It’s not a new thing for companies to resurrect deceased actors to plug their merchandise. Fred Astaire came back for one more dance…with Dirt Devil cleaners. His Funny Face co-star Audrey Hepburn was reanimated for some dancing as well, to advertise skinny black pants for GAP. And, as if their beer wasn’t reason enough to stay away from them, Coors did the ultimate in tacky by bringing back The Duke to hawk Coors Light. Really, guys? Do you think Marion Morrison would drink your skunky light beer?

But this latest one? It made my soul shrink a little bit from the sheer misery of it all.

What. The. Hell.

It’s one level of tacky to bring back long-gone actors for some forced product shilling. But Chris Farley has barely been gone more than a decade. Never mind too tacky…isn’t this simply WAY too soon? And David Spade? We all know that you pretty much lost your meal ticket when Chris died, but this really nailed that fact home in a huge, ugly way. You’re still riding his gravy train, man, and now it’s not just sad…it’s sick.

I love Tommy Boy. I think it’s one of the greatest movies to come from a former SNL cast member. Chris Farley was a brilliant physical comedian with demons far larger than even he could tackle. But what he left behind still makes me laugh (and occasionally cry out “Holy Schnike!”). To see his work reduced to nothing more than background noise to Spade’s Direct TV spiel? To quote Tommy Boy, “Richard, what’s happening?!”