Why Coach B From The Barefoot's NFL Commercials Looks So Familiar

For seemingly forever, beer has had the NFL market in a stranglehold, returning season after season with celebrity-laden commercials. Barefoot Wine — the official wine sponsor of the NFL — hopes to change that with its latest marketing campaign.

In its pursuit of making football a wine-friendly event, Barefoot tapped Patrick Warburton to star in its "Game Day Your Way" campaign that the label first launched in September 2022. In the 30-second spot, Warburton's pro-wine screed takes the form of an impassioned halftime speech to a group of football fans. Pinot Grigio in hand, the actor proudly asserts that Barefoot isn't for hifalutin wine drinkers; it's an everyman wine. "I may not know which wine to pair with what," he says, "but you better believe I know how many bottles to bring."

"Sure, wine and football can be complicated," he continues as he raises his voice to a rousing finish. "But enjoying them should be easy."

Warburton has been a familiar face on screens for years. Here's where you may have seen or heard him before.

Patrick Warburton secured his first television roles in the 1980s and 1990s, appearing in episodes of "Quantum Leap," "Northern Exposure," and "Mad About You." In 1995, he struck sitcom gold with "Seinfeld," making his debut in the Season 6 episode "The Fusilli Jerry."

Although Warburton only appeared in 10 episodes as David Puddy — a scant figure compared to the total 173 episodes — he is one of the most fondly remembered side characters. Indeed, he sits towards the top of Looper's "Seinfeld" minor character rankings.

A mechanic-turned-Saab salesman (just don't call him a grease monkey), Puddy is one of Elaine's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) longest-standing suitors, proving that opposites do indeed attract, even if they're constantly breaking up. While Elaine is neurotic and chatty, Puddy is oafish and laconic with a love of Arby's and the New Jersey Devils.

Warburton's "Seinfeld" tenure was brief, but it was long enough to make some lifelong connections. "I'm still friends with Jason Alexander to this day," the actor told News.com.au in 2016. He reconnected with Jerry Seinfeld when he played Ken in 2007's "Bee Movie."

Around the millennium, Patrick Warburton began to lean into his undeniable talents as a voice actor. One of Warburton's first voice-acting gigs ended up being his longest-running role to date. Since 1999, Warburton has lent his distinct voice to Joe Swanson, a paraplegic police officer and one of Peter Griffin's (Seth MacFarlane) best friends. Joe is reasonable, level-headed, and perhaps the closest thing that "Family Guy" has to a "straight man."

Despite its lengthy tenure and devoted fanbase, "Family Guy" has been critiqued over the years for its controversial humor and no-holds-barred approach to comedy. Writing for The Independent, Louis Chilton posited, "In many ways, 'Family Guy' represented the worst impulses of an era when pushing back against 'PC culture' was considered a cutting-edge comic sensibility.

Warburton, too, has his issues with "Family Guy," especially as a practicing Christian. "It's because I'm a Christian, and it's also because I just see it as diminished returns," he told HuffPost in 2015. "Like, it's something that you're just going to get a jillion people to just turn the TV off. We turn it off in our house every now and then, too, when it gets just too sacrilegious." Still, it hasn't stopped him from voicing Joe for more than two decades.

Alongside his hefty list of television credits, Patrick Warburton has worked on a number of films, snagging small roles in "Scream 3" and "Men in Black II." Once he unlocked his skills as a voice actor, Warburton became a staple in animated movies like "Chicken Little," "Open Season," and the aforementioned "Bee Movie." First, however, came 2000's "The Emperor's New Groove."

"The Emperor's New Groove" follows the young and arrogant emperor of the Incan Empire, Kuzco (David Spade). Hoping to secure the throne for herself, his elderly advisor, Yzma (Eartha Kitt), poisons Kuzco with the help of her dim-witted henchman, Kronk (Warburton), and accidentally turns the emperor into a llama.

