The Wacky, Mildly Racist Godfather's Pizza Ad That Could Affect the GOP Primary
After posting this profile of Herman Cain, the Tea Party-backed, African-American former CEO of Godfather's pizza and current radio talk-show host who just launched a presidential exploratory committee...(pause for breath)...some of us at the magazine got to wondering how the rest of the GOP field would react to Cain's challenge. The first thing you do with an unknown opponent is see what's out there on the internet. Curious about Cain's tenure at Godfather's Pizza, some of us started poking around YouTube for old commercials. It's safe to say that 1980s pizza ads were pretty wacky affairs (remember the Noid?) and hard to imagine one of them becoming an issue now--but not impossible. Anyway, this 1988 Godfather's ad, starring the "The Studney Twins"--one black, one white--stood in a class by itself. Let's just say it does little to temper racial stereotypes*: