YMMV / Ernest P. Worrell

• Adaptation Displacement: A number of gags from the original commercials were written into episodes of the series. Also done on a regular basis with the commercials themselves; the same basic script would be used in commercials for different brands (but the same product). At one point, the same commercial could've been done about 25 different times, for different Carden & Cherry clients.
• Archive Panic: There's the original commercials, of which Jim Varney estimated he'd filmed over 800, if not more, in addition to eight feature films, a short-lived TV series and a couple of TV and direct-to-video specials. And for the true completionist, there's also the handful of post-Jim Varney commercials.
• Complete Monster: Ernest faces two surprisingly dark villains for a comedy franchise:
  • Ernest Goes to Jail: Felix Nash is the Criminal Doppelgänger of Ernest, a ruthless "crime czar" with a plan to escape Death Row. An imprisoned Nash works with his goons to swap places with Ernest, escaping into his heroic duplicate's life while Ernest is left to suffer in prison under threat of Nash harming his loved ones. Nash is a brutal creep when it comes to getting what he wants, as he torments and threatens a fellow crook with dropping heavy weights onto his crotch in exchange for money, and later forcefully kisses and tries to rape Ernest's Love Interest Charlotte. After threatening an entire jury into obeying his demands and setting Ernest up to die in the electric chair, Nash tries to rob the bank Ernest works at, cheerfully attempting to kill Charlotte and the bank's security guards by tying them to a bomb, and when he's caught, Nash tries to take Charlotte as a hostage at gunpoint.
  • Ernest Scared Stupid: Trantor the Troll, an ancient, evil creature out to Take Over the World, seeks to transform five children into small wooden dolls to be sacrificed so as to create an entire army under Trantor's control. After failing to capture a fifth victim and being sealed away decades ago, Trantor eventually escapes his captivity and terrorizes the town of Briarville, kidnapping and turning several children into dolls and subjecting even Ernest's best friend and loyal dog Rimshot to the same fate. After erecting his army, Trantor plans to turn all children of the world into dolls then terrorize the rest of the populace for eternity, and when his plans are thwarted, Trantor spitefully turns Kenny into a doll just to taunt Ernest.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Ernest appeared in several anti-smoking commercials, where he tried to get Vern to quit smoking. Jim Varney was a chain smoker from his early teens until well into his adult life, when he was smoking two packs a day, and eventually died of lung cancer. If only Jim had followed Ernest's advice...
  • Similarly, in Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest is mistaken for a criminal and is due to be executed by electrocution. He is offered a blindfold or a cigarette, and replies "No, I'm scared of the dark... and cigarettes can kill you!"
  • Reportedly Jim skipped cancer treatments to continue filming Treehouse Hostage, one of his last movie roles before his passing, and he's clearly in bad shape throughout the film.
• Heartwarming Moments: Jim Varney frequently donned the Ernest costume and visited sick children as part of the Make a Wish Foundation. In fact, up until he passed away, he had several hundred requests, and never missed a one.
• Memetic Mutation: Ernest's "eww" sound, which he often says slowly as his jaw swivels from side to side.
• Misblamed: There was a great internet outcry over Carden & Cherry, the advertising company behind Ernest, continuing to use the character after Jim Varney's death and mocking Varney's legacy. However, they later revealed that Varney personally told them to continue using the character in his absence.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • None of Chuck's replacements in the later films, such as Tom Tulip or Greta, were liked as much by fans.
  • Two attempts at rebooting the Ernest character after Varney's passing—one an animated version and another in live-action, both with the same replacement actor, John Hudgens — never caught on.

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