David Spade sells out friend for better HD picture

If you’ve been watching the baseball post-season coverage on Fox, then no doubt you’ve seen the newest additions to the DirecTV ad campaign — those commercials where, through digital trickery, actors in notable movie scenes turn and talk directly to the audience about the wonders of DirecTV.

The newest ones includes this bit of commercial necrophilia, cribbed from the 1995 film “Tommy Boy” starring Chris Farley and David Spade:

Well done, David Spade. You’ve made a career out of playing smarmy, scheming scoundrels who’d sell out their best friend to make a score — little did we know it wasn’t acting. I rank this just a notch ahead of Dan Ackroyd’s “Blues Brothers 2000” in terms of shamelessly selling out your deceased friend to turn a buck. It’s one thing — and not a good thing — to continue to make a living off the talent and memory of your now-dead comedy partner (see Ackroyd above), but to go ahead and sell out his achievements for some quick commercial payday is even worse. (Farley, in case you forgot, died of a drug-related heart failure in 1997).

But not to worry that Farley isn’t around to object to the use of his image and comedy to sell a satellite TV service — Spade assures us his friend would be cool with it:

“Oh, my God if [Farley] was here, I guarantee he’d be stoked that this little movie is included [in the campaign],” says Spade. (via David Spade Defends Commercial with Chris Farley – People.com)

How sure of that is Spade? Not very… After catching heat for doing the ad, Spade conceded it might not have been the wisest choice: “I wouldn’t want anyone to get a whiff that I’m trying to get something off Chris,” he told People magazine.

Why would we think that?