A Message From Our Masters

Back in the old, old days of the eye of hell, long before my time, was the so-called Golden Age of Television. Video tape hadn’t yet been invented, so all the shows were broadcast live, and the sponsors had a great deal of control over the content. Indeed, the sponsors’ names were part of the names of many of the shows: Kraft Television Theater, U.S. Steel Hour, Texaco Star Theater, The Ford Theater, Philco Television Playhouse, The Alcoa Hour, and Goodyear Television Playhouse, for example. On top of that, because everything was live, commercials were basically part of the program, in which the star of the show would talk about the wonders of the sponsor, or they’d slip it into the show in some other way. As an example, have a look at this clip from the Jack Benny Program with Humphrey Bogart. If you don’t feel like spending nine minutes with it, skip forward to about 5:45 to see how they subtly bring the sponsor into the sketch.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBf9LnU9Uz4]

When I was a kid, efforts were made to make it clear to the audience that the advertisements were separate from the program. On children’s TV, we were clearly told, often in song, that “after these messages, we’ll be right back.” Of course, they eventually found a way around that by creating shows about toys, like the Transformers (Products in Disguise).

For the past five or ten years, while product placements became the norm in films, the eye of hell found new ways to slip sponsors in by having them sponsor elements of programs. Trump has his apprentices show their mettle by promoting certain products (which I’m sure are chosen strictly because they make good TV). Sports programs will slap a sponsor’s name onto the play of the game, the half time show, the pregame show, the postgame show, or anything else they can think of. Project Runway has the L’Oreal and Tresseme Hair and Makeup Room and the Macy’s Accessories Wall. I’ve complained about that elsewhere.

But those are all so-called “reality” programs. This week I saw some interesting developments on fictional shows, all three of them on NBC. On Heroes, Hiro and his friend are renting a car and Hiro is absolutely insistent that it must be a Nissan Versa. Ostensibly, this is because that’s the car they rent in the comic book that’s predicting his future, but does it actually name the car in the comic, or is Hiro just an expert at picking out the model of any car he sees? Keep in mind that Hiro is from Japan, where if the Versa is even sold, it probably goes by a different model name. And of course, there’s an ad about the car on the show’s home page, and a commercial or two for the car during the broadcast.

Then there’s 30 Rock, that oh-so-self-reflexive sitcom. Former SNL head writer Tina Fey is the star, head writer and producer of the show on which she plays the head writer of an SNL-esque show. Alec Baldwin is the General Electric marketing guy who becomes head of programming. His greatest accomplishment is an oven that uses “three kinds of heat”. He’s got a portrait of the oven in his office. Get it? Fey is commenting on what it’s like to work for a broadcast network that’s owned by an appliance company. Can these people possibly understand what it takes to make a successful show on the eye of hell? Can it be as simple as finding that “third kind of heat”? Pretty brave, don’t you think? She’s poking the owners right in the eye. Right?

Well, not so much. One of the commercials during the broadcast was for a GE oven that uses three kinds of heat. So what’s GE telling us here? Is it “See, we can laugh at ourselves too” or “Have your fun, but don’t ever forget who owns you.”?

Now, 30 Rock should not be confused with an earlier NBC program, Third Rock from the Sun, which starred John Lithgow, who has in the past year or two become the commercial spokesman for Campbell’s Soup. And coincidence of coincidences, the former Third Rock star follows 30 Rock with his own new show, Twenty Good Years. (Stop with the numbers in show names already!) I barely paid attention to the show’s premiere episode because after five minutes it was clear to me that I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the laugh track did, but I don’t think soup was mentioned. However, there were two commercials for Campbell’s during the show, one of which starred Lithgow.

In other words, we’re getting very close to back where we started from.