This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.

Remember the early part of 2008? Britney Spears was nuts. The economy was not in the toilet as much and commercials for Pfizer's (NYSE:PFE) anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor blanketed the nation's broadcast and cable airwaves. Good times.

Those Lipitor commercials -- in case you have forgotten -- featured medical scientist Dr. Robert Jarvik Jarvick speaking about the heart disease that killed his father and urging the public to ask their doctor about the pill. Jarvick, Jarvik, the "inventor" of the artificial heart, looked healthy and vigorous as he rowed on a sunny lake. As the New York Times pointed out, the ad was a pack of lies.
Jarvick Jarvik is a medical doctor who is not licensed to practice medicine and who may have exaggerated his role in developing the artificial heart. Plus, he does not even row. Talk about truth in advertising. After members of Congress balked, Pfizer pulled the campaign that reportedly cost it $256 million. Pfizer is going to have to figure another way to bolster sales of Lipitor before it comes off patent in 2010. Maybe James "Tony Soprano" Gandolfini can be persuaded to urge people to "whack" their cholesterol. Just a suggestion.

The sad thing is that Jarvik Jarvick is not the sleaziest pitchman in the drug industry. Those would be the celebrities who go on TV to "raise awareness" about a disease. Drug companies often pay them too. It's hardly surprising the U.S. is the only country to allow drug companies to sell directly to consumers. Whatever benefits these ads create are outweighed by the problems they cause.

Read the entire series

Talk about your tempest in a teapot, here's a good one for you. It seems that a congressional committee has taken up arms against Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart, because he didn't row his own boat in his recent appearance in a Lipitor television advertisement. The concern is over whether the doctor should be represented as rowing a boat when the person in the boat pictures isn't actually him. Next, Congress will be exposing the fact that M & M's don't really talk to Santa Claus. Dang it, I hate when that happens.

Further noise is being made because the good doctor is apparently not licensed to practice medicine. That makes some people question his worthiness to crow for Lipitor. That's funny, I don't remember him claiming that he'd prescribed the stuff to anyone himself. Does it really matter in the final analysis if the man isn't licensed to work in a hospital? Not to me. He's a doctor who knows hearts and he wants people to know how they might better care for their own. He apparently uses the product, it works for him, and he's willing to talk about it. That's kind of the basics of simple endorsement, isn't it?

I'll tell you what I think this is all about. I think some of those good old boys in the halls of Congress probably sold short on Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) , and they're probably mad because Dr. Jarvik's endorsement isn't allowing Lipitor to be crushed by Zocor, its cheaper generic competition. You can almost see their smug bipartisan grins as you read the whole story from Stephanie Saul in The New York Times. I think they want to muddy the waters just long enough for their short bets to come in, regardless of the cost to Dr. Jarvik's reputation. Those Washington stuffed shirts sure got their committees all whipped up in a big hurry on this one, didn't they. That's kind of telling, isn't it.

I suppose next they'll be telling us that geckos don't really talk about car insurance. Could that even be possible?