Advertising icon Jim Varney

The late Jim Varney's name is not all that well known to the U.S. public, but his commercial persona, Ernest P. Worrell, is.

Varney gained a bizarre celebrity in this one role,, which was used in advertising a number of different products. The elastic-faced Varney, eyes bugging out and mouth agape, would introduce a commercial by slurring, "Hey, Verne." Verne remained off-camera-- to let viewers use their imagination. These commercials would usually finish with, "You know what I mean, Verne?"

The Ernest P. Worrell character was that of a goofy good old boy, one who usually did something clumsy or stupid in the ad. For reasons hard (or scary) to explain, a lot of peeople seemed to indentify with, or just like Ernest P. (The P is said to have stood for "powertools.")

Kentuckian Varney parlayed his success in commercials into a TV series and a number of less than stellar movies, but his real claim to fame came from his several hundred TV ads.

Varney had trained at Virginia's famous Barter Theater and first put his southern accent to work in ads because of an actors' strike in the late 1970s. He died of cancer in 2000.