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The Outtakes For John Clayton’s SportsCenter Ad Are Almost As Good As The Ad Itself

ESPN had to know it had gold on its hands when it filmed a SportsCenter spot portraying John Clayton as a secretly-long-haired teenage metal fan. Indeed, reaction to the spot was as glowing as the network could have hoped.

So, to what should be no one’s surprise, ESPN’s riding the Clayton-as-metalhead train as far as it’ll take them. First came the commercial itself, something even ESPN couldn’t get made fun of for. Then came Clayton talking about the ad (on SportsCenter, of course). And now: outtakes. As someone who very often enjoys blooper reels for TV shows/movies/commercials more than the shows/movies/commercials themselves (even when they’re good to begin with), I had some especially high hopes for this one:

I was hoping for more actual bloopers, rather than just lines that got left on the cutting room floor, but thoroughly enjoyable regardless. Especially impressive: just how into this role Clayton got, and how much fun he was clearly having. Just call him Brett Favre, because he was like a kid out there. (Which, we guess, was the point.) We already have mixed feelings, though, about when ESPN inevitably tries to recapture this magic by having Clayton don various other ridiculous outfits. Can anything else measure up?

[Kissing Suzy Kolber]

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