10 Commercials That Changed Pop Culture Forever

9. Alka-Seltzer - "The Unfinished Lunch"

Among the pantheon of commercials, there are three companies who stand above the rest regarding the quality of their commercials: Anheiser-Busch, Coca-Cola, and Alka-Seltzer. All of them will feature at some point in this article (and two more than once), but we'll get to that later. For now, let's focus on this 1969 gem. The commercial opens on a prison mess hall. The inmates march into the hall and seat themselves. The commercial focuses itself on one inmate in particular, an older man portrayed by George Raft (who you might remember as the coin-flipping gangster Rinaldo in the 1932 version of Scarface or as mob boss Spats Columbo in Some Like It Hot). Raft watches his fellow inmates grimace as they choke down the horrible prison food. Raft takes a bite of his food and recoils as well. However, unlike his fellow prisoners, Raft isn't going to take this awful treatment lying down; he bangs his tin cup on the table, doing it again and again as the rest of the prisoners join in. Once every prisoner has joined the rhythm, Raft starts a chant: "Alka-Seltzer! Alka-Seltzer!" The rest of the inmates take up the call, which grows in intensity until the guards have a full-scale riot on their hands. What makes this commercial great is its lack of a jingle, shots of its product, or patronizing voice-over telling us how quickly Alka-Seltzer relieves the burning in our chests. Howard Zieff, the director, lets the ad's story speak for itself, his only intrusion being superimposing the product's name over the commercial's closing shot. It's refreshing to see a commercial that gets its point across solely through plot. Oh, and the ad's pretty funny, too.