That terrified face and the forced smile! Fantastic acting. Needing to do an ad in one of the worst moments in the show and of her life too. Actress playing an actress playing as a housewife.
Watch Hawaii Five-O. Every main character drives a Chevy, and the camera focuses on their Microsoft tablet just long enough for you to notice. Also, s5 ep2 has a Skype call that is completely unrealistic. As in, it works.
Oh, and the occasional “muh patriotism” armed forces focussed episode.
It feels so slimy when podcasters try to make it subtle, like they're trying to sneak it in there. No, Hunter, I don't believe that you've ever used Zocdoc in your life and this has nothing to do with Slenderman having a 3 way with Ticci Toby and Jeff the Killer 5 minutes ago. My immersion has already been broken, trying to drag it out with a transition only makes it worse, just rip the bandaid off and tell me about you're advertising magic spoon, even though it tastes like I'm eating the congealed clumps of protein powder that pop up whenever it gets too humid.
The worst offender ever for product placement is The Glades. Fuckin' Kia plugs left and right. Eureka had some pretty shameless plugs but the show would have been canceled with out them so, I let 'em slide.
Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia received cease and desists for their inclusion of some products earlier in their run (first five seasons). I dont remember what they were and I dont have 44 hours to re listen to the podcasts right now :(
I always assumed the Subway one was just a joke with permission to use the company name. The Honda one was a well done call back, but it goes over the top to provide actual details and place merch that I hope they made some money out of it! Regardless, the phrasing was done so well that it felt like characters were actually brainwashed to buy into the sales pitch more than just product placement. IMO a job well done!
They were both sponsored. Subway returns in the season 5 finale too (with Jared!), it's just part of the business. It's like Dave & Busters in It's always Sunny. It's a Network thing, the show doesn't really get anything out of it other than the producers know they'll be good sports.
John Oliver mentioned during his Last Week Tonight segment about Subway, that he was in several Subway sponsored bits during his time on Community. Highly suggest watching the segment. Subway gets air time on a lot of shows, even having Korean dramas set in Subway restaurants.
Yeah they definitely paid but wanted control over the story, Dan Harmon just kept saying no until they let him do whatever he wanted. There’s a clip of him talking about this on a panel on YouTube.
30 Rock was also great with the Snapple and McDonald's ads, I think for the latter Tina Fey looks to camera and says "can we have our money now please?"
The worst I've ever seen was on "Bones," where it was a straight-up commercial for her van (I think it might have been a Toyota Sienna) including tight shots of various elements of the car combined with the character of Angela spouting off marketing speak.
I thought that one worked well, because the actor who plays one of the techs has a large supporting role in Avatar. In the Bones episode he misses the movie because he’s boning someone in a tent outside or something.
I actually thought the nissan versa in Heroes was kinda cute and worked with the plot. Now the next season when they kept mentioning the nissan rogue- not so much.
Definitely a cautionary tale. That first season was phenomenal and then the whole thing just falls off a cliff. Fucking suits forced the show to keep the major characters for season two when series creator Tim Kring envisioned each season being its own story revolving around different characters. Then of course the hero and villain got way too powerful and had to be nerfed into the ground because they couldn't figure out a decent way to write them anymore. And then the writer's strike happened during season 2 and FUBAR'd any hope of getting the show back on track.
Jane the Virgin always shopping at Target and showing off what she had just bought at Target and wearing cute outfits that she has to always tell someone were from Target… because Target was the friend and favorite store of Latina women…
The exact same thing happened during Bones! It was sooo jarring. All of a sudden someone would just go "Man, I sure am glad my brand new Toyota has this amazing new feature, check it out!", about as subtle as a sledge hammer to the face
I forgot her name but there’s a woman on IG doing a series called something like “how did that full ass commercial make it into my show.” This is a great addition.
Update: her name is Caroline Dunphy. IG is @moderndunphy
Dude I watched an episode of 911 where a dude was working in a mechanic shop and he fell on an air hose and got it stuck up his ass still blowing the air. I couldn’t believe how stupid it was lmao
I remember watching an episode of Law and Order where they send a lawyer to prison cause he refused to break client attorney privilege to reveal the location of dead bodies. Like how am I supposed to like these characters after that? They sent a guy to prison cause he wouldn’t break ethics.
