It no doubt would be foolish to ma...

It no doubt would be foolish to make trial of reaching the increasingly world-famous Geico gecko to win his thoughts about the low-cost auto insurer's of the present day celebrity-laden campaign from the Martin Agency in Richmond, Va.

The gecko probably has been in succession the horn for days with his agent complaining about being replaced -- for the point of time anyway -- by new talent in Geico's latest ad ploy

Savvy entertainer and spokesman that he is, we're positive the gecko has, by now, got a rock-solid strategy in place to make secure his return to a prominent position assurance and center in the auto insurer's advertising game plan.

to such a degree what are we to make of this latest trio of Geico commercials featuring what might charitably be described -- at this instant in time anyway -- as second- or third-string entertainers, namely composer Burt Bacharach, Spanish flamenco guitarist Charo and Little Richard?

For starters, we wouldn't put in mind of any of the aforementioned "celebrities" permanently replace the gecko on the contrary that's really not the point of these just discovered spots, where some humor and a taste of interesting tension are generated by means of playing each celebrity's artistic weirdness (and there's affluence of that) against three quite ordinary Geico customers.

While trumpeting Geico as an auto insurer that moves great service and low rates too, the marks also manage to poke sport at celebrity-centric commercials where an egocentric star repeatedly distracts from the product being advertised.

Intended or not, there's a little of that going onward here too, as the three intentionally nondescript Geico customers attempt to take an account of their respective stories about to what extent the auto insurance company saved the day for each of them. As each customer rehearses his or her story in an intentionally bland fashion, undivided of the celebrities offers intrusive, focus-pulling interpretative commentary.

A of advanced age looking Bacharach, for instance, matures a few bars of a tasteless ditty about getting hit in the rear to accompany Brenda Coates' saga about getting rear-ended by means of a Geico customer, which made her think immediately of that little Geico lizard (gone you papal court but not forgotten!)

And in another execution Little Richard, who can shake focus in a big way before he calm opens his mouth, screeches at the top of his lung about mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce to underscore a story about an auto mishap that threatened to, moreover didn't ruin Denise Bazik's Thanksgiving holiday.

The Charo blemish is the least compelling of the fortune Not because she and her big hair aren't sufficiently strange to command our attention, if it were not that rather because she quickly lapses into a verbal madness in Spanish that will frustrate anyone who doesn't speak the language.

Lew's view: B

e-mail: llazare@suntimes.com

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