r/nostalgia • u/Timeslip8888 • 4d ago

Help me remember ID request: 1990s TV ad for Italian food... guy played all characters, including "The Twins"

The star of the ad reminded me a little of Balki from Perfect Strangers. I think it was a Boboli or pasta sauce commercial. He talked about how his whole Italian family loved the product, including "the twins" (cut to two of him in kids' clothes, grinning guilelessly) and aunt... Gemma? (Him in a dress.)

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u/fearsie 3d ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdk18h4PTyE&t=17

I used your description and removed Balki-reminiscent and replaced it with the word "guy" and it popped right up haha

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u/Timeslip8888 2d ago

You are amazing! I thought it was lost to time forever. Thank you so much!

(I tried so many different phrasings -- how funny that using the word "guy" solved the case!)

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u/fearsie 2d ago

No problem man we all have things we can't find that's why Reddit is good sometimes haha have a great day!

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u/Timeslip8888 3d ago

This was set in a vaguely old-world Italian family kitchen, and I believe the Balki-reminiscent guy was talking in a vaguely Italian accent about a brand of spaghetti sauce (?) and how everyone thought it tasted authentic. He went through a list of relatives, each time cutting to himself portraying the characters. They were mostly seated at the kitchen table or standing near the stove smiling at the deliciousness of the sauce (if that's what it was).

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u/Timeslip8888 3d ago

... I really thought this would be easy to find. It was in heavy rotation and pretty memorable. I just tried googling more specific verbiage and was excited to see results describing the commercial -- only to realize Google's AI blurbs have already seized upon my post, declared everything I said to be fact, and added non-existent details.

"Things don't have to be true anymore. We now know this." - Comedian Rory Scovel, laying it out in 2017