Warburton brings an affable, gentle giant quality to the not-so-evil sidekick, imbuing him with a love of cooking. "Warburton was like hitting a home run every single time he opened his mouth because he understood Kronk," screenwriter David Reynolds recalled to Vulture in an oral history of "The Emperor's New Groove." Warburton even improvised his own theme song for Kronk, like an oversized kid play-acting in a spy movie.

Warburton would continue to voice Kronk for years to come, starring in the direct-to-video sequel, "Kronk's New Groove," in 2005, as well as the Disney Channel series "The Emperor's New School" from 2006 to 2008.

If "Family Guy" isn't your cup of tea, Patrick Warburton has been a part of other adult-friendly animated offerings, including episodes of "Robot Chicken" and "Archer." He also starred in 71 episodes of "The Venture Bros." during its run from 2003 to 2018.

"The Venture Bros." follows the adventures of the Venture family, led by the scientist patriarch Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture (James Urbaniak). His twin sons, Hank (Chris McCulloch) and Dean (Michael Sinterniklaas) often get into hijinks. The family's bodyguard is the ruthless Brock Samson, voiced by Warburton.

"Oh yeah, when I saw who Brock was, I was sold immediately," Warburton recalled to Paste Magazine. "I loved the concept of the show immediately; I think they described it like 'Jonny Quest' on acid. And that was all it took to get me on board. Throughout the years, they've done such an incredible job keeping it engaging and fun, building on its mythos and satire and everything."

Warburton was particularly grateful to "The Venture Bros." for lifting him out of a creative slump when his sitcom, "The Tick," was canceled at Fox after one season. In 2023, Warburton reprised his role as Samson for the movie "The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart," which serves as the show's series finale.

Throughout his career, Patrick Warburton has repeatedly returned to the sitcom, in short-lived projects like "The Tick" or three seasons of "Less Than Perfect." Warburton's longest live-action role was "Rules of Engagement."

"Rules of Engagement" aired between 2007 and 2013. Despite negative reviews, the series managed to endure for seven seasons and 100 episodes. Will Harris dryly observed the show's cultural impact for The A.V. Club: "Seven seasons is a damned fine run, no matter how you look at it, but it's a particularly remarkable achievement for 'Rules Of Engagement,' a series about which ... no one has ever exclaimed, 'Oh, my God, that is my absolute favorite!'" Lukewarm reception notwithstanding, "Rules of Engagement" earned four Primetime Emmy nominations during the course of its run.

The series follows a number of friends in various stages of their respective relationships. Jennifer (Bianca Kajlich) and Adam (Oliver Hudson) are newly engaged and prepping for married life; Audrey (Megyn Prince) and Jeff (Warburton) are several years into their marriage; and Russell (David Spade) is an arrogant bachelor.

Creator Tom Hertz wrote the part of Jeff with Warburton in mind, but initially, the actor wasn't eager to join the cast. "It just seemed like something too close to home," he said in an interview with The A.V. Club. "I wanted to do something clever and different, like 'The Tick.' I had to realize opportunities like that just don't fall in your lap every year, where you get to play some wonderfully creative, insane character outside of who you are."

Between 2017 and 2019, Patrick Warburton starred as Lemony Snicket in Netflix's adaptation of "A Series of Unfortunate Events." Although Warburton had worked with director and producer Barry Sonnenfeld before on "The Tick" and "Men in Black II," it was actually Daniel Handler — the books' author and a writer on the series — who pushed for Warburton's casting, thanks to one of his first movies.

"I found out that Daniel had gone to a screening of a film I did called 'The Woman Chaser,' and the director and I were there and, unbeknownst to me, Daniel and his wife were there," Warburton recalled to Variety. "The movie was an art film, shot in muted colors, film noir, and it was just odd and humorous and ironic. So Daniel was there and a big fan, and part of my character in that I believe inspired him to think of me as Lemony."

In the series, Warburton does double duty as a narrator as well as a character, and the narration is no easy task, as "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is altogether whimsical, witty, and tragic. "Lemony needs to be within a certain vein or parameter," Warburton continued. "He's miserable. There's humor, but you have to find it. It's not all entirely spoon-fed."