If you are a television connoisseur, you are probably quite familiar with commercials for Carl’s Jr. restaurants (or Hardee’s, depending on where you live). For years, a frequent advertising tactic of the fast food chain has been to have a sexy, often scantily clad woman chow down on an enormous burger. Paris Hilton was the first such pitch-woman for the restaurant and has now been brought back for a new round of ads.

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Recent commercials have also used actors with movie tie-ins, such as the film “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” The ads are generally effective, showing off the burger while often given men some eye candy to boot.

But now things have been taken up a notch. Enter Phil Hellmuth (pictured above) Yes, that Phil Hellmuth, who is featured in Carl’s Jr. spots that are currently on the air. Fortunately, while he pigs out on a Texas BBQ Thickburger, he is fully clothed in his trademark all-black outfit, sunglasses, and “PH” logo baseball cap. Check out the commercial by clicking here.

On the one hand, it is not a huge surprise that Hellmuth would end up in a commercial, as he has never been known to shy away from promoting himself. He is one of the best, if not the best, in poker at building his brand, so he almost certainly jumped at the opportunity to be featured in a national spot. At the same time, though, his appearance in the fast food ads is fairly groundbreaking.

Hellmuth did appear in a special campaign for Milwaukee’s Best Light in 2008, but the beer was one of the main sponsors of the World Series of Poker, so there was a clear poker tie-in. “The Poker Brat” saw his likeness emblazoned on special edition Milwaukee’s Best Light cans, each printed with quotes from Hellmuth as well as some of his most popular quips such as “I can dodge bullets, baby!”

Former Main Event champs Chris Ferguson and Joe Hachem have also appeared in commercials for Milwaukee’s Best Light. Ferguson was in spots for the beer in 2005, which also doubled as mini-strategy lessons. In the commercials, which aired during the WSOP broadcasts on ESPN, Ferguson sat concealed in a refrigerator and offered poker advice when called upon by someone playing in a game a few feet away.

Hachem was in the popular “Men Should Act Like Men” campaign a number of years ago as a poker player at a table where another player acted completely obnoxious.

All of those advertising appearances, though, were directly related to poker. This new burger commercial is one of only mainstream media appearances by a poker player as simply a celebrity in recent memory that had nothing whatsoever to do with poker. Even Daniel Negreanu‘s cameo in the 2009 film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was as a poker player in a game with the character Gambit. Hellmuth’s commercial however, was about him as a celebrity selling burgers. No poker in sight.

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