El Debargo
Actor Debargo Sanyal recently filmed an ad campaign for hot food bars at Holiday Inn Express. The Office-style ads make fun of cringeworthy, late-night bar behavior. In one spot, four women leer over his waiter character:
In another, he plays a gay man making fun of his coworkers’ ineffectual flirting (watch: WMV, Quicktime). Watch for his bug-eyed grimace at the very end. Slate comments:
“There’s a fun business trip… Fending off a bunch of leering middle managers before sitting down alone to a cup of cold yogurt!” [Link]
on Thursday, March 20th, 2008, 3:15 pm in Ads, Humor, TV, Video clips › 
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Debargo RULES! Thanks for posting those.
(He also plays Rama in Sita Sings the Blues, which you can see at the Tribeca Film Fetsival)
I actually thought that commerical( guys deciding what to send the woman ) was really funny - but Manish- curious- where did you get that he is supposed to be gay ?
The stereotyped arm gesture and tone of voice at the end.
Thanks ..my gaydar is totally on the fritz
> The stereotyped arm gesture and tone of voice at the end.
what arm gesture? what tone of voice?
There are NO gay indian men, not even on television.
What? A gay man? If Huckabee had known this, he would never ever have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, and studied up on foreign policy instead.
As part of the target audience for the commercials, i thought they were clever enough, and funny! Totally disagreed with the Slate article when I read it, which found the commercial’s whole situation to be a hassle (the “fending off leering middle managers” comment you quoted pretty aptly shows that). There are only a handful of things upon which business travelers choose hotels, and sometimes a complimntary breakfast is one of them. :) More importantly, I remembered the brand still, post-commercial - which cannot be said for many “clever” commercials.
I just saw this commercial the other day. Funny stuff! It’s always cool to come across a desi face on mainstream national television :-)
This commercial campaign aired nonstop during the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on CBS recently. I definitely laughed out loud a couple times. This desi actor is pretty funny in them.
I crack up whenever I see this commercial on tv. As a single gal who has to travel frequently for business, I can attest that this has happened to me in real life!! It wasn’t at a Holiday Inn Express, but there was one trip where I was eating at the hotel breakfast buffet bar, and some guy came over and started hitting on me–at 7:30AM!! While I was slurping my milk and cereal! LOL!
I remember how funny Debargo Sanyal was in the “7-11″ plays three years ago, so I am not at all surprised to see him putting his comedic talents to use in these national commercials. I think these ads are very clever and memorable.
Fun stuff! The more desi faces in mainstream tv and film, the better. Very cool.