PlattForm-produced commercials blanket more than 60% of the country. That’s not too shabby for a company that started a mere decade ago in the basement of owners Michael and Tamie Platt.

Since I travel a lot for my job, nothing makes me happier than spotting one of PForm’s commercials playing on some random station in some random city … randomly. I still remember the first time I saw a commercial of mine flash across a TV screen. I was sitting in a busy diner in Pittsburgh and literally screamed, “GOOD GOD! I DID THAT!” to no one in particular. The construction worker beside me seemed rather nonplused about the whole thing and responded with a congenial, “YOUR MOM!”

I was walking on Cloud 9! It’s a wonder my head could even fit through the door on the way out of the diner. I was proud … I was ecstatic … I was nauseous from eating a chicken-fried steak sandwich.

Fame, however, has a downside. I became infamous for one of our spots that simply WOULD NOT DIE. Entitled “Tantrum,” it put me on the map … uh, AND on the floor. The premise involved me being gratuitously drug across a classroom in a cap and gown. From Baltimore to Butte to Boca Raton … it seemed this particular ad was doing gangbusters and it was inescapable … and after the 30,000th viewing … it was unwatchable.

My parents in Iowa saw it. My best friend near Miami saw it. My arch-nemesis in Los Angeles saw it and said I looked fat. It ended up on YouTube. Clients wanted sequels. On January 2nd, 2006, while on vacation in Orlando, I saw the spot air six times in under an hour. Granted, that hour was 2 am and it was during “Tyra,” but whatever.

And if I was sick of it … think what havoc it was wreaking in San Antonio. Fortunately, like any good star that burns brightly and suddenly implodes upon itself, “Tantrum” stopped pulling leads and was immediately shelved. Children danced. Angels wept. And, once again, all was right in the cosmos. If I never see an ad of mine on TV again, that’s fine. It’s someone else’s turn to go supernova!