Health

Howie Cohen, Whose Alka-Seltzer Ads Spawned Catchphrases, Dies at 81

Published

2 years ago

August 10, 2024

Howie Cohen, Whose Alka-Seltzer Ads Spawned Catchphrases, Dies at 81

Howie Cohen, an advertising copywriter, often said he was congenitally familiar with indigestion. So perhaps it was only natural that in the 1970s, he, along with an ad agency colleague, would conjure up a catchy slogan that would not only sell more Alka-Seltzer but also become an American pop culture punchline: “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”

That bedside lament, spoken by the comedian and dialectician Milt Moss — he actually said that thing on camera — vaulted from a 30-second TV commercial to sweatshirts, supermarket windows and even church marquees.

It proved even more popular than “Try it, you’ll like it,” the first catchphrase for Alka-Seltzer that Mr. Cohen coined with his business partner, Bob Pasqualina, an art director at the Manhattan agency Wells Rich Greene.

Mr. Cohen, who helped popularize products and companies like Petco (“Where the pets go”) and the fast-food chain Jack in the Box (exploding its clown mascot in a TV commercial in announcing a new, more sophisticated menu), died on March 2 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 81.

His death, which wasn’t widely reported at the time, was announced on Facebook by his brother, Jerry, who said the cause was cancer.

Alka-Seltzer’s creative advertising had already found success in the 1950s and ’60s. It had introduced its mascot Speedy and its “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” jingle. It had brought “tummies” to television commercials. And it had played on cultural stereotypes (“that’s a spicy meatball”), offending some viewers. But by the early 1970s, sales were lagging.

Mr. Cohen and Mr. Pasqualina, who had recently joined Wells Rich Greene, were tasked with creating an ad campaign that would run until the agency could come up with a long-term strategy to make Alka-Seltzer a household name again.

Mr. Cohen recalled in a 2019 memoir that those two popular ads the partners came up with, both in 1972, were inspired by his upbringing in the Pelham Parkway neighborhood of the East Bronx.

The “try it” tag line had its roots, he wrote, in his mother’s dinnertime plea that he eat the liver and onions that regularly congealed untouched on his plate.

“We only had 30 seconds, so we couldn’t get too complicated,” Mr. Cohen told The New York Times in 1972. “One of us came up with ‘Try it, you’ll like it.’ We said it over and over again, because we couldn’t think of another line, and the repetition became the thing.”

In the ad, Jack Aaron, a stage actor who had appeared in commercials, plays a man sitting in a restaurant recounting a meal he once had — an indigestible one, it turned out — at the encouragement of a waiter, who kept telling him, “Try it, you’ll like it.”

“I used to work part time as a waiter,” Mr. Aaron told The Times in 1972. “Now I eat at Sardi’s, and the waiters all say, ‘Try it, you’ll like it.’”

If “try it” was inspired by Mr. Cohen’s abstinence, the “whole thing” line resulted from his overindulgence. He, Mr. Pasqualina and a production crew were in London gorging on an Italian dinner hosted by the director Milos Forman, who had filmed a commercial that the two admen had created for Diet Rite Cola.

“I’m a nice Jewish kid from the Bronx, so I ate everything until I couldn’t fit one more thing in my body,” Mr. Cohen would often recall. “I leaned back in my chair and said, ‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.’ And my wife said, ‘There’s your next Alka-Seltzer commercial.’”

In the commercial, a woman, trying to fall back to sleep, urges her pajama-clad husband, who is sitting groaning on the edge of their bed, to take two Alka-Seltzer tablets to settle his stomach after overindulging. He repeats the “whole thing” line over and over.

Both ads are enshrined in the advertising industry’s Clio Awards Hall of Fame.

A marketing survey found that about 85 percent of Americans could identify Alka-Seltzer through the “whole thing” slogan, which would later be immortalized in the game Trivial Pursuit and on the TV animated series “The Simpsons.”

“They say the best lines come from the heart,” Mr. Cohen wrote in his book, “I Can’t Believe I Lived the Whole Thing: A Memoir From the Golden Age of Advertising.” “‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing’ came from my stomach.’”

Mary Wells Lawrence, one of the founders of Wells Rich Greene and Mr. Cohen’s mentor, described Mr. Cohen and Mr. Pasqualina as “two of the most talented people we ever had.”

