Mama Mia that's a spicy meatball

Alka-seltzer: A memorable commercial

A television commercial came to mind today that I thought was promoting Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs. When I looked it up the 1969 ad was actually for Alka-Seltzer. This just shows how the mind can forget some details over a period of 5 decades. The actor in the ad was Jack Somack who was in two Broadway plays, Paris Is Out!, and The Prisoner of Second Avenue.

Jack Somack: A talented actor

Somack is mostly remembered for the Akla-seltzer commercial but he was in high demand during the 1970s and 1980s. These include appearances and guest-starring roles in film and television. You might recognize the actor from Sanford and Son, Barney Miller, The Rockford Files, Portnoy's Complaint, All in the Family, Kojak, The Love Boat, Desperate Characters, Laverne & Shirley, The Frisco Kid, Eight Is Enough, The Stockard Channing Show, The Pursuit of Happiness, Ball Four, Starsky & Hutch, Hero at Large, The Jimmy Stewart Show, The Blue Knight The Main Event and Family Ties. and The Stockard Channing Show.

Alka-seltzer for spicy meatballs

I could recall with clarity the male actor was doing a spaghetti commercial and kept messing up his lines. He began by saying "Mama Mia that's a spe- spicy meatball and had to do several more takes. He flubs his lines a few more times, has spaghetti dripping down his chin and looks miserable after ingesting so many meatballs.

An Alka-seltzer commercial appears where an announcer talks about the benefit of the product as a glass fizzing from the plop plop fizz fizz is shown. The assumption for the audience is "Jack" drank the Alka-seltzer after eating so many meatballs. By the time he got his lines right during take 59 the door of the oven in the background fell and the director decided to break for lunch. This beloved commercial is a classic and a favorite of those who are old enough to recall it.

Meatball Mama

Fran Lopate portrayed Jack's wife in the ad and she is not very well known. She had roles in Is There Sex After Death? (1971) and Deadtime Stories (1986) but nothing more is listed about her career. Lopate died on April 17, 1999, but her birth date and age at her death are not known.

Spicy Meatball commercial is still popular

In 2014 a survey was done regarding the popular commercial and had some stunning results. It seems that people still enjoy this ad but were as confused about the commercial as they had been in 1969. Some thought it was a spaghetti commercial while others assumed it was an ad for the antacid/indigestion product. Now I don't feel so bad for thinking that Lopate and Somack were promoting Chef Boyardee Spaghetti. Respondents to the survey ranked this commercial very highly and considered it to be very funny.

One of the reasons that baby boomers (those born between 1948-1964) enjoy old-school ads is because they sell their products without sex, profanity, or nudity. Thsi 1969 Alka-seltzer commercial has no scantily clad women, dark humor, or words that need to be bleeped out. The actors are middle-aged and regular looking but they bring it.

The spicy meatball ad has been around for 50 plus years but: The Liquid Plumr commercial where the man's butt crack is showing is nowhere to be seen. Life moves on and change is constant but good taste and making people laugh without all the extras are timeless and always in order. Marketers are going to test the boundaries but so far they seem to come back to the tried and true because they know it works.