‘The Walking Dead’ Finale Resurrects Some Long-Dead Characters…But Only In The Commercial Breaks
Fans of The Walking Dead who made it all the way to Sunday night’s series finale were in for a treat, as long-dead characters reappeared in the show.
No, it didn’t turn out that Carl has been alive all this time, unfortunately. Ryan Reynolds and his Maximum Effort production company, which produced a series of kitschy retro ads for this year’s Super Bowl, partnered with AMC Network’s Content Room to produce custom ads for the long-running series’ finale. The ads were dubbed “Walking Deadvertising” by Maximum Effort online.
After eleven seasons, and 177 episodes (and countless spinoffs), The Walking Dead ended its run on AMC, and during the commercial breaks, viewers were treated to real ads starring former TWD characters like Milton Mamet (Dallas Roberts), Andrea Harrison (Laurie Holden), Rodney (Joe Ando-Hirsh) and Gareth (Andrew West), appearing years after they died in the series.
The commericals were for advertisers Deloitte, DoorDash, Autodesk and Ring. Reynolds himself made an appearance in one of them for MNTN, his advertising software company.
“Ads should be fun,” Reynolds said in a statement. “The Walking Dead has generated more cultural conversation over the last decade than any other property and we wanted to honor that by bringing a few characters back from the dead in some fun contextual ads. We were blown away by the total support of AMC Networks’ Content Room and the willingness to be untraditionally shown by Deloitte, DoorDash, Autodesk and Ring.”
He added, “Ads can be a part of the cultural conversation as they once so frequently were. They just need a little more love, attention and mischief.”
In one of the ads, Rodney’s severed undead head orders takeout from DoorDash and tells the driver to come closer, saying, “Don’t worry. I won’t bite,” before adding, “Just kidding, I totally will.” The caption at the end of the ad read “Everything in your neighborhood, delivered to your door. Or pike.”
In another, Milton Mamet starred in an ad for Autodesk, where he introduced the world’s first “grunt-powered door handle.” And the character of Andrea tells viewers how consulting firm Deloitte collects “the biggest, brightest, juiciest brains” to help clients take on “their meatiest challenges.”
The partners on the special production say all five commercials were shot in two days in two key locations, with Maximum Effort handling the production in consultation with Content Room. Dan Sanborn of Jimmy Kimmel’s production house Kimmelot also had a hand in putting together the brand-straddling narratives.