Way back in 2008, Pizza Hut ran an advertisement showcasing its brand new menu of Tuscani pastas. In the commercial, unwitting diners rave about their pasta meal at a Manhattan restaurant called Tuscani until a chef comes out and announces that he didn’t even cook the food. In fact, Pizza Hut had delivered the pasta.
Some questioned whether the stunt was in fact real or faked for the commercial due to the fact that there were no restaurants operating in New York at the time named Tuscani. An advertising executive Bob Kraut eventually confirmed that the video was indeed shot during an “authentic” event. “We staged a ‘new restaurant tasting’ in New York City where we invited real people to sample the new dishes,” he told The New York Times.
Fast forward to 2017, and major brands ranging from McDonald’s to Sauve are still trying to use this tactic to convince customers that their products are just has good as more expensive competitors. The trope even received its own dedicated Saturday Night Live sketch in yesterday’s season premiere. In this instance though some of the customers — Ryan Gosling and Cecily Strong — have a little more trouble coming to terms with the fact that they actually ate pasta from Pizza Hut instead of Terrezano’s. Check out the full clip above.
• Italian Restaurant Clip - Saturday Night Live [Youtube]
• Chef Tricks Food Writers by Cooking Multi-Course Menu With McDonald's Ingredients [E]
• All Video Interlude Coverage [E]
