At long last, my Holy Grail has been delivered. I present to you the much-anticipated, much-hyped, RONNIE FLORIAN, Pirate Fan. The accent, the mustache, the Pirates sweatshirt...it's the perfect storm of everything that Pittsburgh is all about. The only way they make this more Pittsburgh is if he would be wearing a Steelers sweatshirt and was holding an Iron City in the Heinz Field parking lot. But this is a Pirate ad, so I'm sure they made him change outfits before they started taping.
This is part of a PG story about the 2007 Pirates TV spots, so there are a total of three ads on this video reel. The second one is a normal-looking family, the third is a Salomon Torres montage to the soundtrack of U2. These are both boring and not worth your time. The highlight here is Ronnie. And since my current setup does not include the equipment to bring this to YouTube myself, I can only offer this small appetizer for now. This is part of a whole series, each ad more exquisite than the next. The sad part is that this isn't even the best Ronnie Florian ad. Maybe with some luck I'll be able to post some of the others in the near future.
If you caught Ronnie's mention on Bugs and Cranks the other day, you know I'm not the only one fascinated by this man. Check out their take:
In case I ever want to write a memoir about growing up in Pittsburgh, I’m taking a screen shot and saving the .jpg of “Ronny Florian.” The bushy mustache, the transition lenses, the sweatshirt as fashion statement (by the way, it’s too bad his legs are off camera because I’m sure you’re missing out on his track pants), this guy takes every stereotype about the middle aged Pittsburgh male and mashes them into one. In fact, his local accent is so spot-on perfect (”comin dahn to the bullpurk, the fillin comes over yuh…once yer in yer sits and you see ‘ose boys playun the way thir tryyyin”), that I’m convinced he’s not real. I think the Pirates manufactured him in some robot factory in Dormont specifically for this commercial. He’s Ron Florian, the Stepford Yinzer.
Also, I love the choice of A New Pirates Generation as the background music for this ad. The song is like the Bring It On of music at Pirates games. Every time you think the tune has disappeared, it pops up again, morphed into some completely new form.
With that as a lead-in, I present to you the one and only Ronnie Florian:
