"TvCommercials" news and stories

Fast-food chain Carl's Jr. has stopped the ad campaign for its Chicken Parmesan Sandwich after Italian-American groups complained about the mafia-themed commercials.

The California Italian-American Task Force and the National Italian-American Federation praised Carl's Jr.'s parent company CKE for its decision not to buy more TV slots for the ads, which feature mobster and garbage man characters that critics said showed negative Italian-American stereotypes, Nation's Restaurant News reports.

In the ad, a man sits in his car eating the Carl's Jr. Chicken Parmesan Sandwich as marinara sauce drips out of his mouth and down his shirt. When two mafia goons approach the car, the man plays dead. Fooled by the sauce dotting his shirt like blood, they leave him alive assuming someone else killed him before they arrived.

"NIAF was pleased to see the positive steps taken by Carl's Jr. Restaurant to remove negative, inaccurate and unfair characterizations in their recent commercial advertisements," Jeff Capaccio, the group's regional vice president for the Far West, told the paper. "These advertisements only fuel further incorrect assumptions about an entire ethnic group."

When the Dunkin' Donuts on my corner closed, I mourned for months. Now, Michael Vale, the actor who played the sleepy doughnut baker in so many commercials, has died. Dunkin' Donuts will forever be tinged with a sense of deep loss for me. Chocolate creme-filled doughnut, I hardly knew ye!

Michael Vale was 83 and was born in Brooklyn. Dunkin' Donuts campaign that featured him ran for 15 years, until its end in 1997. And in my opinion, nothing they've done since is half so compelling. It's a sad day for doughnut lovers everywhere.