Law and Order regularly paints people who shut up and ask for an attorney as at the minimum shady and at maximum totally guilty of everything including being the most evil person ever. So yeah, not a surprise.
I have this sort of pet theory that societal overlords of some caliber or another support the making of shows like Law and Order, Cops, etc, because it creates this sort of idea at large that you can never run from the police. They always get their man in these shows. In real life people evade the police all the time.
Copaganda has definitely helped shape societal perceptions around what is acceptable behavior vis a vis the police and how powerful we should consider them to be.
Take the idea of staying quiet and asking for an attorney. At the stage of investigation where you're being pulled into the precinct to talk to the cops, there's virtually no advantage to speaking to them without representation. Ever. At all. For you that is.
For the police though? Every incentive in the world since they can just lie to you with impunity to extract information from you.
So if you make the popular conception that it'll make you look more innocent if you don't call for a lawyer, you can potentially increase the percentage of people who incriminate themselves without doing anything at all.
That's not even getting into the casting of police officers not as public servants who should be accountable to the people but as heroes who are the last shield between civilization and total anarchy.
the amazon gift card to the homeless man as a reward for helping them save the world will go down in history as one of the 10 stupidest movie moments (category: intended to be serious) of the 21st century.
but no of course it wasnt an ad, they just had the amazon delivery driver wear his uniform the whole time and say amazon 1000 times while saves the world just for funsies
Image of said driver and movie, for others who have not been victimized by watching it:
(edited to add: if you're going to watch it, which I strongly advise against, watch it by some other means than by giving amazon another view)
What I live about this shot is that is shows the horror of a surveillance state that real Amazon workers live under. By far the scariest part of the film.
There's a woman on tiktok doing a series right now on the most blatant ads in tv shows of all time. It's been really eye opening how bad some of them are. Who's watching these shows?
Some of them are hilarious. Bones did little car commercials sometimes, and many were dumb, but there was one where they stole a dead body and were like this car has lots of room for the body!
I mean, they tend to be put into very popular, mainstream shows because it's not really worth it otherwise. So if it's a show you already watch and enjoy, you probably won't stop watching just for these ads even though they're annoying and off-putting.
I dunno I watch a lot of Apple TV shows, because they’re good. But the product placement is super obvious. Unless it’s a villain using a tracking device. Then suddenly they use android and aren’t using AirTags lol
The Rookie and the Fast and the Furious follow the same trajectory where it was somewhat grounded in realism to just being whatever the fuck they want it to be
I really enjoyed the Rookie, it was over the top in just the right way in the first few seasons. Then they had the whole trip to south America as black ops agents. I think i checked out and stopped watching shortly after Nolan wouldn't shoot the serial killer to save Bailey
Nothing will beat the one in I believe s2 of Heroes
Matt Parkman gets randomly teleported to the middle of Africa, can't do anything, his phone doesn't work.
Guy walks up to him as he's wandering aimlessly, dying of thirst, and helps him out. Listens to his spiel, tells him up follow then pauses, looks at Parkman's phone then back at him.
Reminds me of all the blatant product placement and ads in Bones. Like every episode had them talking about features in cars like Prius' lane correction alert and other stuff where they were all like "Wow! That (insert feature and/or car here) is really amazing! I really like that (feature and/or car)"
i enjoy the writing but those 30 seconds are kind of awful. wouldn't be surprised if it was shoehorned in for the amazon prime money, or there's a larger writing team with a couple weak links
Did you know that the reason they're called "Soap Operas" is because they used to incorporate the ads, often soap, into the show itself, before coming up with "Ad Breaks"?
Didn't anyone else see What Women Want (2000) starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt?
The entire movie is a Nike commercial. It's set in an ad agency and they're making a Nike commercial. Big chunks of the script are about how great Nike is.
(The rest of the script is about how gorgeous, charismatic and irresistible Mel Gibson is.)
I genuinely hate the world we are trapped in. It’s all about BUY!!!BUY!!!BUY!!!$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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u/AbsolutelyNotAPossum 23d ago