A year or so ago, I started seeing a nifty little commercial for the Kia Spectra. You saw it, too: a young woman drives around in her Spectra with a succession of loser boyfriends while a silly pop chorus, ("With my boyfriend, my laughing boyfriend"), bounces in the background. Message: the Kia Spectra, with its 10-year/100,000-mile warranty, is more reliable than any man! (In a future Spectra ad, Kia plans to reveal that Terre Haute, Indiana, is located at a higher elevation than Death Valley.)

This commercial quickly became one of my favorites, the kind you come out of the bathroom to watch if it comes on while you're brushing your teeth. This was entirely due to the aesthetic merits of the actress, a button-nosed blonde cutie with a face screaming girl next door and I would be happy to serve as a cheerleader in your next mastubation fantasy.

The commercial disappeared after a while, of course. A few months later, I saw the same actress in a Sony Vaio commercial, playing a waitress in a coffee shop who stares over a customer's shoulder, entranced by his notebook computer. At about the same time, she appeared in a car insurance commercial, again as a waitress, or more specifically as "Cheryl Colburn, Progressive Customer." I loved these commercials, because the button-nosed blonde was in both of them. Did I mention that she is cute? Yes. She is not hot per se, but to me she is hotter than a thousand supermodels because she looks real. She looks like the kind of cute girl who might actually work at the coffee shop, or at your company in Human Resources, or might run a few miles around the park on Saturday afternoons.

I got to thinking about the blonde cutie today, because... well, because I am a lonely man with a dreary job, and thinking about cute blondes with button noses helps pass the time until it's time to go get my oil changed again. Anyway, I typed "sony vaio" progressive commercial into a search engine and soon found that I hadn't been the only guy watching Kia Spectra, Sony Vaio, and Progressive Insurance commercials with a toothbrushe sticking from my mouth and Crest foam trickling down my chin.

Her name is Stacey Scowley, and she's got fans. Check out the message board at the bottom of her IMDB profile. (Lester_Murphy dared to claim that "SHE IS NOT HOT" and got ripped to shreds.) Look at the comments posted to this blog, where Bj confesses that he "would give anything to meet her." She has an official website, where you can download the Kia commercial and a Bud Light commercial in which she appeared. (I signed up to receive e-mail updates of her activities.) Somebody started an unofficial fansite, and there's an interview with her at Movie Poop Shoot. Want pics? Go here to see photos from Hell Asylum, a sub-B horror movie in which she appeared. (Her only other movie credit: Brotherhood 2: The Young Warlocks.)

It's pretty weird when you think you're the only person who's noticed an obscure actress appearing in a few forgettable commercials, only to find that said obscure actress already has a tiny, festering cult of drooling admirers. It's even weirder to realize that you are one of those drooling admirers.

+posted by Lawrence @ 10/10/2003 05:08:00 PM