TheTownTinkerer said:
one of the best marketing icons ever created! who between the ages of 35 and 65 doesn't know juan valdez? I almost spit out my drink when he showed up at Jim Carey's window in "Bruce Almighty". What a hoot!
A Juan Valdez story - In the mid 80's one of my best friends "Mike" was dating a girl whose family was fairly prominent amongst the Colombian diplomatic set in Washington. Mike was a handsome, well groomed, aspiring, young doctor and, as such, her parents were very keen on him. Her parents threw a dinner party in their daughter's honor and invited their friends from the diplomatic corps as well as their daughter's inner circle of friends (as it happens I was dating a girl on the guest list and was seated opposite Mike at dinner). After several rounds of excellent red wine the parents began a rather self-indulgent recitation of the important people they knew in Washington and in Bogota. Mike, growing annoyed at the name dropping, caught the host's eye as he raised his water glass from the table and coyly asked "You know so very many important people in your country sir, do you know Juan Valdez?".
It was truly a Saturday Night Live, spit water across the table, moment. It instantly became so quiet that you could hear every glancing blow of flatware against china; every ice cube sang as it brushed past the side of a crystal water glass.
There were two or three other guys at dinner that night who were good friends and it was all we could do not to mess ourselves when Mike dropped that bomb (I think one of them actually laughed outloud momentarily). Suffice it to say that the host did not, in the least, appreciate the humor of the moment. Neither did our dates appreciate Mike's sarcasm given that it was, to some extent, at the expense of their friend). After that night, Mike's relationship with his beautiful Colombian princess was marked for termination. The years that have passed since then have proven that Mike suffered no loss.