Our man Aesop has a famous fable about the wind and the sun competing to get a traveler to remove his coat. The wind of course blows harder and harder to whip off the man's coat and perhaps the man as well, from the road. Alas, the man holds on even tighter still, foiling the aggressively direct attack. The sun, on the other hand smirks cockily before simply brightening up and shining warmly, causing the man to remove the coat himself, revealing how very easy it is to win when you can successfully align your opponent’s interests with your own.

Olivieri pasta, in a recent TV spot has offered up its own creative interpretation of just such a timeless battle of equals.

In the ad, an attractive couple sits down to an intimate, at-home dinner for two consisting mainly of Olivieri pasta. As they eat pretty woman accidentally knocks the wineglass onto handsome man’s sleeve. Both stop eating and grimace slightly in frustration at the annoyance of such an inconvenience. Suddenly handsome man springs into action and removes his shirt, revealing his t-shirt clad, chiseled torso. He then tosses the soiled garment into the laundry as pretty woman smiles approvingly while surveying the attractive turn of events.

Handsome man then takes a spoonful of pasta and goes to feed pretty woman. As she opens her mouth expectantly he instead dips his hand slightly and smears the food on her blouse. The gauntlet dropped, pretty woman takes the challenge, stripping off her shirt and tossing it too towards the laundry.

At this point things are now officially “on”. Both diners stand up in their respective spots and quickly fling more food at each other, resulting in a double-disrobe that leaves handsome man naked to the waist and pretty woman dressed only in panties and a camisole. The two, still standing, rest each of their hands on the table, lean in slowly and stare deep into each others eyes, waiting, waiting…… until pretty woman takes her index finger and flips the contents of the bowl directly in front of handsome man right into his crotch, officially indicating the next step: an immediate and speedy removal of his pants. Let the carnival of carnality begin.

Honestly, if this commercial is not a lesson in how to get things done efficiently nothing is. Personally, I love the spot. Taking something as blah as toss-in-a-pot pasta and managing to make it sexy as hell is quite an accomplishment. After watching that ad I can report that images of a saucy dinner at home immediately began dancing in my head.

Unfortunately, the thing about fables is that as good as they are at teaching lessons they don’t always hold up, even under less than intense scrutiny. Tornados can shove broom handles through telephone poles so the idea that the wind can’t blow a thin jacket off someone’s back is kind of silly. And when the sun finally gets his turn he could cook the poor bastard like a fried egg, leaving the jacket in question lying next to a puddle of imperfect and oh-so human goo.

Taking such things even closer to home I look down at the shirt I’m wearing and realize that not only does it already have food on it but I can identify the three meals each stain came from. Knowing that the removal of my shirt is not exactly likely to whet anyone’s appetite is only icing on the cake of unreality this ad bakes.

Still, implausible or not the ad still works for me (and apparently more than a few others too). There are current internet postings attempting to hunt down the song used in the ad (stop looking - it was created exclusively for the Olivieri ad) and even folks desperate to find the exact brand of underwear sported by the curvy co-diner. When an ad can inspire this kind of interest in the peripherals alone you have to figure they did something right.

Or did they? Maybe folks got so into what was going on they lost sight of the fact that the star of the ad was actually a doughy little pasta pocket stuffed with whatever filling they can squirt inside. Olivieri more than made a point about sharing the passion and how very sexy their pasta can be but will they sell oodles of pasta or not?

I’d say Olivieri is going to sell quite a bit to folks hoping to unleash some passion of their own. At the very least you get to feel a lot less pathetic picking up a double pack of pre-made pasta at Superstore. Instead of feeling shame at buying pre-fab pasta you can wink suggestively at the cashier while he does a price check on your detergent. “Keep it” you say, “I’ll be washing clothes some other night.”