Lots of celebrities have endorsed products. Sometimes it helps sales. The George Foreman Grill, for example, has sold millions. Sometimes, on the other hand, it’s just a weird idea.

(1)

Wrestler Hulk Hogan lent his image to a line of cameras for kids. His face was painted on the lens, inserting Hulk into the corner of every photograph.

(2)

In the 1880s, Pope Leo XIII endorsed a “medicine” called Vin Mariani in newspaper ads. (It was really wine laced with cocaine.)

(3)

In 1994 Hong Kong TV station ATV used images of Adolph Hitler in print ads, claiming that Hitler would have been more “successful” had he advertised on ATV.

(4)

Today, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble appear in ads for Flintstones vitamins, but they once starred in TV ads selling Winston cigarettes.

(5)

Cybill Shepherd was hired by the Beef Industry Council in 1987 for the “real food for real people” campaign, despite Shepherd’s public admission that she was a vegetarian.

(6)

Teen star Hilary Duff endorsed a line of ottomans.

(7)

Joe Namath plugged Beautymist Panty Hose, which he claimed to have worn under his football uniform.

(8)

Ricardo Montalban, who once helped sell the Chrysler Cordoba (upholstered in “soft Corinthian leather”), also appeared in an infomercial for the Nativity Cross—a gold cross set with a stone said to be from a cave near Jesus’s birthplace.

(9)

In 1959 former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt became the television spokesperson for Good Luck margarine.

(10)

Former Chicago Bears linebacker Dick Butkus made TV ads for the Kwik-Cook, a portable grill that burned newspapers for fuel. More football news: Bassett Furniture carries a line of furniture designed by former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway.