They just can't let it go

The other day I noted NBC's recent not-so-subtle foray into the world of product integration and product placement.

My no-duh conclusion is that the networks are trying to find a revenue positive way around the Tivo phenomenon -- that more and more viewers (like me) are skipping commercial breaks thanks to the fast forward button on their DVRs.

And basically, I was okay with it. I even enjoyed the network poking fun at itself in episodes of The Office and 30 Rock.

But c'mon NBC, enough is enough. The network devoted an entire story line in this week's episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (one of my fav shows this year) to justifying to its audience way product placement is necessary and good.

The show featured network exec Jordan McDeere, played by hottie Amanda Peete, lecturing producer Danny Tripp on how placing product ads into the content of the fictional Studio 60 sketch comedy show can help the show save money and jobs.

It was a blatant attempt to guilt the viewing audience into accepting product integration into the television shows.

NBC doesn't seem to realize that this isn't necessary. I like the show because if has interesting characters and excellent writing. And there are plenty of opportunities to introduce product usage into the story lines subtly and effectively.

Explaining it before you do it is just insulting and distasteful. NBC, there are lots of networks and I'm sure all of them face revenues issues. As a viewer, I don't care what your financial problems are.

Put up smart, high-quality content and the revenue will follow. But don't air your dirty in-house problems for the rest of us to see. We have our own, more important things to deal with.

tagged: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, marketing, TV, pop culture, NBC, product placement, advertising

YouTube Tuesday: Kramer confession

By now we've all heard or heard of the Michael Richards' Mel Gibson impression at the Laugh Factory in L.A. earlier this week.

TV's Kramer let fly with a stream of unconsciousness filed with racial epithets hurled at audience members who had heckled him mercilessly during his stand-up "comedy" routine.

No doubt, Richards' tirade was way out of line. As a professional, he should be able to handle hecklers in a way that makes them look stupid, not the other way around.

But to paraphrase Hamlet (author of Shakespeare, the Hollywood smash hit) "I come not to honor Kramer, but to bury him."

After his sincere apology on the David Letterman show last night, I think it's clear that he is contrite. His career is all but over and he's certainly worried about igniting some kind of Rodney King-esque race riot.

The best course of action on all sides of this is to accept Richards' apology and let the healing begin.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, Kramer, culture, race, racism, Michael Richards, Letterman

Lesson learned

It was great seeing our friends from Panama over the weekend.

Haven't seen P since we all lived in Liberal back in the day. She now has a few more PhD's, a new career, a terrific husband and two amazing sons.

Her oldest son is the same age as our 4-year-old daughter, so we though it would be fun to take them to the Robots exhibit at Union Station. I was happy to see so many people there on a Sunday afternoon. It wasn't packed wall-to-wall by any means, but there were enough people that you had to wait in line in several places.

Anyway, we took the kids through the Robots exhibit and then, since it was the same ticket, through Science City. After a few hours of exploration and education, we decided it was time for a break and a snack before heading out to our next stop.

We grabbed a couple of tables at the downstairs snack bar. I bought a bottle of water and some of those roasted candied almonds. I knew my kid had never had them before and thought she might like to try something new.

So I sit down, open the package and my daughter immediately grabs an almond. At the same time, her new friend also grabs an almond and pops it in his mouth. Thinking I have a hit here, I offer some almonds to my Supermodel Wife sitting next to me. Then I offer some to the boy's mother who politely declines, and adds to make sure I don't give any to her son.

Wait a minute, he already grabbed one. "Are you serious?" she asks.

"Yeah, he grabbed one as soon as I opened the pack."

"He's very allergic to almonds," she says, as she bolts for the prescription-strength Benadryl.

Now I'm thinking, HOLY CRAP! Here's this family who has been traveling for a week with two young boys all the way from Panama, like they need any more stress, and I've just sent their son into a potentially life-threatening anaphylactic shock. I sit stupidly by, offering my bottle of water to wash the boy's mouth while his mother expertly doses him with the Benadryl.

"Usually his mouth swells and starts to itch really bad, then he vomits," P said as she cleaned his mouth. She has obviously seen this before.

Almost immediately, the child begins to rub the inside of his lip. His mother urges him not to scratch it, that the itching will pass soon when the medicine kicks in.

