Here’s What Happened To The Brother And Sister From The Notorious Folgers Coffee Ad

Cast your mind back to the late 2000s. Specifically, the festive period. Do you remember seeing an advert for Folgers coffee featuring a certain reunited sister and brother? A pair of siblings whose relationship seemed perfectly lovely? Except, here’s the thing. Maybe it wasn’t lovely. Maybe there was something weird going on beneath the surface.

If you know what we’re talking about, then you’re probably also aware of the hilarious meme culture that sprang up around the commercial. All of a sudden, this supposedly heart-warming piece of wrong became the laughing stock of the internet. For example, when a jokey tweet from writer Nicole James about the ad was posted on Tumblr in 2012, it received more than 200,000 responses.

Pretty soon, Chelsea Handler and Daniel Tosh were parodying the commercial. And periodically, outlets such as The Daily Dot, BuzzFeed, and Uproxx would dredge it back into the light of day with scathing articles. Oh, and YouTube channel Above Average mocked the ad and revealed, once and for all, that the siblings were — ahem — closer than they should have been.

What exactly happened in the ad to cause such a reaction, though? Well, in “Coming Home” — its official name — a young man returns to his family home in a taxi. It’s deep in the Christmas season, snow is all around, and the house is twinkling. When a teenage girl answers the door, he says, “I must have the wrong house.”

The young lady jokingly exclaims “Sister!” and points towards herself, so we realize that the man’s her brother. It’s also clear that he’s been gone a long time. The pair head into the kitchen to drink some Folgers coffee, while he speaks about having been in West Africa. He then produces a wrapped gift from his bag and gives it to her, as she smiles warmly.

Rather than open the gift, though, she takes the bow off and applies it to the front of her brother’s shirt. Confused, he says, “What are you doing?” to which she replies, “You’re my present this year.” The reunited siblings then grin at each other, as the camera lingers for a few seconds. Pure Hallmark Channel schmaltz, right? Wrong.

In 2019 GQ magazine published an oral history of the creation and unintended legacy of the commercial. Producer Jerry Boyle, an executive with advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, revealed that the initial concept came from writer Doug Pippin. Everyone agreed that an older brother returning from the Peace Corps and not recognizing his little sister was a good idea.

In fact, director Ray Dillman revealed that the idea was born out of Pippin’s real-life experiences. “It was kind of his personal story,” he told GQ. “His son had been in the Peace Corps and had done work out of the country and had come home for Christmas.” It’s tempting to wonder how Pippin, who passed away in 2017, felt about the public’s reaction to the commercial.

Pippin’s colleague Boyle, for one, couldn’t really comprehend what was happening. He said, “It was all very, very innocent. Obviously, what’s happened since then has been a real… something that nobody imagined happening. And our client is so wholesome. It was, we thought, emotional. What people read into it — once that took off — it was just insane.”

With regard to the screen siblings, Boyle explained, “When casting for the sister she needed to be just becoming a teenager, so she’s changed quite a bit since the time he’s been away at the Peace Corps. He comes home and his sister has gone from a very young girl into a young teenager. And obviously you cast them so they look like they’re brother and sister.”

The chosen actors were Matthew Alan and Catherine Combs, and cameraman Timothy Simons had nothing but positive things to say about them. “They didn’t audition together, but I remember both their performances being the best performances that anybody saw that day,” he recalled. “Especially the young woman — she had an incredible energy in the room.”

For Alan, being cast was a huge deal. “I was auditioning for a lot of commercials at the time, and I was still pretty green,” the actor admitted. “I had worked with the director before — he was such a lovely guy. To me it was very personal, very special because it was the beginning of my career and one of the first jobs that I had the pleasure of booking.”

Alan enjoyed working with Combs a lot, telling GQ, “We met the very first day on set, and she was really lovely to work with. We haven’t crossed paths since, so I’d be curious to see where she’s at and how she’s doing.” Even though the two actors never saw each other again, their particular — ahem — chemistry would live on.

