Product placement is hardly new. Back in the 50s sponsors were incorporating their products into shows on a regular basis. Here's an example from MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY starring Danny Thomas. Notice how artfully they work in the commercial. If you weren't paying strict attention, why, you'd never know.
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7 comments :
Subtle...
Wow. That's impressive.
I aspire to be that good a writer... someday.
Cautiv: ... Clearly, I am not that good a writer, yet.
How about the gratuitous "quiz ads" in most televised sports-casts like the Gico trivia questions: I have two answers for: I don't know and I don't care!.
At least they did it with the studo audience so you got the laughter in there to point out the humor in turning that into a cereal commercial. Very cute.
The writers for the Jack Benny radio program were masters at working a commercial into the program. Back then there was usually a standard commercial while the theme was playing but at the half way point Don Wilson (the announcer) would come into the radio play and somehow relate the current action with the sponser's product. It is said that many people listened to Jack just to hear the center commercial.
Although the ads have been removed, the original sponsors of many syndicated shows can be be recognized in reruns.
In The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, the family spends a lot of time in front of the Hotpoint appliances during the Hotpoint years. Harriet is always serving Coke during the Coca Cola years and Ozzie has a camera around his neck during the, you guessed it, Kodak years.
Gracie Allen is still serving Lipton tea to guests, sometimes to be creamed with Carnation Milk.
There are many more examples.
I like Danny Thomas in the few reruns I could see of his show, but I always wondered if the microphones were so bad back then, or was everyone just trained to be so shouty.
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