Dennis Rodman wants world peace. He wants the world to be nice to his new pal, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He wants a Nobel Prize. Oh, and he also wants you to eat lots of pistachios.
Yes, the neon-haired, heavily tattooed basketball hall-of-famer has decided to follow up his controversial trips to North Korea by making a commercial for Wonderful Pistachios.
In the ad, Rodman — his hair dyed a bright pistachio green — sits next to a Kim impersonator, and says the secret to world peace is pistachios. Then the Kim character pushes a red button, and Rodman goes kaboom, disappearing in a cloud of smoke.
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The tagline might be the only part of the commercial that makes sense: "Dennis Rodman does it because he's nuts."
Rodman, aka The Worm, has insisted that his two trips to North Korea this year, the latest coming earlier this month, were sincere efforts at "basketball diplomacy." He says his new friend Kim is really a "good guy," despite his threat to rain nukes on Hawaii.
He swears that his foray into global politics is no gimmick, and that he is interested in getting President Obama and Kim to work out their differences. If that's the case, making light of nuclear destruction and trying to cash in on his relationship with his new buddy is a funny way to do it.
"And Rodman wonders why Obama hasn't called," notes the Chicago Sun-Times.
Perhaps even more surprising is that Wondeful Pistachios thought this was a good idea.
"I don't really like pistachios, even under the best of circumstances," says Alexandra Petri at The Washington Post, "and I'm not sure why Wonderful Pistachios thinks associating them with all my least favorite public figures will increase sales, but I guess they know something I don't?"
