Reviewing the Commercials

By Mark Goodman

While dramatic series have become drearier, commercials have developed into the sprightliest little plays on television. These days, many a viewer is tempted to leave his set during the first half of The Brady Bunch, fix a sandwich, pour a beer and then hurry back to watch these entertaining dramas in miniature. Actress Alice Playten, for example, has become nationally famous as the bride in the Alka-Seltzer ad who lies in bed breathlessly reliving the triumph of her first home-cooked meal--particularly a single, monumental dumpling. Behind her back, the uncomfortable husband surreptitiously gulps a fizzy glassful ("Is it beginning to rain, dear?" she asks). The playlet's success depends upon the interaction of the bride's naivete with the sudden, stunned realization of the groom (Terry Kiser) that the price of love may be endless indigestion. His anguish as she innocently plans her next menus (marshmallowed meatballs and poached oysters) is a masterly mixture of suffering and tact. Indeed, Alka-Seltzer commercials have become the standard by which the entire genre is judged.

Another creative triumph is the commercial-within-a-commercial based on the filming of an ad for "Mama Magadini Spicy Meat Balls." All that Jack has to say is, "Mamma mia, that's-a spicy meatball!" Trouble is, every take is fouled up: Jack blows his lines, forgets his Italian accent. At one point a fiery meatball scorches the roof of his mouth and all he can do is gasp. Enter Alka-Seltzer. Finally, after a perfect take, the prop oven door falls off, and the tired director sighs, "Cut. O.K. Let's break for lunch." It may not be Pirandello, but the effect does depend on taking the viewer across the TV "proscenium" into the studio.

Mamma (Fran Lopate) plays her wordless role with the benign warmth of melted mozzarella. The ageless Mediterranean resignation on Jack's face is so perfect that it is hard to believe he can look any other way. Two weeks ago, he took an ad in the show-business trade journal, Variety, showing him grinning. The headline asks: WHO'S THE GUY IN THE ALKA-SELTZER COMMERCIAL? IT'S JACK SOMACK.

Self-Spoofing. Post-Jack ads for Alka-Seltzer have slipped--but the Volkswagen experience demonstrates that this is almost inevitable. The most enjoyable--and most effective--of the Volkswagen minidramas is the one about the 1949 auto show, where crowds ignored the lonely Volkswagen and clustered around the glamorous "cars of the future"--Studebaker, Hudson, De-Soto. The production pays such meticulous attention to period styles --baggy trousers, Andrews Sisters types swinging and harmonizing--that at first glance the viewer thinks he is seeing 21-year-old footage.

Unfortunately Doyle Dane Bernbach, the agency that created the VW and the Alka-Seltzer commercials, has overdone a good thing. Mrs. Poached Oysters has returned with a heart-shaped meat loaf, and one of the latest VW ads is a singularly unfunny parody of the old Mr. Wizard show. The program, featuring a science teacher and a questioning kid, died so long ago that few viewers will get the joke. Most of the successful minidramas are in the self-spoofing tradition pioneered by the old Bert and Harry spots for Piel's beer, which grew out of the routines of the men behind the animation, Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding (TIME, Oct. 19). Like the meatball ad, Gillette razor blade spots take the viewer into a studio taping session. The best ad has a director trying to induce Pitcher Tom Seaver to describe his shave as "closer." But every time the director says "closer," Seaver merely moves the pack of blades closer to his face or the camera. Eventually the director gives up and sighs, "Get the football player." Seaver dissolves into laughter. The overall effect is a refreshing reversal of the traditional testimonial: the athlete as antihero.

Madison Avenue is also borrowing from that classic American art form, the western. The Gary Cooper of the genre is Heinz ketchup, which single-handed confronts a gang of Brand X baddies on the main street of a lonely cowtown. One of the baddies steps forward, caps come off, bottles upturn; the Brand X bottle soon lies empty in the dust. As the half-full Heinz bottle swaggers off, a sourdough voice brags: "Heinz, the slowest ketchup in the West --East, North and South."

Expensive Opticals. As on Broadway and in movies, the season so far is wildly uneven. For some obscure reason, Comet cleanser has elected to make Josephine (Jane Withers) a folk heroine.

It is supposed to make some difference to the viewer that the lady plumber has been on vacation and has returned to be embarrassed by yet another stained kitchen sink. Dentyne's "no-hum mouth" marks a new low in tasteless breath commercials, and the feminine hygiene spray ads tell more than anyone could want to know about Dorothy Provine and Jill Haworth.

The Jewish mother (Lillian Adams) who chides her son the doctor about the expensive "opticals" on his "fancy-schmancy" Plymouth is bound to offend every Jewish mother from Barbra Streisand to Golda Meir. Winston's "What do you want, good grammar or good taste?" campaign verges on sadism. But then, unless R.J. Reynolds can prove between now and Jan. 1 that cigarette smoking may not be hazardous to your health, all cigarette ads will be off the air. Except for the vignettes showing Benson & Hedges' longer cigarettes forever getting caught in beards, clashing cymbals and elevator doors, none of them will be missed. sbMark Goodman

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