Remembering Dr. Z



The 2006 baseball season was a magical one for Tigers fans for many reasons: the playoff sweep of the A's, Zumaya's 100+ mph fastball, "gum time," Monroe's late game heroics, and for me, endless "Dear Dr. Z" commercials on FSN. The one with the kids' field trip, the inscrutable one with the soccer mom, and even the one with those Hemi dudes. Commercials that ran so often I could recite ever word, every inflection, every variation in Dr. Z's lilting German accent. I studied the soccer mom one endlessly, eventually determining that it must have been edited down from a longer version; that was the only way to account for its complete lack of a punchline.

But as quickly and as forcefully as they entered my life, they were gone. And now, with Chrysler being split from the DaimlerChrysler group, I fear we will never see Dr. Z again. All that's left now are Comerica's numbing "successful entrepreneur" commercials.

Where are you Dr. Z? I need you.