While there remain complaints about how commercialized TV has become, product placement in shows, etc., the Golden Age of TV was a hugely commercial venture, with the “Product XYZ Comedy Hour” and regular “commercials” which were the actors in the show strolling off to the side to talk about how spiffy Product XYZ was.
I was watching a DVD of the first season of Perry Mason, and noticed something odd about the credits at the end. What was in those boxes the credits were wrapping around. Look like … pieces of evidence? No, it’s …
It’s pictures of the show’s sponsor’s products. Cleanser. Soap. A variety of similar items. In the end titles.
They’d never do that today — but, of course, today the end-titles are compressed into a 15-second speed-reading compressed blip-vert themselves, so that something else (a “real” commercial) can be shown sooner, or longer, or in the other half of the screen.
On radio, the commercials were often integrated into the show, an idea pioneered by Jack Benny, I believe. They were effectively made into a comedy routine. On his show, you enjoyed the commercials (except for the standard ones at the beginning and the end). In fact, we might not have Jell-O today if its popularity hadn’t soared after it became his sponsor. I understand that General Foods was about to discontinue it due to poor sales.
Another standard practice of the day was for manufacturers to send performers a product they mentioned on their show. Jack had fun with that:
JACK: Plug in the General Electric blanket, Rochester.
ROCHESTER: We don’t have a General Electric blanket, boss.
JACK: We do now!
ROCHESTER: Shall I go pull our Cadillac automobile out of the garage?
JACK: Don’t overdo it, Rochester.
Jack would do entire shows about being worried that the sponsor wouldn’t pick up his option, and had a famous routine where he’d be talking to the sponsor on the phone, and his side of the conversation (all you’d hear) was a serious of “buts,” punctuated by longer and longer pauses.
And guest stars would often make a humorous reference to their own sponsors, as well.
I kind of miss the sponsor system. Having one company pay for the show beat having 25% of the show eaten up by commercials for a few dozen different products.
You want a real disconnect, check out the first season or two of the classic Twilight Zone DVDs. Rod Serling coming out and plugging the sponsors cigs while telling you a bit about next week’s show is really alien to the modern viewer.
Of course, just as alien is that he usually includes the name of the writer as part of the plug.