I knew that the actors for the old “Harry and Louise” ads in the 1993–94 health-care fight had been signed for some new ads for the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America in support of current health-care reform messages. But these are awful.

The old Harry and Louise ads:

The new one:

The years have apparently been very kind to Harry and Louise. They’ve completely redone the kitchen with new cabinets; the furniture and tableware look like they’re from Pottery Barn, and the house looks bigger. Harry used to wear plaid (flannel?) and glasses; now he’s in a suit. Louise is wearing pearls at the breakfast table. She has her laptop open, and he’s checking over her shoulder to see that “people are losing coverage,” as if he needed to check Drudge on that.

The old commercial seemed strangely familiar to those who have been up late doing taxes. The adding machine, the yellow pad, the palpable frustration. There was something much more natural about their language — “But this was covered under our old plan!” “Ah, yeah, that was a good one, wasn’t it?” In the new one, their words seem intensely focus-grouped into revolutionary banality — “we need good coverage people can afford,” “a little more cooperation, a little less politics.”

I’m putting aside the irony that Harry and Louise, widely remembered as the Bonnie and Clyde who shot up HillaryCare, are now so frustrated that it didn’t get passed and hope that “we can get the job done this time.” But then I realized that the visuals and stilted language of the new one make sense under a different scenario. The wealthier lifestyle, different house, total about-face on the importance of choice. Clearly, after the early 1990s fight, Harry and Louise moved to the Maryland suburbs and became lobbyists.