AT&T Presents: Listen 2 Learn! Chris Rock

Before he earned the “super” before his “star” title, Chris Rock was busy hawking Nikes in the form of NBA great Penny Hardaway’s alter-ego, Lil Penny. Twelve years after those TV ads left the air, the funnyman sat down with The Bottom Line Sports Show host Gerald Brown to chat about their enormous—and highly unexpected—cultural influence. “You know what's weird about that thing? It was the first time I worked with any people like the ad agency, and they just said, ‘What do you wanna do?’ They didn't give me a script and tell me what to do. They really wanted some input,” says Chris. “And it just came to life. They showed me the doll. They told me the situation. We just had fun with it. And people loved it—my God! Because Penny is so quiet and cool, it was a perfect counterpoint.”