Luckily, possibly because of the sugary coating on the almonds and certainly due to Mom's rapid response, the reaction is mild. No vomiting, no ambulance, no vacation-ruining visits to the ER, only some slight swelling, redness and itching.

I continue to apologize as profusely as I can until I get the sense that I'm starting to annoy P and that I should just let it drop.

But I make a mental note in ALL CAPS, bold face and underlined:
NEVER OFFER YOUR SWEET NUTS TO STRANGE KIDS WITHOUT FIRST CHECKING WITH THEIR MOTHER!

tagged: Union Station, Robots, Kansas City, Panama, allergy, almond, Benadryl, anaphylactic shock

Re: Integration

It was variation on a not-so-subtle theme last night on NBC that I normally would have missed.

I typically watch The Office, one of my fav shows for the last few years, via the DVR courtesy of Time Warner cable. But last night, through the combination of timing and reruns on other channels, we were watching it live.

There was a sequence where one of the characters was asked to shred a stack of papers. In the mockumentary style of the production, he gushed to the camera about how great his document shredder ("It even shreds my credit cards...")

I remember thinking to myself that the scene seemed a little out of place, and why did they have a big Staples logo on it. My question was answered at the next commercial break, which consisted of a Staples ad. And not just an ad for Staples, but an ad for the very same document shredder used by the cube drone a few minutes earlier (later the same office used the document shredder to make a salad).

Veeery interesting.

NBC followed that up more blatantly in the next half hour with the show 30 Rock, a show-within-a-show comedy about a comedy show. The main plot for the show was the directive from network execs to work product placement into the fictional show.

While the show's cast complained, saying they couldn't sacrifice the integrity of the show for cheap ad dollars, they were busy extolling the great flavor and sexiness of Snapple.

I pondered about what to think of these two examples of product placement marketing. On the one hand, one might feel a bit offended that the content they came for is being bastardized by marketers. On the other hand, that's the model network TV has used for years. It's just that we've grown used to the product being separate from the entertainment content.

On the other hand, I'm glad NBC didn't try to disguise what they were doing. They were essentially making fun of themselves for the blatant product integration. It was almost refreshing.

And I can't blame them. I don't begrudge them their right, obligation really, to make money through advertising. These are two really great, original shows that are worth paying for.

To be honest, because of DVRs people like me rarely watch any commercials anymore, so NBC is obviously trying to solve the Tivo problem. We can look for this to become a continuing phenomenon. I just hope the producers don't become lazy and that the content continues to merit this kind of marketing.


tagged: The Office, 30 Rock, TV, pop culture, NBC, product placement, advertising, marketing, Staples, Snapple, Dwight Schrute

Piling it on

I read this headline and had one of those "Oh, come on!" moments.

I mean, isn't Mr. Bush digging his own hole deep enough without some third-world witch doctor putting hexes on him?

BOGOR, Indonesia - A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx
President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.

Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, stirred their blood with spice and broccoli before drank the "potion" and smeared some on his face.

"I don't hate Americans, but I don't like Bush," said Pamungkas, who believed the ritual would succeed as, "the devil is with me today."

To me, this is like kicking a guy when he's down. Like getting a electoral wedgie wasn't bad enough last week, now this voodoo dude has to make it an atomic wedgie.

Just seems a bit excessive to me. I mean, how much worse could a curse make Bush's life anyway? If they're not careful, they might cancel out the spell that The Blair Witch put on him last year.

tagged: Bush, politics, humor, voodoo, spell, hex, curse

Tough questions

We DVR'd The Wizard of Oz and watched it with our 4-year-old daughter the other night.

I know the original book was rife with socio-political satire and criticism. But I wasn't prepared for all of the questions it would raise in the mind of a 4-year-old.

