I`ll admit it: I`m hooked on the opening moments of ”Live With Regis and Kathie Lee.” That`s Regis Philbin, the onetime second banana who has finally triumphed as talk-show host, and Kathie Lee Gifford, a talented sidekick, Carnival Cruise line crooner and ex-Hee Haw Honey. She swoons over Frank Gifford, her older man/sports hero/hunka hunka burnin` love husband.
What`s morbidly fascinating about the show`s opening segment is that Regis and Kathie Lee tell all. Last year, Regis offered a blow-by-blow description of the attack of his kidney stones. Meanwhile, Kathie Lee drops provocative tidbits about her personal life. A few months ago, she told of her stud-muffin husband`s nude nocturnal sleepwalk into their baby`s nanny`s bedroom.
Kathie Lee had baby Cody last March after a TV pregnancy only slightly less public than Lucy`s. And his roster of media appearances now rivals Dr. Ruth`s.
Regis and Kathie Lee also use the opening moments of their show to plug, unabashedly, any endorsement deal that either has gotten. So ”Live” watchers have already heard all about the making of this new Ultra Slim+Fast commercial, by Grey Advertising/New York, or, as Kathie Lee put it, ”The first time we worked together as a family.”
Unfortunately, the tantalizing story she told on the show about making the commercial was more interesting than the spot itself.
Ultra Slim+Fast is a good product, and what I`ve liked about previous commercials, hokey as they are, is that they show the drink as part of a balanced life and diet rather than some obsession with unattainable slimness. Tommy Lasorda`s weight problem made him a celebrity Everyman; and most new mothers can relate to Christina Ferrari`s before picture.
Because Kathie Lee`s pregnancy was so public, everyone knew that this was no Christina story: She recovered her tiny frame in record time. Frank`s
”sympathy weight” gain, on the other hand, was unexpected; he actually lost more than she did on Ultra Slim+Fast.
But Kathie Lee is clearly the star here. She`s upbeat, energetic and impossibly slim-hipped as she stands in Cody`s nursery in tight jeans, slipping him into his crib and delivering the pitch.
On her way out the door, she picks up the goony visual cue-a tiny rubber football. That leads to Frank, who apparently has been lurking in the hallway. She does a good job with a ridiculously wordy pitch, and finishes with:
”Thanks to Ultra Slim+Fast, the weight is just where it should be!” Frank grabs her around the waist just in time to offer his monosyllable: ”Off!”
The spot`s sensibility-the hokey setup, the overexplaining, the suggestion that her hubby ordered that weight ”off!”-seems to exist in some 1950s pre-”Leave It to Beaver” time warp. A more honest, and contemporary, approach would have been the story of one man, a can and a baby.
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Barbara Lippert critiques advertising for Adweek magazine.
