09/09/2007
What you find on YouTube when you're looking for something else entirely (UPDATED)
I was standing at the sink washing the dishes Saturday evening, and smiling quietly to myself.
Why are you smiling? asked the wife.
I'm remembering this old Alka Seltzer commercial from the 1970's. You were probably too young to remember it.
Hey, I saw lots of commercials, asserts the wife. Which one are you laughing at?
An old one, I say. A :60, one that Roy Grace did after the account moved to DDB from Wells Rich. He's the second creative director I worked under at Doyle; the commercial's in the Museum Of Modern Art's Permanent Collection. It's a string of outtakes from a commercial shoot about some italian food with meatballs. This actor is dressed as an old italian poppa, and he keeps screwing up. It's hilarious.
The wife is not sure she remembers that one.
I bet it's on YouTube, I say, skipping into the living room and sitting down at the computer.
And it was:
UPDATE The clip above was the only one I could find of that commercial last week; it's got lousy color, bad sound, and it's not complete. Since then (yaay for the Internet) another, complete version with better color and good sound is available, but without an embed code. Watch that speecy meatball.
Hilarious, right? It seems to be the only one posted from that era, but before I turn away from the screen I notice several other clips under the heading Alka Seltzer Bomb.
The first had a scholarly tone. Since they want you to buy the DVD, there's no way to embed the clip, so check out Alka Seltzer Rocket.
More on the homebrew tip was a genuine mom demonstrating to her kids how to have real fun:
There was demo to a group of clueless british dads showing how to have fun with your kids. Personally, I think if you have to go to a class for this stuff, you have bigger problems than how to make a fizzy bomb, but that's just my opinion.
In the next clip, a too-cool-for-school-voiced young woman (with purple fingernails) show how to scare the crap out of your cat:
Not a bomb, but interesting nonetheless, is this clip of Alka Seltzer in Microgravity. Narrated by an astronaut on his way to the Internation (sic) space station, it gives you a clue as to where billions of your tax dollars are being pissed away. Next time you wonder why the public library can't stay open, or why there's no music instruction in public schools anymore, take a look at this:
In the more down-to-earth science demo vein, we find one in a series of crazy projects with clayton. Talk about making scientific principles accessible; just put on your do-rag and jump into the backyard.
Helpful hints from Chris (and his presumably traumatized, off-camera dog):
A couple of british kids exaggerate the danger and stretch the dramatic arc a bit in a faceless subdivision:
And we finished up with the old, old commercial that started it all (and killed off the evil leprechaun Speedy Alka Seltzer):
After that I finished washing the dishes.