After sustaining an injury during a football game, Greene is limping alone into the tunnel toward the Steelers' locker room when a young boy comes up behind him offering his help, which Greene declines. After telling Greene that he still thinks he is the best, the boy offers him his bottle of Coke; Greene sheepishly accepts it with thanks and drinks the entire bottle as the boy quietly says "See ya 'round" and slowly walks away. When Greene finishes the Coke he turns back to the boy and says "Hey, kid... catch," tossing his jersey to the surprised boy who happily says "Wow! Thanks, Mean Joe!" Greene casts a smile toward the boy before continuing his trek to the locker room.
Parodies and homages
A 1981 Sesame Street segment featured Roscoe Orman as football player Big Murray, giving a young fan a towel bearing the number seven, as a way to show the number seven as the number of the day.
In 1983, the television showNewhart paid homage to the commercial in the first season episode "A View from the Bench" when a limping Celtics player throws his basketball shoes to Bob Newhart on his way to the locker room.
The 1999 Family Guy episode "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater" features a cutaway gag with Mean Joe tossing all of his clothes to Peter. He makes another appearance in the 2008 episode "Road to Germany," tossing a container of uranium to Stewie.
The ending of the Futurama episode from 2002 called "A Leela of Her Own" parodies this, with Leela, as a blernsball pitcher, throwing her jockstrap, unsuccessfully, to professional blernsball player, Jackie Anderson.
In the 2003 episode "Some Assembly Required" of the television show Frasier, the character Niles gives a child a handkerchief in a similar manner after a good performance at an elementary-school assembly about the importance of cleanliness.
During Super Bowl XLIII in 2009, Coca-Cola aired a parody to the ad to promote its Coca-Cola Zero brand, starring former Steelers player Troy Polamalu in Greene's role. Continuing an ongoing theme in promotion for the beverage, the ad is interrupted by Coca-Cola "brand managers" who accuse Polamalu of "stealing" their commercial, prompting the safety to tackle one of them and give the child their shirt.
In January 2011, an episode of SportsNation on ESPN2 briefly parodied this commercial which featured sportscaster Michelle Beadle in Greene's role. In the commercial, after finishing the soda, instead of the jersey, she "accidentally" throws the empty soda bottle back to the child as it breaks on the wall at the end and then apologizes after that "mishap". In addition, the commercial tried to look like the late 1970s/early 1980s font titles with the words "Facebook.com/SportsNation" and "Have Some "SportsNation" and a smile" and "Sports is Life".
In 2012, Greene reprised his role in a Downy Unstopables ad for Super Bowl XLVI entitled "Stinky", where Amy Sedaris rejects Greene's jersey because it smelled.
In 2016, forward-center for the Sacramento KingsDeMarcus Cousins did a recreation of the classic commercial in order to promote the 2016 All-Star Voting process.
