Scarlett Johansson (AP)

Thanks to DVRs and streaming services, it's easier than ever to avoid television advertising these days. Which is kind of a shame. Sure, most ads are annoying, dumb and sometimes even controversial (witness the recent Kendall Jenner protest-march commercial that Pepsi had to pull). But here and there they're entertaining -- especially when they feature our favorite celebrities.

Feeling a bit nostalgic for the days when television commercials were a daily part of life, we consider the best fame-friendly TV ads of all time. Below you’ll find our Top 25 celebrity endorsements on television, ranging from the 1950s to the present.

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Mickey Mantle

“Wherever this man goes, he packs a 38,” an unseen woman narrates as we see someone in a fedora and trench coat being chased, Beatlemania-like, by fans. She continues: “The man is my husband, Mickey Mantle. The 38 ... is Lifebuoy, 38-hour deodorant soap.” After Mantle retired from baseball in 1969, the legendary New York Yankees slugger appeared in a parade of ads -- for lite beer, Blue Bonnet margarine and other products. His best one, however, is this unusual, noirish one, when The Mick was in his Major League prime.

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Andy Griffith and Don Knotts

“The Andy Griffith Show” was the most beloved sitcom of the 1960s. And at the height of its popularity, the show’s stars -- Andy Griffith and Don Knotts -- got into character to sell Grape-Nuts cereal. In doing so, they just might have helped launch the aerobics craze that swept the nation about a decade later. All together now: “A Grape-Nuts breakfast fills you up, not out!”

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Andy Warhol and Sonny Liston

Pop artist Andy Warhol, famed for his squirrelly oddness, and former heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, known as the “most hated man in America” during his short reign as boxing’s king, make a strange pair. Which is why Braniff Airlines paired them in the late 1960s. They always fly Braniff, the ad’s narrator states, because “They like our girls. They like our food. They like our style. And they like to be on time.”

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Joe Namath

The camera pans slowly, lovingly, up a pair of gorgeous, stockinged legs. But when it gets to the model’s bulky torso and then basset-hound face, the viewer starts to rethink how nice those gams looked. The model in this famous 1970s commercial is New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, famous for his wrecked knees. “Now, I don’t wear pantyhose,” the football star says, offering a sly grin. “But if Beautymist can make my legs look good, imagine what they’ll do for yours.”

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John Travolta

John Travolta wasn’t a movie star when he made a life-insurance commercial for Mutual of New York, but the spot makes clear he was going to be. He put a lump in the throats of TV viewers across the land with his performance as “Brian,” a good kid whose father wanted him to be a college grad -- except the dad didn’t plan ahead.

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Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner

“And the best thing is, it tastes so great,” says “Famous Owner” George Steinbrenner in this 1978 ad for Miller Lite Beer. “No, George,” corrects “Famous Manager” Billy Martin, “the best thing is it’s less filling.” Neither man, of course, gives an inch. “It tastes great!” “Less filling, George!” Finally, Steinbrenner says those words Martin has heard many times from his on-again, off-again New York Yankees boss: “You’re fired.”

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Muhammad Ali

Iconic boxing champion Muhammad Ali turned down an offer to star in the 1978 remake of the movie “Heaven Can Wait” (Warren Beatty ended up taking the role) but he accepted almost every TV-commercial opportunity that came his way. The one that lives on more than all the others, if only because it’s so incongruous: His pitch for d-Con roach spray. “I can whip anything on two legs!” Ali declares as he steps away from the heavy bag. “But even me, The Greatest, needs help beating things with six legs.”

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Shelley Hack and Mel Torme

“Kinda young, kinda now, Charlie!” Mel Torme sings as new “Charlie’s Angels” star Shelley Hack happily struts onto a yacht in this 1979 perfume spot. The image offered here was the epitome of youthful Me Decade sophistication. Fifteen years later, Little Richard and Cindy Crawford reprised the ad, including a more hyperkinetic version of the classic jingle.

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Johnny Carson

Johnny Carson welcomed new “Tonight Show” sponsors by promoting their products on the air. These mini-advertisements invariably featured a woman in a plunging dress or extra-tight T-shirt. The spokesmodel was supposed to suggestively giggle at the King of Late Night’s double entendres and then suggestively strut off stage. But by 1981, the cultural landscape was changing, and the woman promoting the “Easy Caulker” couldn’t hide her real feelings about the all-too-obvious sexual references the product offered up. She rolled her eyes and laughed in embarrassment as the audience hooted. “You use this in your shower?” Johnny asks her. “Isn’t that what it’s for?” she responds. Then the inevitable punchline: “Yes, it is, and sometimes I even fill in the cracks with it.”

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Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert

Chris Evert was still “America’s sweetheart” in the 1980s. And Jimmy Connors was still a self-aggrandizing loudmouth. So in the tennis stars’ commercial for Converse -- they each had a signature shoe with the company -- Jimbo wouldn’t let Chrissie get a word in. Until the end, that is, when Evert suddenly takes charge with a strategically placed tennis ball. The TV spot had an extra fizz because viewers knew of the two champions’ history together: They’d been engaged to be married in the mid-70s before the relationship blew apart.

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Michael Jackson

In the 1980s, no product and celebrity were more closely linked than Michael Jackson and Pepsi. Together they pioneered the use of MTV-like production values for commercial jingles, paving the way for other products and stars.

