Mama Mia and Santa Lucia! Did y'all know there was an actual, real-live, puffy-hat-wearing, spaghetti-cooking, Italian-talking Chef Boy-ar-dee?
(Though it's true he couldn't always stay too long in the kitchen. Just popped in and out. He had Gina Lollobrigida in the back room.)
Yes, this is the real Chef Hector Boiardi, creator of the first mass-produced Italian food, whose name was so hard for Americans to pronounce it had to be dumbed way down. Read his lips: he's saying "Have my soup. Whassup?", which must be some sort of funny Italian palindrome.
See, this guy was so dog-gone famous and well-loved that they erected a real bronze-plated statue of him right outside of Boy-Ar-Dee Headquarters in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Either that, or they had him bronzed.
Spare a thought for the old boy. He was the immigrant success story writ large. Amen.
