These Lay's 'Groundhog Day' commercials unfold exactly as you'd expect
Frito-Lay is celebrating Groundhog Day with a cute new batch of commercials for Lay's potato chips that feature one of the stars of the "Groundhog Day" movie.
The clever ads, which are airing all day on ABC on Feb. 2, show Stephen Tobolowsky, who appeared in the 1993 comedy alongside Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, going through a supermarket checkout line to purchase a bag of the chips.
Just like in the movie, Tobolowsky, who played insurance agent Ned Ryerson, is stuck in a time loop that forces him to repeat his actions with slightly different variations — in this case, buying different flavors of Lay’s chips.
Frito-Lay created eight different versions of the ad, which also stars Artemis Pebdani of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia" as a friendly cashier who chats with Tobolowsky. In each subsequent ad, Tobolowsky experiences a creepy sense of déjà vu.
Frito-Lay explained in a press release that the commercials were developed in collaboration with Ryan Reynolds’ production and marketing company, Maximum Effort, and Jimmy Kimmel’s creative lab, Kimmelot.Reynolds' and Kimmel's companies previously collaborated on several charmingly retro commercials that aired during ABC’s "Live in Front of a Studio Audience" programs.
Viewers seemed to get a kick out of the commercials, with many gushing about them beneath a video showing all eight ads that Reynolds posted on his official YouTube account.
"Beautiful homage to a classic movie in a Lays commercial. Brilliant," wrote one.
"This is how you give homage to a great movie without ripping it off. I absolutely love this," wrote another.
The time-loop commercial may the first in a series, or so Reynolds seemed to tease in his caption.
"What if we tried to make ads more fun the other 364 days of the year? We started with Groundhog Day!" he wrote. "Stephen Tobolowsky keeps coming back for more in the first-ever déjà vu commercial time loop."
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
