Commercial Break

I’m not sure if some commercials make vague references to old TV shows or I just see references that are not there because of all the trivia in my head.  The most obvious example of one that must have been done on purpose is a Toy Story themed post office commercial that features Hamm the piggy bank dressed as a postal worker.  This is a clear reference to John Ratzenberger who does the voice of Hamm and is best known as postal worker Cliff Clavin from Cheers.  This must have been an intentional in joke and it was a good advertising ploy because it got me to pay more attention to the commercial and remember it later to write this.  The most recent example that prompted me to write on this topic is a Geico commercial that features a radio call in show.  One of the callers identifies herself as “Peg from Mill Valley”.  The average person might not think anything of that but I recognize it as a slightly obscure MASH reference.  The character BJ Hunnicut had a wife named Peg who lived in Mill Valley California.  While she was referred to often Peg Hunnicut was not really a major character the casual viewer would remember off the top of their head. I am not a casual viewer so as soon as I heard the name and city combo I thought of her and wondered if it was a coincidence or an intentional reference.  Is the commercial writer a MASH fan putting it in as a joke or did they just happen to remember that name and that city and think they sounded good for the random caller without  realizing  what it’s from? There’s no way to know the answer to that but it still makes the commercial more amusing for me since I can read MASH connections in to it.