Is that Doris Roberts in the Alka Seltzer commerical?

Cafe Society
1

There is an Alka Seltzer commercial where Peter Boyle from Everyone Loves Raymond is sitting on the bed complaining of indigestion.

In the background, with her back to the camera, there is a woman who is either Doris Roberts or SUPPOSED to look and sound like Doris Roberts.

Now I don’t think it is Doris Roberts because they never show her face. If you pay Doris Roberts to do a commercial, then you don’t have her with her back to the camera the whole time.

So, it leads me to believe that Alka Seltzer had someone do an impersonation of Doris Roberts to piggy back off her fame and the success of Raymond.

I’d be pissed if I were her. That was money out of her pocket. Instead of paying her to be in the commercial as well, they had someone do an imitation.

2

It is Doris Roberts. I think the reason we barely see her is that this is a remake of a commercial that originally ran in 1972. You can see the ad here, and you can see that the profile is Roberts.

3

I guess she isn’t pissed then.

4

Particulary since she is still getting checks for it. :smiley:

5

Actually I had wondered if this was going to be the first in a series of remakes starring Boyle and Roberts in every Alka-Seltzer commercial from that era. I’d like to see them do the “Newlyweds” spot (aka “poached oysters!”)

6

Were they still using Speedy Alka-Seltzer in the '70s? 'Cause Peter Boyle as a giant Alka-Seltzer caplet would be just freaky.

(I see viewing the ad that it is for Alka-Seltzer’s 75th anniversary.)

7

You mean “marshmallow meatballs”?

8

I don’t doubt that if it wasn’t her, she could sue the pants off of them. Some years ago, Frito Lay ran a commercial featuring someone who looked and sounded like Tom Waits, but, of course, wasn’t Waits. Waits immediately filed suit and won because his lawyers were successfully able to argue that the actions of Frito-Lay were such that they ran the risk of damaging his image (Waits apparently doesn’t do product endorsements). No doubt that Ms. Roberts could make a similar argument, in that it ran the risk of type casting her in the role of Raymond’s mother, and thus deprived her of future income potential.