The rubber-faced Ernest, almost always dressed in a denim vest and baseball cap, appeared at the door of an unseen and unheard but seemingly unwilling neighbor named Vern.
The format of the commercials seldom varied. The first Ernest commercial, filmed in 1980, advertised an appearance by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders at Beech Bend Park, an amusement park near Bowling Green, Kentucky. The only national products he promoted were Coca-Cola, Sprite, Tab, Mello Yello, Chex, and Taco John's. He was created by the Nashville advertising agency Carden and Cherry and was used in various local television ad campaigns. Worrell is a fictional character in a series of television commercials, and later in a television series ( Hey Vern, It's Ernest!) as well as a series of feature films. “ Know what I mean?!” ―Ernest's catchphraseĮrnest P.
