Actor Best Known For Playing Philandering Drunk Hired to Sell Lincolns

Roger Sterling may have lost the Lucky Strike account, but at least he still has Lincoln. Mad Men star John Slattery has been hired by the Ford Motor Company to appear in a series of commercials for their Lincoln line of cars. Good for Slattery! Except, um, Ford Motor Company: Doesn't having an actor who is famous for saying things like, "we can solve this problem with a flask," selling your cars seem a bit...odd?

Matt VanDyke, Ford and Lincoln marketing director for the United States, is aware of that concern, but doesn't think it matters all that much. As he told the New York Times, "we're really not buying Roger Sterling here," which is good since, as he says, "the baggage" the character carries includes things like heavy drinking, sexism, racism and adultery.

For his part, VanDyke said he watches Mad Men, but "not quite as religiously" as The Wire and The Sopranos, something that probably explains how he missed the seventh episode of season one, when Roger gave this treatise on the dangers of drunk driving.

"One night years ago I got very drunk. I drive home to my building, pull into the garage, park in my spot. I get in the elevator. It's late, there's no operator. Go up to the twelfth floor, get out. I'm walking down the hall. It's pink and orange. I remember how ugly it was. Suddenly my key won't fit in the door. It wasn't my building. I guess what I'm saying is, at some point we've all parked in the wrong garage."

As long as he wasn't driving a Lincoln...

· Lincoln Meets 'Mad Men' in New Campaign [NYT]