On Commercialism - redux

When I was growing up, one of my favorite TV shows was The Dick Van Dyke Show. It was the mid-sixties, and the show was in black & white (but since we only had a black & white TV, it didn't matter). But the show was funny and the cast worked well together.

Recently I signed up for Blockbuster's version of Netflix, and after getting a few recent films that we'd managed to miss in the theater I noticed TV shows on the site. I promptly put Dick Van Dyke into the queue. They finally started arriving, and I've been enjoying them. The extras included interviews with the stars, Emmy award clips and a lot more.

Oh, and commercials.

Commercials with Rob & Laura Petrie (not the actors), on the set of the show, extolling the virtues of Joy dishwashing liquid, Dash laundry detergent, and Kent cigarettes. A lot of ads for Kent cigarettes. Smoking the cigarettes in the living room and at work, talking about Kent's superiority because of its micro-fiber filter.

And it suddenly hit me that what Eureka is doing these days is no different. And certainly no one has died using Degree. Okay, maybe if they tried smoking it... maybe. But the product placement needs to be less obvious. In last week's episode, a character was getting ready for his day and pulled Degree out of the medicine cabinet. No problem with that... it certainly fit the story-line, but they had to cut to a close up of his hand picking up the product. Too obvious!!!

Still, I have to retract my whole diatribe from my previous blog. I may not appreciate it, and I certainly hope they are not starting a trend, but at least it's not like it's never been done before.

Hmmmm, now I'm getting ideas for product placement I would actually like to see!!!!