JOE ISUZU (1986-1990)
Company: Mitsubishi. (Just kidding! It was Subaru.)
Shtick: A slimy sociopath pitch-perfectly representative of his era, Joe was a pathological liar given to making wildly exaggerated claims about Isuzu cars and trucks (“It has more seats than the Astrodome!”) back before it became standard advertising practice to do so.
Fun Fact: Michael Dukakis successfully used the character to lose the 1988 presidential election when he suggested in a debate that George H.W. Bush was “the Joe Isuzu of American politics.”