This is just a sampling:

• Is that her mommy? Did her mommy die?
• Is her daddy at work?
• Are they eating hot-dogs?
• Why isn't there any color?
• Is a tornado bad?
• Is this going to be scary?
• Why is her dog named "Toe Dough"?
• Did she kill the witch?
• Is she a princess witch?
• Who lives in that castle?
• What is a brain?
• Is that guy mean?
• Is he a robot?
• Why doesn't he have a heart?
• What are they putting on him?
• Why did she put fire on him?
• Is the wizard mean?
• Why do those guys work for the witch?

tagged: family, movie, Wizard of Oz, questions

Shooter McGavin can sing

One nice perk about being a cog in the corporate machine is that every once in a while, a cog in a different corporate machine will throw a bone your way in an effort to curry favor and more of your advertising dollars.

Such was the case for yours truly during a recent trip to Manhattan, N.Y.

After half a day of meetings with some big-shot Madison Avenue agencies, a major online advertising network took us out for the wining and dining. I can honestly say that the only thing that tastes better than lobster and filet mignon at The Palm is lobster and filet mignon at The Palm on someone else's expense account.

But the real treat came after dinner when our gracious hosts bought us tickets to the Broadway hit Chicago around the corner.

We had amazing seats. Dead center of the theater in the second row from the stage. Close enough to get hit by a spatter of sweat from the performers.

The show itself was untoppable. Granted, it took me a couple of minutes to make the necessary adjustments to my cultural frame of reference. But once you account for the underlying gayness of the male actors doing the "jazz hands," the show really takes off.

The overall production, music and acting was excellent. One hundred percent better than the movie. The staging was simple and the actors genuinely seemed to be having a good time. And it didn't suffer from the overproduction and Richard Gere of the 2002 movie. It had a much faster pace and got right to the action.

Not to mention the fact that there were some major hot actresses with major hot wardrobe (or should I say lack thereof).

One of the surprises was Christopher McDonald in the role of Billy Flyn. You may remember McDonald from such film classics as Leave It to Beaver, Grumpy Old Men and (my favorite role) Happy Gilmore as Shooter McGavin.

McDonald's singing voice is vastly superior to Gere's. The stage version didn't show off McDonald's dancing skills. But he showed terrific vocal range, especially in the puppet scene.

The simple but flawless production, amazing music and enthusiastic cast made this Broadway show well worth the price of admission -- which for me was free, but still.

tagged: culture, entertainment, Broadway, Chicago, Christopher McDonald, Shooter McGavin, musical, Richard Gere, Manhattan, The Palm, food

Lame Dane

I never understood the whole Dane Cook thing.

Probably has something to do with me not being a 14-year-old girl, but I've never thought he was even the least bit interesting.

I watched his HBO special. And the few episodes of his Tourgasm so-called reality so-called show were nearly as painful to sit through as an Oprah home sex tape. Of course, that would at least be entertaining.

But Cook just isn't funny. He's up on stage, flailing his arms around like the monkey he is, twisting his face making fart noises -- and the kids are eating it up. I'm thinking to myself: "This is the next George Carlin?"

Well thankfully, I'm not alone. According to CNN, it turns out that Cook is to comedy what MySpace is to intellectual discourse. In fact, Cook is basically the Paris Hilton of comedy. He's a celebrity because he is a celebrity, not because he has talent.

He went out on MySpace, gathered 1.5 million very close "friends" and leveraged that to HBO for a comedy deal. Of course it helps to steal a few jokes along the way, to give yourself the appearance of legitimacy.

"Where are the ... jokes?" wrote Rolling Stone. "How can any comedian get this famous with no jokes?"

Indeed. I suspect this is another example of what Joel Mathis called "The end of pop culture."

Thankfully, it looks like most people over the age of 16 have realized Cook is all style and no substance.

tagged: comedy, Dane Cook, pop culture, humor

Meet the old boss, same as the new boss

From today's MarketWatch:

Democrats take lion's share of Wall St. financing

Wall Street, led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., ended a 12-year run of Republican support by giving 51% of its donations to Democrats in this year's midterm elections.

Although I'm not sure I would call 51% a "lion's share," this does illustrate that all politicians are whores, and they are all in the pocket of some special interest.

tagged: politics, election, campaign contributions, Wall Street, Democrats, Hillary Clinton

YouTube Tuesday: Super day at the office

I remember seeing something like this back in the late '90s with that BudLite "Whazzup!" commercial.

Aquaman rules in this one. Enjoy.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, humor, culture, Office Space, Super Friends, Batman, Superman