This doesn’t pass the smell test

By GREGORY HARDY - Sports Guesspert

I’VE GOT A new prize from the Guesspert Vault up for grabs.

I need you to figure out who provides the annoying voice for “Darkmane,” the guy in a black metalhead costume in ESPN’s new commercials for XGames 14. You know, gold mask, black cape, screeches at a bank of TVs, breaks a Ming vase. Who is that?

My first guess: Gilbert Gottfried ... but the voice wasn’t screechy enough.

Jack Black? Not operatic enough.

I’m putting my money down that it’s Brian Doyle-Murray ... semi-famed brother of Bill Murray.

You may remember him from such second-banana roles as Lou “Lou raised the price of Coke. He’s been losing at the track” Loomis, head of the caddies, in “Caddyshack” (B.D.M. was a screenwriter on that, by the way) ... and the mayor of Punxsutawney in “Groundhog Day” ... and father of Bubble Boy on “Seinfeld” ... and of course, arcade owner Noah Vanderhoff of “Noah’s Arcade” fame in “Wayne’s World.”

I’ve e-mailed friends who work the online computer banks at the Worldwide Leader if they knew.

“I don’t have the first clue who to contact, but I’ll see what I can find out,” one pal typed back from Bristol.

If you’ve got a better guess, or are friends with Chris Berman and can figure this out, then let’s make a deal.

Up in smoke. My evil twin brother went to a cigar store today to replenish his supplies. But he texted me about a funny note he saw on the door to the humidor:

“Management made a polite but firmly worded request not to hold the cigars to your nose unless you intended to buy it. That it’s rude to touch the cigar to your nose and then put it back for someone else to smoke. I didn’t realize this was a new etiquette to cigar sniffing. Not that I planned to shove an Arturo Fuente up my shnozz , but I guess they’ve been having a problem with things flying out of people’s nose when they exhale, and enough customers took exception.

“Still, I’ve got to think: the act of smoking the cigar itself is still more disgusting than any nostril gifts left behind. Boo hoo, a stray nose hair ends up on the end of a stogie — NOW cigars are disgusting? I just don’t understand some people’s hang-ups.”

And I’m thinking ... boy, that was a lot of typing for one text message.

ORVILLE’S LAST WORD

“If you don’t like how my cigar smoke smells, I could always punch you in the nose. That should solve a lot of your breathing problems.”

March along in the Guesspert parade at thestate.com/guesspert. Keep him company at the American Red Cross on Bull Street while he’s strapped to a gurney donating platelets from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.