Ernest P. Worrell - History

History

The Ernest ads were shot with a handheld film camera at the Nashville-area home of producer John Cherry and Jerry Carden. As their number of clients increased, Varney sometimes did upwards of 25 different versions of a spot in a single day.

The commercials and the character had definite impact; children especially seemed to imitate Ernest and "KnoWhutimean?" became a catchphrase. A television series, Hey Vern, It's Ernest!, and a series of theatrically released motion pictures followed. The movies were not critically well-received; however, they were produced on very low budgets and were quite profitable. In the films, Ernest is apparently somewhat aware of his extreme resistance to harm, as in Ernest Rides Again, he seemed barely fazed by nails bending after being fired at his skull; he also commented that he would be dead "If I wasn't this close to being an actual cartoon."

Varney in his Ernest role appeared in dozens of Cerritos Auto Square commercials for many years on Los Angeles area television stations, along with commercials for Audubon Chrysler Center in Henderson, Kentucky, the Pontiac, Michigan-based electronics store ABC Warehouse, and the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Store. In the Southeast, the Ernest character was the spokesman for Purity milk.

In 2005, after the death of Varney, the Ernest P. Worrell character returned in new commercials as a CGI cartoon, created by an animation company called face2face and produced by Ernest originators Carden & Cherry. Ernest was voiced by John C. Hudgens, an advertising and broadcast producer from Little Rock, Arkansas, who also played an Ernest type character in some regional live action commercials.