Howard Zieff Rocks

Do you remember this poster? You don’t have to be Jewish to like Levy’s rye bread…These posters, using regular people, not models, so witty and so warm, were icons of my youth. So was the Alka-Seltzer commercial, the spicy meat ball one. How many commercials, how many ad campaigns, does one remember with pleasure and admiration 40 years later? How many does one remember at all, come to think of it? And then there was Private Benjamin, one of the funniest movies ever made…The same man is responsible for all those things: Howad Zieff. It’s mind-boggling. Here he is with his also awesome wife, Ronda Gomez, in New York two weeks ago, where he won a Lucie Award.

Here is one of his Daily News ads:

Now, that’s a spicy meatball.