1. Oscar Mayer / “The Weinermobile Heads to Kentucky” / Regional
She was jealous of who I might meet, so during the night she shaved off my eyebrows. Waiting to be called in, I ran my thumb over my smooth browline. They said my name and I entered the room. Two bald men and a woman with an ascot sat behind a particle board table in folding chairs. An X on the floor was made with masking tape. “Go ahead,” the woman said, and I performed the lines. A few days later, they called. It was seeing me without eyebrows, she said, that helped them really visualize me as the weiner.
2. Chewy.com / “Man’s Best Friend” / National
I told them I had never owned a pet. Not as a child or in college, and not much later when the responsibility for its wellbeing would fall entirely on me. I wasn’t against pets. I loved animals; I was a vegetarian, after all. It seemed so overwhelming, so completely consuming, to care for another living being. “Can you say it again?” they asked me. “Just try it with the emphasis in different places?” I said, “If you’re scared, buy a dog. If you’re scared, buy a dog. If you’re scared, buy a dog. If you’re scared, buy a dog.”
3. Racecar, Racecar, Racecar / Theatrical Production / Limited Run
I thought it would feel different once the seats were filled, but I was very aware of my autonomic functions. The audience was quiet as I walked on stage. They would notice even the slightest mistake. “Fill her up?” I asked. The actors that played father and daughter sat in plastic chairs, pretending to drive an invisible car. The father made the sound of the motor with his lips. It was community theater, so although I was hired as an usher, they still gave me a line. It wouldn’t make sense to hire a different actor just for one line.
4. Geico / “Hammer Time” / National
They gave me a hammer and a yellow hard hat, and I was supposed to hit the block of wood to the rhythm of the hit song. Its context was changed to match the campaign that advertised better insurance for your business’s bottom line. Since he was last on TV, MC Hammer had gained significant weight, so he gasped for breath doing the smallest thing. In the classic music video, he moved like a crustacean. Now, his two children, estranged, posted awful things about him online. “Tell him to quit looking at me,” he told the director, pointing at me.
5. Folgers / “Homecoming” / National
I had a kind of freakout and moved to Kodiak, Alaska. It was only for a few weeks. Ultimately the limit seiners never let me board even though I showed them the ad I’d printed out from the Internet. I saw them out in the bay towing in nets full of pink and sockeye salmon. It took a boat and then a bus and then a biplane and then a jet to get home. So in the commercial, when I told my sister over a cup of Folgers coffee, “I brought you something from far away,” I really meant it.
6. Jardiance / “Put Your Heart First!” / National
“Don’t take Jardiance if you’re allergic to Jardiance. Don’t take Jardiance if you’re pregnant, or plan to become pregnant. Don’t take Jardiance if you’ve been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, severe kidney disease, or liver disease. In some rare cases, patients taking Jardiance have shown an increased risk of serious genital mycotic infections and urinary tract infections that may lead to hospitalization. Some studies suggest an increased risk of lower limb amputations, particularly in patients with existing vascular disease or previous amputations, and an increased risk of a rare but serious, life-threatening necrotizing fasciitis of the genital and perineal area.”
7. Newport Aquarium / "Independence Day Campaign” / Regional
At first they set up some flat LED panels with honeygrids. Me and the actors that were my wife and children stood with our backs to the camera, pretending to marvel at a colorful array of marine life captive in the 3,000-gallon tank. The shadow of a hammerhead fell over us from the overhead tube connecting one biome to another. “Bring the fish back!” the director screamed, frightening the actor that was supposed to be my daughter. But the fish wouldn’t come out no matter what lighting they chose, so they had to add them to the tank in post.
8. The Sweetest Feeling / Motion Picture / Mango Entertainment Online
My boss said I’d already used all my PTO, so during my lunch break I drove to the shoot in a residential part of town. It appeared to be somebody’s house. “Go upstairs, and when I call you, come down and get shocked and angry,” the director said. He wanted to see real emotion. I waited upstairs in the hallway for my cue. The sounds of wet lovemaking echoed up the stairwell, and without seeing it, I knew it wasn’t simulated. The Craigslist ad hadn’t mentioned what kind of film it was, or maybe I hadn’t read it carefully enough.
Matthew McAlister is a writer and photographer living in Brooklyn. He received his MFA from NYU and was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. A 2026 KHN Center for the Arts resident in fiction, his work was shortlisted for the 2025 Indiana Review Fiction Prize and appears in Weird Lit Magazine. You can find him on Instagram @crosbyfishingpond.