Sure, plenty of baby boomers knew Peter Graves best for Mission: Impossible, the long-running TV series about spies and spooks and such. But so many of us cherished him as the dry-quip-a-minute pilot, Capt. Clarence Oveur, in the Airplane flicks, the guy who couldn’t keep his stream-of-consciousness questions to himself. That young passenger visiting the cockpit had no idea what hit him when Oveur asked, "Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?" and "Ever been in a Turkish prison?" Graves, who died in L.A. on Sunday at age 83, also lent some nonsensical gravitas to the Geico ad posted here, and since we feel compelled to dredge up every star’s commercial turn when they die, here you go.
—Posted by T.L. Stanley