The Kellogg's Commercial That Starred Mark Harmon Before His NCIS Fame
For "NCIS" fans, Mark Harmon is a household name. The actor made his debut as Leroy Jethro Gibbs on two 2003 episodes of "JAG" before reprising the role for the spin-off series "NCIS," which he starred in until 2021. For football fans, however, the more notable Harmon is Mark's father, Tom.
Tom Harmon's football career began in 1938 at the University of Michigan. Just two years later, he won the coveted Heisman Trophy. After a short stint playing halfback for the Los Angeles Rams after World War II, he set his sights on broadcasting, ultimately calling games for NBC, CBS, KTLA, and ABC. The senior Harmon was so prominent as a broadcaster that he became a spokesperson for Kellogg's cereal in the early 1970s.
In a 1972 ad for Kellogg's Product 19, Tom and a college-aged Mark appear together to advertise the vitamin-fortified cereal. "I'm Tom Harmon giving my son a workout," the elder Harmon says during a scene of the father-son duo shooting hoops. When Mark's real-life mother, the actress and model Elyse Knox, asks who won, Mark responds, "I let dad win," as he munches on cereal.
In 1972, the younger Harmon was a football player himself, slinging passes as UCLA's quarterback. After graduating, he decided to pursue acting.
Harmon was the face of Coors in the 1980s
In the Kellogg's ad, Mark Harmon was second string to his father. But as his acting career took off in the 1980s, the younger Harmon became a coveted commercial actor in his own right. Indeed, Harmon earned his first Emmy Award nomination in 1977 for his part in the made-for-TV film "Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years." In 1983, Harmon landed a role on "St. Elsewhere," and he acted on the medical drama until 1986. In the middle of that same decade, Harmon became a spokesperson for Coors.
Before Coors cans were turning blue from the cold, the brewery went for a simple, grassroots approach to its advertising. In Harmon's many ads for the beer, he can be seen fishing, chopping wood, or walking through snowy mountaintops. (Of course, a few take place in a bar, too). He has much more dialogue than he did in his Kellogg's ad, touting Coors' cold-filtered brewing process, smooth taste, or, as he tells us in the middle of a pasture of cows, the absence of pasteurization.
"You can taste the difference right here," Harmon says upon plucking a can from a river's edge in one ad posted on YouTube. "A beer that's a little less heavy, never bitter, with all the spirit and patience of a great beer. Coors is the one."
Harmon's increased visibility on television no doubt helped grow his fanbase. In 1986, he earned the title of People's Sexiest Man Alive.