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Donald Trump

He’s been a pitchman for McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Toshiba computers and many other products. (He closed an ad for MTV with the memorable statement: “And another thing, Hanson blows.”) But Donald Trump is at his best when he’s selling Donald Trump. That includes when he’s selling Trump: The Game, the Monopoly-like board game Milton Bradley put out in 1989. “Because it’s not whether you win or lose,” the Trump: The Game commercial states, “it’s whether you win.”

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Joe Pesci and Don Rickles

Joe Pesci has had a long and varied acting career, but he’ll probably be remembered most of all as Tommy DeVito, the violent mobster with a short fuse in “Goodfellas.” He plays off that persona in a classic Snickers ad. When one of the girls he and his pal are trying to chat up momentarily breaks eye contact, he flips out. “What’re you lookin’ at?” he barks at her. “We’re not good enough for you? You’re looking for something else? What’re you, a big supermodel? Oh, excuse us! Supermodels!” This opens the door to a surprise appearance from a performer known to be even more brutal and uncontrollable than Pesci.

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Mindy Kaling and Matt Damon

What do you think when you raise your hand for a cab, and it roars past you to pick up someone else? If you’re Mindy Kaling doing a spot for Nationwide, you assume you’re invisible and thus set off to steal food and publicly sunbathe nude without consequences. It all goes wrong, however, when she spots Matt Damon in a restaurant.

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Britney Spears and Bob Dole

What could be better than Britney Spears sexily shaking her belly-button ring to sell Pepsi? A cameo appearance by former presidential candidate (and Viagra pitchman) Bob Dole and his dog. “Easy, boy,” Dole tells man’s best friend as they watch Spears in action.

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Brad Pitt

Before Matthew McConaughey offered up fake profundities for Lincoln cars, fellow actor Brad Pitt set the standard. "It's not a journey," Pitt said for Chanel No. 5. "Every journey ends, but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it. ... My luck. My fate. My fortune. Chanel No. 5." You don't think it's a great ad? It had to be pretty good to get Conan O'Brien to relentlessly mocked it on his late-night talk show.

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Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber

What could be better than an Ozzy Osbourne stage performance? An Ozzy Osbourne behind-the-scenes performance. “Don’t touch my hair, man,” the heavy-metal rocker tells an assistant who steps in after Osbourne fluffs a line. When the man who notoriously bit the head off a live bat can’t get the iPhone pitch right, young gun Justin Bieber steps in. “What’s a 6-G?” Osbourne’s wife says, watching Bieber in action. Offers Ozzy: “What the [beep!] a Bieber?” The last line comes from another “assistant”: “I don’t know. Kinda looks like a girl.”

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Conan O'Brien

Conan O’Brien speaks only Italian in this American Express ad, but you won’t be confused about what’s going on as the talk-show host carefully, diligently, sweatily takes on the job of a glass maker -- and finds his output wanting. “If you’re really serious about entertainment,” the narrator says, “every detail counts.” What does this have to do with American Express? Does it really matter?

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Venus Williams

Venus Williams just wants to play the whack-a-mole game at the carnival in this 2010 American Express commercial. The problem: she whacks those moles a little too enthusiastically, and so the mechanical animals refuse to do their job. “Hellloooo?” Venus calls out impatiently when the moles stop popping up. Plenty of tennis players who have taken the court against Venus (and her sister Serena, for that matter) have wished they’d followed the moles’ example.

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Tim Duncan and Derrick Rose

San Antonio Spurs legend Tim Duncan is known for his low-key demeanor. Except when the subject is Foot Locker, which gets him “bouncing off the walls.” So to speak.

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Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard

“Veronica Mars” star Kristen Bell and her husband Dax Shepard vie for the title of cutest celebrity couple of all time in their ads for Samsung’s smart appliances. (Is Dax Shepard a celebrity? Thanks to these ads, he is.)

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Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres loves to dance.

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Jennifer Aniston

What kind of nightmares does Jennifer Aniston have? The kind where she travels like the rest of us, rather than in the swank luxury offered by Emirates Airlines. Fortunately for Jen, she wakes up before the plane lands. “Hey,” she says to the flight’s bartender, “is there someone we can talk to about flying this around a little bit longer? Just like an hour?”

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Serena Williams

When Serena Williams was a little girl being trained by her father on Compton, Calif., public courts, a local reporter asked her: “If you were a tennis player, who would you want to be like?” The smiling preteen’s answer sparked the advertising geniuses on the Gatorade account, more than two decades later, to make an ad that is both moving and inspiring.

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Scarlett Johansson

“I had an Italian boyfriend once. His mother broke up with me.” Cut to: same smirking beautiful woman, a few moments later. “How do I know it was a lie?” She glances contemptuously at her unseen interlocutor. “Because I read it in your newspaper.” Scarlett Johansson inhabits a 1960s, Elizabeth Taylor-inspired glamour in this Dolce & Gabbana ad that mixes sex appeal and one-liners. “I’m not an actress,” she tells us. “I just play one in the movies.” And in perfume commercials.

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Bonus

Basketball great Rick Barry spends a New York Life commercial dropping basketballs through the rim using his famous underhand free-throw technique. "Sure, a life-insurance policy isn't the sexiest way to plan for the future, just like my free-throw shooting isn't the sexiest way to shoot a free throw," he says. "But it works. And success never goes out of style." Why is this one of the best celeb TV spots ever? Because Barry actually comes across as likable. Which, by almost all accounts, he isn't. "To put it simply, people despised him," stated a basketball forum a couple of years ago -- one that happened to be devoted to the franchise Barry led to an NBA title. "He was always looking down at you," said former teammate Robert Parish, and Parish, at 7 feet tall, isn't accustomed to anyone looking down at him.