a
brand name for a
line of soups produced by Heinz (a
major United
States manufacturer of
processed foods). In the early 1970s the soup was promoted in an award-winning commercial in which
American dancer Ann Miller (1923-) promises her husband something a little
different for dinner. She magically transforms her kitchen into an elaborate
stage and, accompanied by a twenty-fourpiece orchestra, dozens of sequined chorus girls and a backdrop of twenty-foot water fountains in the tradition of a 1937
Hollywood musical, she dances and sings atop an eight-foot-high (2.4 m) Great
American Soups can. The extravaganza took four weeks to
shoot and
cost over $125,000 to
produce.