God, I love product placement!
Mitch Hedberg: Mr. Pibb is a poor imitation of Dr. Pepper. Dude didn’t even get his degree.
It’s amazing how the man has managed to turn the shows into commercials and the commercials into the shows. That way they reversed the 40-20 ratio or whatever it is into 20-40.
My original view on product placements in television and film was that I hated it, but if some low budget director needed to use it to get his passion product made then I’d let it slide.
The first one I remember was an auto placement in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. Everything in the movie was kind of drab looking except this brand new shiny red car that was constantly the only automobile on the street in front of Wesley Snipes’ crib.
Last night I watched a two week old episode of 90210. Dixon and his step sister Annie were going on a road trip. Unbeknownst to Annie, Dixon is secretly planning to look up his birth mother, who he feels guilty for having abandoned.
Apparently, Annie and Dixon are huge, huge Dr. Pepper fans. It’s their tradition to drink Dr. Pepper on road trips! They have a cooler full of it in the back seat, Annie drinks so much that she has to stop at every rest stop and urinate it back out of her. I was surprised that Annie never gave birth to a can of Dr. Pepper.
“Mom to let you know how sorry I am that I abandoned you at 8 because you were bipolar, I’ve brought from my rich white parents in fabulous Beverly Hills the only thing that could express my true sorrow, a six pack of cold Dr. Pepper!”
I hate the anti-product placement movement too. You know, how they blur out any brand name on people’s shirts or hats or breakfast cereal. It ruins the visceral experience for me to see guys running around half blurred out.
In that Jennifer Garner movie 13 Going on 30, she and her true love have a thing for Razzles. Now did the writer or director just dig the funky coolness of Razzles and decide to reference his love or did Razzles buy its way into the script?
I’m not really sure.
