Major Minor Celebrity

I came up on a Mazda van the other day. For some reason the license plate frame caught my eye: Major Auto World. Why was that familiar? Then it hit me. The second (third, fourth, fifth...) coming of Curtis Sliwa, of Guardian Angels fame, in his TV spot for Major Auto.

There's something compelling, a bit disturbing, about this ad, at least for somebody who remembers the 80s and 90s in New York. Nostalgia? Exploitation? Parody? It's hard to say. There's something quintessentially American (despite the beret) about cashing in on notoriety--of any and all kinds.