"Alka Seltzer" news and stories

Speedy Alka-Seltzer is one of our more durable male advertising mascots, though you wouldn't know it to listen to him. The high-pitched voice heard in over 200 TV advertisements between 1954 and 1964 (courtesy radio actor Dick Beals) could have belonged to a Madison Avenue castrato, sent to school an overindulgent nation on the error of its ways.

For Alka-Seltzer is not food, of course, but its antidote. In this Sixties spot, Speedy promotes the product as good for political headaches and Mardis Gras hangovers. The original model (brainchild of ad man Chuck Tenant and graphic artist Bob Watkins) was retired for decades, but made a triumphant comeback last year. In a series of Web videos, Speedy accompanied the Conchords-like singing duo Rhett & Link as they crossed the country in a tricked out AMC Gremlin dubbed the Speedmobile, playing chicken (and burger and falafel) with heartburn and stomachaches.

Speedy wasn't alone in the world of mascots. Though it's become harder to find Thomas Lipton on a box of Lipton tea these days, his spirit lives, Tom Joad-like, in every bag. Sometimes called the father of modern advertising, the Scots-Irish entrepreneur was celebrated for stunts such as parading hogs through Glasgow wearing signs that read, "I'm going to Lipton's! Best shop in town for Irish bacon!" (I guess you had to be there.) Lipton went from one teashop to over 300 in twenty years and was famed in the U.K. for his healthy, abstemious lifestyle. For that and underselling the competition.

Lipton went on to buy (and revive) blighted British tea plantations in Ceylon and pioneered the "flow-thru" tea bag that helped Americans overcome their fear of the stuff. His use of the word "brisk" (tea-taster code for leaves that weren't stale) was revived most recently in the canned ice tea commercials featuring Claymation puppets modeled after Bruces Willis and Lee, among other cultural icons, who exclaimed of the beverage, "That's brisk, baby!"

Take a look at all the things that Alka Seltzer can help with around the house!

I've yet to find a Las Vegas buffet that I thought was truly good and offered sufficient variety. I've given up on trying. But I'm pretty sure that a recent 510-item extravaganza held at the Hilton to wish Alka Seltzer a 75th birthday would fit the bill. Not that I would haven be too happy about jostling at the carving station with the more than 850 people who turned out for the buffet, which Guinness World Records has certified as the largest ever.

George Bargisen, the hotel's executive chef, assembled an impresssive array of dishes, including salmon Wellington, fried alligator, Waldorf salad and crème brûlée. The spread was laid out on 500 feet of tables. No word on how much Alka Seltzer was given out.

[photo: AP/CNN]

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