Everything New is Really Old

There is a push on by advertisers to integrate advertising right into television programs. As I understand it, images would first appear on a prop being used in the show (like a television set) then grow larger and fill the screen -- presumably while the plot of the show continues to unfold.

This is obscene.

The greatest invention of the 20th century was TiVo. Enabling me to speed through the vast wasteland of commercials is the greatest gift given to humankind -- greater even, I assert, than fire.

And then it gets weird.

You know I love vintage radio drama and comedy -- radio shows from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s (with a smattering of 1960s and later thrown in).

Back in the early days of radio, sketches (and, sometimes, entire scripts) were written around products being hocked by the company that sponsored the show. There are bits about a character having trouble with her linoleum being told of the advantages of a certain floor wax ("Fibber McGee and Molly"), smokers being told that they should switch to a smoother cigarette (later episodes of "The Jack Benny Show"), cast members extolling the virtue of a certain toothpaste ("The Bob Hope Show").

This was not the exception, this was the rule.

And it gets even weirder: I love some of those old commercials. Why is that?

The difference between those old radio commercials and commercializing today's television programs is that the TV ads are so damned boring. Yawn, yawn, yawn. On radio, those ads were often funnier than the rest of the show. Jack Benny and his writers made an art of insulting the product, making fun of it, so much so that sales for Jell-o (the show's first major sponsor) jumped virtually overnight. The commercials were funny and, therefore, memorable, enjoyable and half the fun of listening.

If today's advertising agencies could come up with a way of making these television product placements funny, I might change my mind.

Might.