The commercial, which was created by Houston-based agency Love Advertising, depicts a white man choking on a meatball while attempting to dial 9-1-1, but keeling over before the automated menu reaches the option for English.

[1][2][3] The ad highlighted Buchanan's support for making English the official language of the United States and his opposition to immigration policies of the time.

[9][10] In the 2000 United States presidential election, former Republican Pat Buchanan sought, and ultimately received, the nomination of Ross Perot’s Reform Party.

Buchanan’s campaign themes included opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement, illegal immigration, and abortion rights.

[12] A stated goal of the campaign was to again attain at least five percent of the national popular vote, so that the Reform Party would maintain its eligibility for matching funds in the 2004 election.

[13] During his campaign, Buchanan and his running-mate, educator and activist Ezola Foster, both frequently called for a reduction in the number of immigrants allowed into America each year, as well as increased assimilation (in both language and culture) of those who enter the country.

[14] In a May 2000 interview with National Public Radio, Buchanan claimed that immigration at then current rates was "rapidly changing the nature of the entire country; we speak 300 languages", while in August of that year, his campaign website called for a reduction of legal immigrants to between 250,000 and 300,000 annually, as well as for an implementation of an assimilation program to teach them the English language as well as American customs and history.

Both Love Advertising and VTTV received criticism from some of their clients and Houston commentators for their involvement in an ad perceived to have "anti-Hispanic overtones".

[17] Regarding the ad's message, Buchanan himself argued that one of the greatest threats to America was its potential to "dissolve" into demographic and cultural subgroups (such as race and language).

[1][5] In his book Winning Elections: Political Campaign Management, Strategy & Tactics, author John Franzen noted that neither Bush nor Gore had expressed support for removing English's status as America's national language.

[1] On October 9, 2000, the commercial began airing in 22 states, including California and Arizona, using a portion of the federal matching funds which the campaign received.

[6][7] In an interview with The Washington Post, Peter Fenn, a Democratic strategist, singled out Meatballs as his choice for the worst commercial of the 2000 campaign.

[8] A review by Dan Snierson, writing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the ad a letter grade of "B" for execution and "no comment" for its message.

Garfield also observed that, whereas "extremists" running for public office often attempt to hide behind a respectable facade and use code words to convey their ideas, Buchanan's ad does not.