An Italian couple sit in a kitchen, taste a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, and the husband has to say his line: “Mamma mia, that’s a spicy meatball!” Then he says it again, and again. The ad is a commercial about the making of a commercial, and it ends with the actor reaching for Alka-Seltzer to settle his stomach.
It aired in 1969 and came from the agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, where Roy Grace and Evan Stark worked on the Alka-Seltzer account. It was directed by Howard Zieff, a former advertising photographer who later directed feature comedies, and it starred Jack Somack as the actor, with Fran Lopate as his wife.
What made it different is that it did not feel like an advertisement. Zieff made it look like a small story instead of a demonstration of the product, and the joke, an actor who keeps ruining his own take, is one people could repeat. Its main line became one of the best-known catchphrases in American advertising.
DDB lost the Alka-Seltzer account in 1970 to a younger agency, Wells Rich Greene, which went on to make the campaign “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” a Clio winner in 1971. Together the two ads show how a brand can build a personality on humor about the way we really eat.
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