Comedian Larry David was roped in to play a disagreeable cynic that travels through time mocking at different period inventions such as the wheel, forks, a toilet, a lightbulb, and portable music players said he had a blast filming the scenes.
Making his debut in a big way right before halftime of the Super Bowl on NBC as part of a campaign with cryptocurrency platform FTX in an ad titled “Don’t Miss Out.” the Curb Your Enthusiasm star started off by calling the wheel “a miss.” He then scoffs at Thomas Edison that the light bulb “stinks.”
And in the next scene, he tries to tear up the Declaration of Independence while screaming at the founding fathers calling out the ‘ridiculousness’ of democracy.
The ad then ends with Larry David, seated behind a desk, being pitched FTX as a safe and easy way to get into crypto. “Ehhh, I don’t think so,” he says. “And I’m never wrong about this stuff. Never.”
Jeff Schaffer, Larry David’s longtime creative collaborator, and a close friend told The Hollywood Reporter that they’ve been contacted’ by “endless” ad suitors over the years but when ad agency dentsuMB suggested the FTX idea of David playing a time-traveling fool, it was too good to miss. Schaffer said via Zoom,
We hadn’t done one of these before and we had an absolute blast hours after finishing a final cut of the spot, which was shot in early January. “Never have I spent more hours on one minute and enjoyed every second of it. And Larry, who’s not known to enjoy many things, also loved it.”
Larry David’s anti crypto personna shows why he is the perfect pitchman
Portraying David as an “anti-sponsor” of sorts comes at a time when the cryptocurrency has taken giant strides for the mainstream. Apart from that, the recent Super Bowl featured many crypto-related spots, including one for Coinbase, and the weekend saw a slew of high-profile events sponsored by crypto platforms or accompanied by digital offerings like free NFTs.
FTX co-founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried said, “We need to meet people where they are, and that means embracing skepticism. A lot of people who are now the biggest advocates of crypto once had significant reservations.”