A Sense of Doubt blog post #3641 - Ryan and Crystal Recreate WHMS Diner Scene for Super Bowl Commercial
Usually, I am not for things like this, but this one I am.
Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan Recreate ‘When Harry Met Sally’ Fake Orgasm Scene for Hellmann’s Super Bowl Ad With Sydney Sweeney
One of the things about Sally Albright that drives Harry Burns crazy in the 1989 movie “When Harry Met Sally” is her picky food sensibilities. It takes her an hour and a half to make a sandwich, he tells her. In the sequel, she only has 30 seconds.
The characters, famously played by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, return to New York’s Katz’ Delicatessen for a reprise of one of the movie’s best-known scenes in which Sally pretends to have an orgasm while the pair dines. Now, they will also promote Hellmann’s mayonnaise in the Super Bowl.
With the movie recently reaching its 35th anniversary and being accepted into the National Film Registry, “it just felt like the perfect storm for us to get back together at the same table and have indigestion,” says Crystal, during a recent interview.
Hellmann’s, which is owned by the consumer-products giant Unilever, is showing its ambition for the Super Bowl commercial, the brand’s fifth. In recent years, the popular condiment has focused on the issue of food waste, telling Big Game viewers that the mayonnaise can help them use more of the supermarket staples that they buy. Last year’s Super Bowl ad tapped Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson and a “Mayo Cat.”
In contemplating another Super Bowl ad salvo, executives wanted to shake up the mission, says Jessica Grigoriou, senior vice president of marketing for condiments at Unilever, and show how the mayonnaise helped make for superior eating. “We want to continue to up the bar every year and continue to surprise people too and do something a little bit more unexpected.” she says. The ad taps humor and nostalgia, she adds, two themes that regularly prove popular at the Super Bowl. The new 30-second ad is slated to run in the second quarter during Fox’s telecast of the event on February 9.
Reviving a classic piece of content, however, is never easy. Indeed, past Super Bowl advertisers have resurrected popular film and TV characters, but usually not in the scenes that made them so memorable. General Motors in 2022 reconvened the cast of the 1997 hit “Austin Powers” in a new tale that has the popular character Dr. Evil, played by Mike Myers, trying to take over the auto giant in a new bid to control the world. Characters from HBO’s “The Sopranos” were resurrected that year for a spot from Chevrolet. In 2019, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Stella Artois ran a Super Bowl spot featuring Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” from “The Big Lebowski” sitting near Sarah Jessica Parker playing Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex and the City.”
Others have tried similar feats in other venues. Comcast in 2019 created a sequel of sorts to the beloved 1982 movie “E.T.” with the alien and actor Henry Thomas turning up for a longform commercial during NBC’s broadcast of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The company consulted with director Steve Spielberg to make sure it stayed true to the conceit.
Neither Ryan or Crystal had qualms about picking up where they left off (indeed, the table they sit at in the commercial is the same one used so many years ago in the film). “ I had never been back, ever,” says Ryan. “It looks precisely, exactly the same.” The rapport the actors still share, says Crystal, will make viewers feel as if the characters “have been coming there for 35 years every Saturday or Sunday and this is their thing.”
The commercial may have been more challenging than the movie, suggests Ryan, who did ads for Burger King and deodorant in a different era. “I always felt like movies were easier, frankly, with less attention to detail, you know?” she says. “There is a lot that 30 seconds or 45 seconds or 60 seconds have to communicate. It’s a different animal.”
Hellman’s isn’t leaving anything to chance. Fans can order the turkey and pastrami sandwiches they see in the new Super Bowl spot, says Grigoriou, with special instructions included to make the meal to Sally’s specifications (which require Hellmann’s to make things complete). Customers can even schedule the delivery for the Friday before the Super Bowl.
Even though the ad nods to an old film, it still has a new surprise. Sydney Sweeney makes a cameo to offer the oft-remembered line, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The recreation of this specific scene shows just how much consumer culture has changed in the decades since the movie was on screens. In 1989, depicting an orgasm in public was viewed as tripping the lines of decency. At the time, “you hadn’t heard the word ‘orgasm’ in a film unless it was a Ron Jeremy movie,” says Crystal. Now, “there’s far worse on TV.” Oh, Harry.
https://ew.com/meg-ryan-billy-crystal-recreate-when-harry-met-sally-deli-orgasm-scene-in-super-bowl-ad-8782264
Watch Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal recreate When Harry Met Sally's iconic deli orgasm scene: 'This one's real'
We'll have what she's having.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal are once again getting saucy at Katz’s Delicatessen.
The pair reunited to recreate the iconic fake orgasm scene from their 1989 romcom When Harry Met Sally as part of a new Super Bowl commercial for Hellmann’s. In the clip, their titular characters are seen sitting down for a meal together at Katz’s before Harry, dressed in his signature white sweater, remarks, “I can’t believe they let us back in this place.”
“Why?” Sally asks, prompting Harry to pointedly respond, “Hello.”
She shakes him off. “Nobody remembers that,” Sally replies. And, to her credit, it has been 35 years since Sally famously faked a very loud orgasm at the deli to prove to Harry that he's likely slept with a woman who has faked it in the past.
Things get spicier, however, when Sally takes a bite out of her sandwich and admits that it’s just “not doing it” for her. After a drizzle of mayonnaise, she begins loudly moaning her approval of the sumptuous sandwich, catching the awkward attention of other patrons sitting nearby.
“Oh boy,” Harry whispers under his breath as she slams her hands on the table. “This one’s real.” Turning to the other disturbed guests, he cheerfully adds, “Lunch and a show, huh? How about that?”
The camera then pans over to Sydney Sweeney, who is sitting wide-eyed at the table beside them. She immediately notifies the waiter, delivering the memorable line, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
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Crystal and Ryan teased that a When Harry Met Sally reunion was officially on the way one week ago by sharing a snapshot of the pair sitting side-by-side together on a couch. "It's finally happening, we're reuniting for something iconic,” Ryan wrote on Instagram. “Can't wait to show you all soon.”
Directed by Rob Reiner and penned by the late Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally follows its titular characters as they keep meeting in a series of chance encounters over 12 years. With each of their run-ins, the pair are forced to navigate the question: “Can men and women ever just be friends?”
As it turns out, Ryan and Crystal can. The pair have frequently paid homage to the beloved rom-com over the years, with Crystal even dressing up as Harry as part of his 75th birthday festivities in 2023. The pair celebrated the film's 30th anniversary together at the TCM Classic Film Festival in 2019, where they shared behind-the-scenes secrets about its original ending and dished on how they shot the deli scene.
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- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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