Product Endorsements

Figure skater Tara Lipinski might be the only U.S. Winter Olympian that will be able to turn her gold into coin on Madison Avenue, advertising analysts and executives said. The 15-year-old Lipinski's upset win to become the youngest figure skater ever to win an Olympic gold medal was a rare bright moment for the U.S. in a lackluster Winter Olympics. CBS struggled with the lowest television ratings in 30 years.

Before Michael Jordan, before Bo Jackson, before Joe Montana, it was O.J. Simpson who led the way for pro sports team stars to emerge as corporate marketing heroes. Back in 1975, before anyone had even heard of the term sports marketing , Hertz tapped Simpson as its spokesman and emerged as one of the first giant corporations to stake its name on a top-line athlete. That link, best remembered for images of Simpson dashing through airports, helped Hertz cement its No. 1 status.

"RATS!" is not something most national restaurant chains would choose to have shouted about their eateries in a movie. Yet after reviewing the characters and concept about 18 months ago for what would become "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," marketing executives with Applebee's International Inc. greenlighted the idea. During a scene at an Applebee's, the title character's alcoholic father is bounced for boorish behavior.

NOT to go all Pauline Kael on you, but "Bullitt" -- the 1968 crime drama starring a Ford Mustang GT390 and some guy named Steve McQueen -- is a fairly tedious bit of Aquarian cinema: the chicka-chicka-waah soundtrack, the inscrutable plot, the anaerobic dullness of every second that McQueen is off-camera. "Bullitt" scrabbles to its minor footnote status in film history on two counts.

Three leading nonprofit organizations are getting a combined total of $2 million to plug Florida citrus products though other foods are equally healthful, raising questions about charities' growing role as paid endorsers. In a series of new commercials funded by the Florida citrus industry, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Assn. and the March of Dimes tout the benefits of Florida oranges and grapefruit--in the broadest such alliance yet between charities and business.

Carl Lewis rarely loses. In the 1984 Summer Olympics, he ran off with four gold medals. And over the next few weeks, he'll try to do the same thing in Seoul. His fans haven't forgotten his feats. When Lewis walked out of the Los Angeles Airport Hilton on Thursday, just an hour before departing for Seoul, one autograph-seeker told him: "If you had wings, you could fly." In Seoul, he hopes to fly off with more than gold medals.

There was a time when athletes' endorsement deals were predictable. Shoes. Sports equipment. Beverages. Cars. Then you see the caddie for Fred Funk pick up a golf bag emblazoned with the words Whitten Laser Eye, the same words Funk wears on the sleeve of his shirt. Funk underwent a LASIK procedure performed by Dr. Mark Whitten in suburban Washington in 1998. Two days later, he shot a first-round 64 at the Kemper Open and went on to lead the tournament for three rounds.

From the moment he built his first crude barbells out of parts found in a junkyard more than 50 years ago, Joe Weider dreamed of power. He was 13, rail-thin, living in a gang-infested Montreal ghetto. Beaten up more than once, he feared traveling from one neighborhood to the next. Lifting weights, he hoped, would change all that. But Weider did not stop at building his biceps. Body building swept him up, he recalls now, "like a religious fervor."

Even the woman who plays Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, admits that some people may have grown dead-tired of the character. But her financial performance can still cast a spell. For more than 10 years, Elvira, a bosomy Valley Girl-as-vampire portrayed by actress Cassandra Peterson, has been using her tongue-in-cheek style to pitch beer, records, computer games and dozens of other products. But if you want real spine-tingling chills, check out Elvira's bank account.

In written testimony presented in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday, Olympic gold medal-winning diver Greg Louganis said he "feared for his life" and asked that his fired business manager, Jim Babbitt, be restrained from having any contact with him.