The queasy reading of the commercial initially took off when blogger Alexa Marinos asked, “Is it just me, or does Peter want to bang his little sister?” A marketer in her day job, she told GQ, “The casting seemed off to me. I was like, ‘Why is Peter’s little sister 22 instead of four? And why is Peter, like, vibing on his little sister?’”

Comedian Glenn Boozan, who wrote the Above Average parody, mused, “There was some vibe to the ad where I was like, ‘Is this a dog whistle for something?’” He recalled the strange content of the commercial, before joking, “And then they’re trying to sell us coffee? What’s happening?” Eventually, after talking to other like-minded viewers, he realized that “it wasn’t just a ‘me being sick in the head’ thing.”

Because the internet is — let’s be honest — a weird and wonderful place, an entire subculture soon built up around the commercial. It even developed a dedicated fan-fiction community. Yes, we’re not joking. Writer Alixtii O’Krul, who penned a story entitled “Where the Heart Is,” told GQ their theory about why this particular ad lent itself to such fan expansion.

“The commercial has all the right ingredients,” O’Krul explained. “Two attractive 20-something leads, palpable — although presumably unintentional — subtext, and just the right mixture of sentimentality and ‘wtf.’ Even if read as just a story about platonic siblings, it’s still overtly romantic in the older sense of the word. It provides a fantasy of loving and being cherished.”

While the makers of the ad may not have agreed with this mischievous reading of the material, many have at least seen the funny side over the years. Alan revealed, “It was so early on in my career that when people were first teasing about it, first I was like, ‘No, no, you’re missing the point.’ I was very protective of it at the beginning.”

“But as time went on, I love the fact that it’s this discussion topic that people laugh about,” Alan continued. “Some of the spoofs and the different edits that I’ve seen are pretty hilarious.” Dillman added, “I’ve had a handful of spots I’ve directed over the years be parodied… I don’t know why you would take yourself seriously with that stuff — it’s just funny stuff.”

Amusingly, Alan revealed to Vanity Fair in 2015 that his family were more than happy to join in the affectionate teasing. His parents insist on drinking Folgers coffee at Christmas, and they even gifted him a special mug with his face on it. However — Shock! Horror! Betrayal! — he then confessed, “I love Folgers coffee… but I’m more of a French-press type of guy.”

Speaking of Folgers, how did the firm react to the commercial becoming synonymous with one of the biggest taboos in our culture? Well, Tina Meyer-Hawkes, a marketing executive at J.M. Smucker, which owns Folgers, gave GQ an interesting answer. A very corporate answer, but an answer, nonetheless.

“There have been a number of tweets, memes, and parody videos over the years,” Meyer-Hawkes. “There has also been a lot of long-lasting positive sentiment and adoration for this ad.” However, she added that official company policy was not to engage with any of the weirdness, or “misinterpreted conversation” as she oh-so-diplomatically put it.

Now, up to this point we’ve heard from nearly everyone involved in the commercial. Everyone except for one important person: the sister herself, actress Catherine Combs. How did she feel about the world insinuating that she loved her on-screen brother in a creepy way? The short answer is: “We don’t know.” She hasn’t spoken about it publicly, and she refused to take part in GQ’s oral history.

Since shooting the commercial, Combs has plied her trade mostly in theater, though she has some screen credits as well. At Chicago’s Goodman Theater she’s starred in productions of Gloria and Smokefall. In LA and Washington, D.C., she was a part of Ivo van Hove’s A View From the Bridge, and in New York’s off-Broadway scene she’s appeared in The Sensuality Party and The Hairy Ape.

On television, she appeared as Taffy in multiple episodes of HBO’s The Deuce, as well as enjoying guest spots in New Amsterdam and Fosse/Verdon. Generally, she seems to keep a fairly low profile, though it’s obvious that acting is in her blood. After all, her father is cult horror icon Jeffrey Combs, star of Re-Animator, Star Trek, and The Frighteners.