Ms. Wells Lawrence, who died in May, wrote in her own memoir that earlier Alka-Seltzer ads had grabbed attention and entertained, but that “they were not as believable, as earnestly sincere and therefore not as persuasive as Howie and Bob’s sweet, funny commercials — especially ‘I ate the whole thing.’”

Howard Stephen Cohen was born on Sept. 25, 1942, in the Bronx to Samuel and Jeannette Cohen. The elder Mr. Cohen owned a steel fabrication company that he had inherited from his father.

Howie Cohen wrote in his memoir that he grew up in a one-bedroom apartment adjacent to an elevated train. When he was 13, he was given a tape recorder as a bar mitzvah gift and began producing commercials. After graduating from New Rochelle High School in Westchester County, he attended the University of Miami and earned a bachelor’s degree in business from New York University.

Destined to inherit his father’s company but eager not to, he applied to ad agencies and in 1965 landed a job as a copy trainee on the Volkswagen account at Doyle Dane Bernbach.

He joined Wells Rich Greene in 1967; left to start his own firm with Mr. Pasqualina; returned to Wells Rich Greene as a creative director; became the president of its Los Angeles office; and founded another agency with the adman Mark Johnson, which he sold in 1997 to the Phelps Group. He remained as partner and chief creative officer until he retired in 2017. He also wrote a blog called Mad Mensch.

In addition to his brother, his survivors include his wife, Carol (Trifari) Cohen, whom he married in 1972; two children, Jonathan and Johanna; a stepdaughter, Cristina; and a granddaughter.

In 2012, Mr. Cohen was asked by Google to reimagine the “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” ad for a 21st-century digital version.

“I look at the internet tools and technologies that we have and see exciting new ways to express an idea,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “But emotions will always trump algorithms. Advertising is about connecting in a human way.”

Health

Goodbye, Late-Night Cravings! How To Curb Hunger and Make Weight Loss Easier

Published

6 hours ago

March 11, 2026

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Goodbye, Late-Night Cravings! How To Curb Hunger and Make Weight Loss Easier

How To Curb Late-Night Cravings and Make Weight Loss Easier | Woman’s World

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Health

Lurking dementia risk exposed by breakthrough test 25 years before symptoms

Published

7 hours ago

March 11, 2026

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Lurking dementia risk exposed by breakthrough test 25 years before symptoms

Study finds link between obesity and vascular dementia

Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel joins ‘America’s Newsroom’ to discuss an increase in colon cancer in people under 50 despite an overall lowering cancer deaths and a new study linking obesity to vascular dementia.

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A new blood test could determine a woman’s dementia risk as early as 25 years before symptoms emerge.

That’s according to new research from the University of California San Diego, which found that a specific biomarker protein associated with early pathological processes of Alzheimer’s disease was “strongly linked” to future dementia risk.

The researchers analyzed blood samples from 2,766 participants in the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study in the late 1990s, according to the study’s press release.

KEY FITNESS MEASURE IS STRONG PREDICTOR OF LONGEVITY AFTER CERTAIN AGE, STUDY FINDS

The women ranged from 65 to 79 years of age and showed no signs of cognitive decline at the start of the study.

After tracking the participants for up to 25 years, the researchers concluded that the biomarker phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) was “strongly associated” with future mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

A new blood test could determine a woman’s dementia risk as early as 25 years before symptoms emerge. (iStock)

Women who had higher levels of p-tau217 at the beginning of the study were “much more likely” to develop the disease. The findings were published today in JAMA Network Open.

“The key takeaway is that our study suggests it may be possible to detect risk of dementia two decades in advance using a simple blood test in older women,” first author Aladdin H. Shadyab, a UC San Diego associate professor of public health and medicine, told Fox News Digital.

“These biomarkers may help us identify who is at greatest risk and develop strategies to delay or prevent dementia.”

“Our findings show that the blood biomarker p-tau217 could help identify individuals at higher risk for dementia long before symptoms begin,” he added.

This long lead time could open the door to earlier prevention strategies and more targeted monitoring, rather than waiting until memory problems are already affecting daily life, according to Shadyab.

