The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

1. Once Again, Sam Waterston Raises Eyebrows

It's not shocking to see Sam Waterston on television. It is shocking, however, to see him on TV when he's not in an episode of Law & Order.

That's why we at the Five Dumbest Things Research Lab darn near fell off our chairs Monday. There was Waterston -- in all his eyebrow-raising, head-quivering glory -- smack in the middle of a TV commercial for brokerage house TD Waterhouse.

Part of the surprise came from seeing Waterston not playing Jack McCoy, the righteous assistant district attorney he's played for the past nine years on Law & Order. Seeing him outside of a courtroom drama is sort of like seeing an anteater in Central Park: What the heck, we wonder, are you doing here?

But the bigger bombshell came when we remembered whom Waterston replaced as TD Waterhouse spokesman: Steven Hill, the actor who for several years played McCoy's boss, the cranky district attorney Adam Schiff.

Hmm. One actor from Law & Order serves as a spokesman for TD Waterhouse. Then another actor from Law & Order serves as a spokesman for TD Waterhouse. Is there a pattern here?

We called up TD Waterhouse, a subsidiary of TD Bank (TD), just to check.

Nope. No pattern here, said the TD Waterhouse spokeswoman. "We weren't looking necessarily for another Law & Order personality," she said. "It's a happy coincidence."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. She had us going there for a second, we must admit.

Yes, as we are fond of saying, in commercials there's no such thing as a happy coincidence. It's pretty clear to us why TD Waterhouse went with another actor from L&O and not, say, Everybody Loves Raymond. Or even another cop drama like NYPD Blue.

The reason, of course, is that L&O is all business. All that every regular character on the show wants to do -- except for the stable of slimy defense attorneys -- is dispense justice. Protect the innocent and punish the guilty. They may not succeed all the time, but they're always trying. No one has any personal life. No one has any ambition. No one complains about the money. It's all business.