House now using product placement!

One · 29 Nov 2011 at 11:40

The Ford Explorer got extensive screen time and 'arty' shots and the woman doctor says "This new curve control thing, it automatically slows the car when it senses i'm taking a curve too fast" which of course is completely unrelated to anything the show is/was about.

Unbelievably obvious.

Ahleckz · 29 Nov 2011 at 14:40

They need to pay Hugh his obscene salary somehow!

shipinabottle · 29 Nov 2011 at 16:04

Ahleckz said:
Hugh needs to pay Hugh his obscene salary somehow!

Corrected

Haven't started the latest season having been woefully disappointed with the last, it just felt like Hugh Laurie (being the big exec producer now) had given up on creativity and was using the budget as his own sandbox, seriously WTF was with the monster truck episode? (And yes I realise the character 'likes' monster trucks)

Bubo · 29 Nov 2011 at 18:28

This is true, I regularly come back from the shops with half a pound of Lupus I am never going to use.

Masterdog · 29 Nov 2011 at 18:38

Macs have been product placed in that show for years. Seriously, which hospital powers its bespoke hospital equipment with an Apple? Always drags me out slightly, though chuckled when a desktop was shown running Windows. That's right, I'm a nerd and chuckle at such things.

Raymond Lin · 29 Nov 2011 at 18:42

Masterdog said:
Macs have been product placed in that show for years. Seriously, which hospital powers its bespoke hospital equipment with an Apple? Always drags me out slightly, though chuckled when a desktop was shown running Windows. That's right, I'm a nerd and chuckle at such things.

Bootcamp don't you know?

qqg3 · 29 Nov 2011 at 21:50

US shows such as House have always used product placement. More common is car companies as you mentioned, eg. Chuck and Toyota.

Rroff · 29 Nov 2011 at 21:52

shipinabottle said:
Corrected

Haven't started the latest season having been woefully disappointed with the last, it just felt like Hugh Laurie (being the big exec producer now) had given up on creativity and was using the budget as his own sandbox, seriously WTF was with the monster truck episode? (And yes I realise the character 'likes' monster trucks)

Latest season, tho a bit of a bumpy road does have some good stuff to.

spudbynight · 30 Nov 2011 at 00:17

Masterdog said:
Macs have been product placed in that show for years. Seriously, which hospital powers its bespoke hospital equipment with an Apple? Always drags me out slightly, though chuckled when a desktop was shown running Windows. That's right, I'm a nerd and chuckle at such things.

According to TV and Hollywood, Apple make the only computers in the world.

TheVoice · 30 Nov 2011 at 00:54

spudbynight said:
According to TV and Hollywood, Apple make the only computers in the world.

Not so, Castle and various other shows have given screentime to laptops with a Windows logo on the back, and shown Windows 7 (and Windows Phone) in use.

But yes, product placement is quite a big thing. Ford in the previous season of Fringe, Hyundai in the current season of The Walking Dead, Subway in Chuck (although they're clearly making a joke out of how obvious it is in the first place, plus they saved the show).

In any case, even the most blatant product placement in any of those couldn't possibly beat this; the appalling (and seemingly alcohol-impaired) acting just tops it off:

drunkenmaster · 30 Nov 2011 at 01:42

That is pretty bad, and entirely unsurprising.

Seem to remember Bones going on and on and on about their new car one episode, showing them parking using the onboard stupid cam for bad drivers.

Thing is, "proper" tv is SO expensive compared to retarded reality crap, no scripting, no writers, barely any cast, barely any cost and people lap that **** up. I can understand and even welcome product placement if it offsets costs and keeps more "proper" tv on our screens. But people notice that crap if you rub it in their faces or not, however the show is basically ruined when its just an advert, so what's the point.

shipinabottle · 30 Nov 2011 at 09:00

Haha that Day's of Our Lives clip was brilliant

I've always wondered whether Walter's car in Breaking Bad was product placement, i've never seen a car like it, it is disgusting, yet he's never changed it from day 1.

Think the worst I can remember is the same as above, in Bone's when they used the parking camera, I cringed massively.

Heroes product placement annoyed me with the car, I wonder how many more Nissan Versa got sold after this show begun airing ha

Pestilence · 30 Nov 2011 at 11:04

Last week's (or the week before; not sure) episode of Castle was also pretty much an advertisement for Microsoft.

Doonhamer · 30 Nov 2011 at 11:13

Noticed a couple of shows recently giving Microsoft exposure, Hawaii 50 was another. Perhaps its a network deal of some sort between Microsoft and whoever is making/showing these shows?

Trifid · 30 Nov 2011 at 11:13

I think it was last week, they hovered for about 5 seconds on his Nike trainers. I guess it worked...

You can't tell me that the Cisco phones they've been using since day 1 weren't product placement. Yeah we are going to install loads of £300 7965 phones everywhere to make it look real.

Calm · 30 Nov 2011 at 11:41

Didn't cross my mind untill i seen this post.

The only time product placement has ever bothered me was in a Modern Family episode, the entire damn episode!

Ceryndrion · 30 Nov 2011 at 12:06

Only one thing I really want to know, how on earth did foreman end up hospital administrator.. he wasn't exactly a senior doctor before that.. or a manager.. just someone that can tolerate house..

Ahleckz · 30 Nov 2011 at 15:06

Ceryndrion said:
Only one thing I really want to know, how on earth did foreman end up hospital administrator.. he wasn't exactly a senior doctor before that.. or a manager.. just someone that can tolerate house..

It wasn't really explained. He was promoted to head of diagnostics when House quit so I suppose he got a slight bit of managerial experience from there. And, when Foreman left he went and worked at NY Mercy (IIRC) as head of diagonstics but was ultimately fired for being too House-like.

I guess the board just decided, once Cuddy quit, that Foreman would be the best man for the job. Maybe they felt that it was best to get a doctor in to head up the hospital after the more administrator based role that Cuddy took. Though, you could argue that whilst he was the head of the department it was a total disaster and he proved he was unable to manage people (as seen by his firing of 13) and was poor with stress.

It's wrong to suggest that Foreman isn't a senior doctor, he was second to House in the department, was a succesful neurologist and was handpicked by House.

All from the top of my head, so excuse any mistakes!

mrk · 30 Nov 2011 at 15:54

spudbynight said:
According to TV and Hollywood, Apple make the only computers in the world.

Not if you watch Fringe, they use Windows PCs and Android phones and they don't make stupid blips and buzzes when something happens on screen either!

robgmun · 30 Nov 2011 at 16:38

The earliest product placement i remember was in Neighbors when someone eat all the roll-mops and this was stretched out several episodes about who was the culprit. I didn't even know what a Roll-mop was!!