Yes, that’s Dave Chappelle. Yes, it was an adventure working with him. He refused to go to a proper studio so we built a studio in a dilapidated conference room in his office basement. And since we (Chappelle, me, the engineer, three Pepsi clients and three BBDO folks) were all crammed into the same space, nobody could laugh out loud. Chappelle stopped after a dozen takes and said, “What the hell! Nobody’s laughing! I’m a comic! I need laughter!” I assured him if he was in a booth, we’d all be laughing like crazy. He said, “Oh…right.”

Two weeks after producing these spots. Chappelle  turned down a multimillion dollar from Comedy Central then disappeared to South Africa. We feel a bit responsible. (By the way, working with celebrities is something we’ve done a lot of.)