The Surreal Shill

The cowboy is brandishing a mammoth chicken sandwich and grinning like a Dia de los Muertos skull. At first glance, he?s an anonymous genial cowpoke, but then you process the image: It?s that guy from Hootie and the Blowfish, the one everyone refers to as ?Hootie? despite the poor fellow?s protestations. You feel a soupVon of schadenfreude for Hootie, whose career is apparently in critical condition; he?s shilling for Burger King after all. But then you realize that Hootie is the least-baffling prop in this commercial: Porno-chic models dance in bloomers near an ejaculatory waterfall of ranch dressing. Cowboys relax languidly while vaguely phallic French fries sprout tree-high on the landscape behind them. The Burger King himself, a smile fixed on his immobile foam rubber head, pushes actress Brooke Burke on a swing as she feigns chicken-induced ecstasy. It?s a mind-scrambling psychedelic tableau, courtesy of notorious director/photographer David LaChapelle, the man responsible for the dancing syringes in the Dandy Warhols? video for ?Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth.? What?s next, Ricky Martin slicing up eyeballs for Long John Silver?s?

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