PETER YORK ON ADS: No 102: POT NOODLE

IN THE Eighties a judge famously asked what a Pot Noodle actually was. This was evidence of the judiciary's distance from contemporary life, for as we food-slummers all knew, the Pot Noodle was the high point of new food technology - all "tech", no food. It was quite fabulous in two respects; fabulously slobbish and fabulously bad for you.

The new Pot Noodle commercial addresses these characteristics most ingeniously. It makes a fat-free and fibrous claim in the terms and aesthetics of a Slob's Own home movie. A Welshman stands in front of a poster staring at a cartoon Pot Noodle character with the legend "This I must relate / as a source of fibre I'm just great." The Welshman launches into a speech about "Faffey foods" - he means fat-free; this pronunciation alone sells the ad. "This is what people who eat faffey foods act like

"But what people who eat Pot Noodle act like is this ... " Fat and thin stuff Pot Noodle into their faces in a Men Behaving Badly way and make orgasmic noises. Presenter: "How can Pot Noodle be faffey food? It's too gorgeous."

The known world shifts in this little home-movie which looks like Steve Coogan's cod Paul Calf video diaries - ie defiantly gross, playing with the brand's reputation, and introducing the notion that it is better for you than snobby foods bought by faddy idiots.

"But it's too gorgeous" means we know you like it and now you - and your mum - can feel good about liking it. It's positively post-modern, informed, a ready-made cult psychodrama for an unfashionable brand whose only way is up.

! Video supplied by Tellex Commercials.