
I still feel the loss of Jon Hamm from the TV series circuit. His work as Don Draper on “Mad Men,’’ which ended in 2015, was an annual gift.
But, in addition to a few small roles here (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’’) and there (“The Last Man on Earth’’), Hamm has been showing up on my screen regularly these days. Turns out playing a morally confused ad man hasn’t hurt his career in advertising, and he is all over the place right now — and until tax day, April 15 — in a series of H&R Block commercials.
As spokesman, Hamm plays a pushy actor on a Hollywood set, the guy who shows up and lets people know — and maybe lectures them a little bit — about the advantages of H&R Block, and how it’s better than the do-it-yourself brand TurboTax. “Don’t just get your taxes done,’’ Hamm says at the end of each spot. “Get your taxes won.’’
Who better to deploy than Hamm when Donald Trump has targeted you for termination, having said in August 2015 he hoped to “put H&R Block out of business’’ with a simpler tax code?
It’s H&R Block’s first campaign featuring a celebrity, and its Hamm’s first on-camera appearance as spokesman for a brand name. He has been doing Mercedes-Benz spots for years now, but only in a voice-over capacity.
In one of the ads, he advises a woman at a studio doughnut stand by using a bunch of her doughnuts to illustrate his points. She likes his advice, but notes that he has touched a lot of her doughnuts. Walking away, ignoring her condescendingly, he says, “Just get your taxes done Amy.’’
In another, he’s dining with a woman dressed up as a zombie. She says she’d use an advance on her refund to go on a tropical vacation. “I’d be careful with your skin tone,’’ he notes. “I get it,’’ she answers, “because I’m a zombie. Yeah, that’s funny.’’
The ads rely on Hamm’s charm, of course, and the alpha-male arrogance he cultivated on “Mad Men.’’ They also depend on his comic timing, which is aces.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.