Insert Favorite Food HERE — Izzy’s Pizza 1997

The majority of Izzy’s Pizza ads from the 1990s follow the same formula: a family sitting down to eat there, with an appearance from Izzy herself at the end. The exception is this radical departure that aired through the holiday season of 1997. Taking this hard a swerve doesn’t always work, but if you ask me, it did. This is my favorite Izzy’s ad of all time.

And it’s so hard to find! None of the ads have ever turned up on tapes from my dad, Goodwill, or donations. In addition, I spent an entire night trying to find my personal taped copy of the fourth variant, only to come up empty and be forced to use my lo-res transfer from the original 2000s FPO site.

There were four variants, each with a different third family member:

1. A jungle witch doctor
2. A pro wrestler
3. A hippie
4. A puppet

What you see here are #2 and #4. The hippie is going to be the hardest to find as that version only aired for less than a week.