As for Alan, his career had begun to pick up a little steam even before the Folgers ad. In 2007 he’d appeared in numerous episodes of Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side, an online sister series to CBS’ hit supernatural drama. He’d also turned up in Veronica Mars, Cold Case, and Eleventh Hour, as well as a couple of episodes of Lost.

After the commercial, Alan spent most of the ensuing years appearing in guest roles in countless hit shows. Most prominently, he showed up in two episodes of Sons of Anarchy and three episodes of Murder in the First. His single-episode appearances came in the likes of CSI: Miami, Bones, Criminal Minds, Modern Family, Lethal Weapon and NCIS: New Orleans.

Then, in 2017 Alan leveled up in his TV career when he earned the role of criminal Seth Massey in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. He portrayed the villain across 10 episodes in the show’s three-season run. In 2019 he spoke to Horror News about how the story, which dealt with some troubling themes, had a profound effect on him.

“It slowly became this incredible show that people are talking about,” Alan explained. “It opened up a lot of dialogue on a lot of issues. For me, it’s become this really cool thing to be a part of. You know, I look at the work differently now that I have a child. It is a conversation starter for consent and multiple discussions on things teenagers are dealing with.”

And while he was working on 13 Reasons Why, Alan landed the biggest part of his career. He signed on to play Chris Merrill in season two of Castle Rock, a show that brought together many of “Master of Horror” Stephen King’s greatest creations into a single story. Interestingly, though, he was initially chosen for another character — until fate intervened.

Speaking to the Daily Actor website in 2019, Alan revealed all. He said, “I was supposed to play one of the prison guards in season one, and about three days before filming was supposed to begin, I broke my foot on another job and I had to pull out. And I was devastated.” All was not lost, though.

Alan must have made an impression on the casting director, because they sought him out for the role of Merrill. And it turned out to be much more substantial than his initial security guard part. The whole experience convinced Alan that sometimes the universe has a plan, even if you can’t see it at first. He beamed, “Things worked out in this crazy cool way.”

Back when he first suffered the foot injury, though, things looked bleak. Alan admitted, “I mean at the time, if you would have told me, ‘Hey, it’s going to work out, okay?’ I just, I couldn’t hear it at the time because I was drowning in my own misery. But it was just a reminder to me to just let things happen the way they’re supposed to happen.”

Alan continued, “I mean, it’s tough because at the time you think that an opportunity like that’s just not going to come across again. And so, yeah, it was hard to remain open-minded at the time.” He then joked, “But where I’m at now, I will gladly break both my feet next time. If this is the way it could work out, you know?”

Not only is Alan’s acting career thriving, but his personal life’s also in a great place. In 2019 he married actress Camilla Luddington at an intimate ceremony in California. Fans of Grey’s Anatomy will be very familiar with her, as she’s starred as Dr. Jo Wilson on the show since 2012. In fact, Luddington’s racked up a mind-boggling 188 episodes to date!

People magazine reported that the happy couple tied the knot to the sounds of The Temper Trap song “Sweet Disposition.” It was a reference to their first date back in 2008 at one of the band’s shows. The ceremony came a year and a half after Alan’s proposal, which Luddington had gushed about on Instagram.

“Sooo this happened on New Year’s Eve,” wrote the happy bride-to-be. “I’m not sure I even let Matt get through his proposal before I started yelling YES YES YES. Of course it was a yes!” By that point, Alan and Luddington were already parents to daughter Hayden, who came bouncing into the world in March 2017.

Then, a year after they married, the couple welcomed their second child in August 2020. Luddington took to Instagram to write, “After what felt like a year-long third trimester it finally happened! Matt and I are sooo happy to announce the birth of our sweet baby boy Lucas, otherwise known as my little lion — shout-out to Leos!”

So, there you have it. That commercial, while controversial, turned out to be just the thing the actors needed to get their acting careers off the ground. It’s been the same for stars of other ads, too. But the Folgers siblings certainly stand out as a success story.