Those who like the wee lads and lassies, like them a lot

From the There Is Too Such a Thing As Bad Publicity Department:

The angry Scottish guy from the Alexander Keith's commercial has been arrested on child porn charges, instantly achieving the unthinkable feat of leapfrogging past Canadian Tire Guy as the most reviled Canadian TV commercial spokesman. That dude's going to have to become a serial rapist to take his title back.

Talk about dumping the pride of Nova Scotia all over the place. Obviously, this guy's career as a comic actor is done now that he's joined those dudes from the Bay City Rollers in the Scottish wing of the Gary-glitterati. There's always a chance he could pull off Pete Townshend's "I was researching a book on child abuse" alibi, of course, even though that's only a notch above "We were ... uh ... rehearsing for a play at the local community centre" on the scale of excuse believablity.

And needless to say, Labatt, the maker of Alexander Keith's, has pulled the commercials, but I imagine the damage is already done to the 186-year-old brand. The inevitable price drop notwithstanding, I know I won't be able to buy a Keith's without the fear of someone standing up and shouting, "You chose the beer of a child pornographer!" like in the old "Child Molester's Jam" sketch by the Kids in the Hall.

If there's one positive thing to come out of this (besides seeing a child-porn ring getting busted up, which I suppose is a boon), it's that we might see an end to the proliferation of commercial pitchmen and hack comics just doing Scottish accents in lieu of actual material for the foreseeable future. I've been waiting for someone to kick that crutch out from under Mike Myers for a while now.