A specific biomarker protein associated with early pathological processes of Alzheimer’s disease was “strongly linked” to future dementia risk. (iStock)

“As the research advances, these biomarkers may help us identify who is at greatest risk and develop strategies to delay or prevent dementia,” he said.

This risk relationship wasn’t the same across the board, however. Women over 70 with higher p-tau217 levels had “poorer cognitive outcomes” compared to those under 70, as did those with the APOE ε4 gene, which is a known risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.

The study also found that p-tau217 was a stronger predictor of dementia in women who were randomly assigned to receive estrogen and progestin hormone therapy compared to those who received a placebo.

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“Blood-based biomarkers like p-tau217 are especially promising because they are far less invasive and potentially more accessible than brain imaging or spinal fluid tests,” said senior author Linda K. McEvoy, senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute and professor emeritus at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health, in the release.

“Blood-based biomarkers like p-tau217 are especially promising because they are far less invasive and potentially more accessible than brain imaging or spinal fluid tests,” a researcher said. (iStock)

“This is important for accelerating research into the factors that affect the risk of dementia and for evaluating strategies that may reduce risk.”

Blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease are still being studied and are not recommended for routine screening in people without symptoms, Shadyab noted.

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More research is needed before this approach can be considered for clinical use prior to cognitive symptoms.

Future studies should investigate how other factors — like genetics, hormone therapy and age-related medical conditions — might interact with plasma p-tau217, the researchers added.

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“The study examined only older women, so the findings may not necessarily apply to men or younger populations,” Shadyab noted. “We also examined overall dementia outcomes rather than specific subtypes such as Alzheimer’s disease.”

Melissa Rudy is senior health editor and a member of the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to melissa.rudy@fox.com.

Health

Key fitness measure is strong predictor of longevity after certain age, study finds

Published

19 hours ago

March 10, 2026

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Key fitness measure is strong predictor of longevity after certain age, study finds

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For women over 60, muscle strength plays a critical role in longevity, a new study confirms.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo, New York, followed more than 5,000 women between the ages of 63 and 99, finding that those with greater muscle strength had a significantly lower risk of death over an eight-year period.

The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

EXERCISE AFFECTS THE HEART IN A HIDDEN, POWERFUL WAY BY REWIRING NERVES, STUDY FINDS

Muscle function was measured using grip strength and how quickly participants could complete five unassisted sit-to-stand chair raises.

These are two tests commonly used in clinical settings to evaluate muscle function in older adults, the researchers noted.

A recent study shows that stronger muscle strength in women over 60 is linked to a lower risk of death over eight years. (iStock)

“In a community cohort of ambulatory older women, muscular strength was associated with significantly lower mortality rates, even when we accounted for usual physical activity and sedentary time measured using a wearable monitor, gait speed and blood C-reactive protein levels,” study lead author Michael LaMonte, research professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the University at Buffalo, told Fox News Digital.

“Movement is the key — just move more and sit less.”

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Many earlier studies did not include those objective measurements, making it difficult to determine whether muscle strength itself was linked to longevity, according to LaMonte. “Our study was able to better isolate the association between strength and death in later life,” he added.

Even for women who don’t get the recommended amount of aerobic physical activity, which is at least 150 minutes per week, muscle strength remained important for longevity, the researchers found.

Women with greater muscle strength were more likely to live longer, even if they did not meet the recommended amount of aerobic exercise. (iStock)

“The findings of lower mortality in those who had higher strength but were not meeting current national guidelines on aerobic activity were somewhat intriguing,” LaMonte said.

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Federal guidelines recommend strengthening activities one to two days per week, targeting major muscle groups.

Resistance training does not have to require a gym membership, LaMonte noted. These exercises can be performed using free weights, resistance bands, bodyweight movements or even household items, such as soup cans.

Experts recommend working major muscle groups one or two days a week using weights, bands or bodyweight exercises. (iStock)

“Movement is the key — just move more and sit less,” he said. “When we can no longer get out of the chair and move around, we are in trouble.”

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LaMonte acknowledged several limitations of the study. The researchers assessed muscle strength in older age but did not explore how earlier levels in adulthood might influence long-term health outcomes.

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“We were not able to understand how strength and mortality relate in younger ages,” he said, noting that future research should explore whether building strength earlier could have an even greater impact on longevity.

Kelly McGreal is a production assistant with the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital.