first started noticing Steve Carell in 2005, when he became the awkward boss at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in the U.S. version of "The Office." If you go back further in his acting history, you will find that he was on "The Dana Carvey Show" and "Curly Sue" along with a few other movies and TV shows in the 1990s. However, you may not know that Carell first broke into acting for the screen as a fast food commercial star in the late 1980s.
Carell first started appearing on TV in a commercial for a Chicago-area chicken restaurant and then for a fast food chain that everyone recognizes. The world had no idea who he was when these commercials first aired, but we would eventually. Recently, these quirky commercials have gone viral on social media as people have stumbled upon them with fresh eyes. They feature the deadpan humor you've come to love from Carell, and we've uncovered both of them for you to enjoy.
Steve Carell's commercial debut with Brown's Chicken
After graduating from college in 1984, Steve Carell moved to Chicago and joined an improvisational comedy group called Second City. It was in 1989 that Carell landed his first TV commercial for a restaurant called Brown's Chicken. The chain has been around since 1949 with over 20 stores around the Chicagoland area.
When the commercial opens, Carell is dressed in a white shirt, brown tie, and Brown's Chicken trucker hat while balancing on a ladder after putting up lettering on a sign for "cholesterol free cooking." He then proceeds to tell his audience that Brown's Chicken has always used "cholesterol-free cottonseed oil" to fry its chicken, but now the batter on the chicken is also cholesterol-free. After winds blow away some of the lettering, hoards of people descend upon Brown's Chicken to eat what they think is "free" food. Meanwhile, Carell doesn't seem to notice the motorcycle crash that almost occurs in the parking lot. What the commercial fails to mention is that cottonseed oil is a type of cooking oil that contains some saturated fat, so it wasn't as innocent as it sounds.
Brown's Chicken is still proud of its Carell commercial and even features an image from it on its chicken tender food truck. Only, now, the sign behind Carell reads, "have the boss order tenders for the office." To our eyes, Carell has barely changed in all these years except to sprout graying hair and a graying beard.
Steve Carell's appearance in a McDonald's commercial
In "The Office" we learn about character Michael Scott's obsession with McDonald's Filet-O-Fish when Ryan Howard is helping him clean several months' worth of trash from his convertible. However, that season-one episode of "The Office" wasn't the first time Steve Carell appeared on the screen as a fan of McDonald's food. His second commercial before he started landing more TV and film roles was in an actual McDonald's ad in 1990.
In excellent foreshadowing for his future role, Carell is dressed like Michael Scott in the commercial, wearing a suit and tie while promoting a $3-for-all deal. He raises one hand to show a triple cheeseburger and another hand to show large fries, and then a mysterious third hand shows a medium Coke Classic available as part of the deal. "I can see you're amazed," he says in the ad. You can't help but chuckle as all three of his hands begin wiping his mouth with three separate napkins. Carell told New University, "There was a guy behind me, helping me eat the burger. I thought, this is it! I've gotten a McDonald's commercial where I eat a triple cheeseburger. It can't get any better." But it did. More than 30 years later, Carell has over 80 TV and film acting credits to his name. While he's made more commercials since the McDonald's one, it was his last fast food commercial to date.