shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,870
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 21, 2018 18:03:32 GMT -5
I was re-watching Adventures in Babysitting (1987) yesterday and considering just how heavy handed Marvel's presence is in a film that you wouldn't expect to have anything to do with Marvel. In addition to the youngest kid being obsessed with Thor to the point that her room is decked out in Thor merchandise, she walks around with a Thor helmet for the entire movie, and even (arguably) meets Thor by the close, there are several other superhero references dropped in the film, and all of them are Marvel.
This correlates to the period in which Stan Lee had moved out to Hollywood in order to finesse multimedia deals for Marvel. Somehow, this odd little product placement/sponsorship must have come about as a result of Lee's presence in Hollywood too.
Last year, I was rewatching My Secret Identity (1988) for the first time since I was a kid, and I was AMAZED how much Marvel product placement exists in the pilot episode. I'd never noticed it at the time.
ALL that Marvel, and not a hint of DC. Clearly some money changed hands somewhere along the way.
So I'm wondering both if there are more examples of blatant Marvel placement in media of the late 1980s (obviously the licensed TV shows and direct to video movies don't count), and if anyone has more information on how these deals were struck.
And I also wonder, for anyone growing up on these films and TV shows in the late 1980s, did it work? Did you become more aware of Marvel or a greater fan of Marvel because of them?
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Feb 21, 2018 21:28:47 GMT -5
I don't have specific information; but, this is a period where product placement started to become a big thing in Hollywood. more and more, brand names were on prominent display in films and television. Morgan Spurlock's documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, gets into how product placement works. Smaller placements can get you things like your merchandise appearing in a scene, on tables or such, and bigger deals can get your name and product inserted into the storyline. It gt to be so overwhelming that Wayne's World made fun of it, while doing the same thing, with over-the-top spots calling attention to the fact they were doing paid advertising. DC was getting its own placement in Warner Bros properties. Plus, they were getting far more media presentation, with actual media properties, vs Marvel's minimal presence. Meanwhile, If you look at Roseanne, especially when David and Darlene are doing their own comics, everything you see is DC and Vertigo-branded posters, t-shirts and comics.
Prior to the 1980s, you didn't see much in the way of product placement. Tv even went out of its way to cover brand logos. I can recall seeing an episode of One Day at A Time, where Bonnie Franklin had brought home groceries, including obvious Coca-Cola bottles, with the Coke label covered up. The difference is that the FCC loosened up restrictions on that kind of thing, under the Reagan and Bush administrations. Prior to that, you often had specific commercial sponsors for a program (such as Dolly Madison baked products, for the Peanuts specials). The major place for product placement was on game shows, where those manufacturers paid to have their item on the show, or provided them as prizes.
I would suspect Marvel took advantage of the newer rules to increase their profile, in hopes of selling their properties to Hollywood. DC had already sold theirs and didn't need the product placement, as such.
Jump ahead several years and watch the first season of Malcolm in the Middle, when he has a play date with Stevie. They end up bonding over comics, all of which were Image titles.
The best comic related placement, though, was in MASH, when Radar would be seen reading a comic. Problem was, they were all contemporary comics, including issues of Avengers, rather than 1950s comics.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,870
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 21, 2018 21:54:55 GMT -5
I don't have specific information; but, this is a period where product placement started to become a big thing in Hollywood. more and more, brand names were on prominent display in films and television. Morgan Spurlock's documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, gets into how product placement works. Smaller placements can get you things like your merchandise appearing in a scene, on tables or such, and bigger deals can get your name and product inserted into the storyline. It gt to be so overwhelming that Wayne's World made fun of it, while doing the same thing, with over-the-top spots calling attention to the fact they were doing paid advertising. DC was getting its own placement in Warner Bros properties. Plus, they were getting far more media presentation, with actual media properties, vs Marvel's minimal presence. Meanwhile, If you look at Roseanne, especially when David and Darlene are doing their own comics, everything you see is DC and Vertigo-branded posters, t-shirts and comics. Prior to the 1980s, you didn't see much in the way of product placement. Tv even went out of its way to cover brand logos. I can recall seeing an episode of One Day at A Time, where Bonnie Franklin had brought home groceries, including obvious Coca-Cola bottles, with the Coke label covered up. The difference is that the FCC loosened up restrictions on that kind of thing, under the Reagan and Bush administrations. Prior to that, you often had specific commercial sponsors for a program (such as Dolly Madison baked products, for the Peanuts specials). The major place for product placement was on game shows, where those manufacturers paid to have their item on the show, or provided them as prizes. I would suspect Marvel took advantage of the newer rules to increase their profile, in hopes of selling their properties to Hollywood. DC had already sold theirs and didn't need the product placement, as such. Jump ahead several years and watch the first season of Malcolm in the Middle, when he has a play date with Stevie. They end up bonding over comics, all of which were Image titles. The best comic related placement, though, was in MASH, when Radar would be seen reading a comic. Problem was, they were all contemporary comics, including issues of Avengers, rather than 1950s comics. To all this I would only add that the examples I provided went far beyond basic product placement. In the second example, the show was almost literally littered with Marvel merchandise, and in the first, it even made its way into being a secondary plot point. This was far more than a "Here's a check -- put a comic or two on screen." Your Malcolm in the Middle example would be more comparable if, say, they specifically bonded over Spawn and said so several times in the episode. That's really what I'm finding so unique about the practice. |
|
|
|
Post by Cei-U! on Feb 21, 2018 22:04:44 GMT -5
Nothing to add except that Adventures in Babysitting is one of my favorite films of the '80s.
Cei-U!
"Don't f*** with the babysitter!"
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Feb 21, 2018 23:44:29 GMT -5
I don't have specific information; but, this is a period where product placement started to become a big thing in Hollywood. more and more, brand names were on prominent display in films and television. Morgan Spurlock's documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, gets into how product placement works. Smaller placements can get you things like your merchandise appearing in a scene, on tables or such, and bigger deals can get your name and product inserted into the storyline. It gt to be so overwhelming that Wayne's World made fun of it, while doing the same thing, with over-the-top spots calling attention to the fact they were doing paid advertising. DC was getting its own placement in Warner Bros properties. Plus, they were getting far more media presentation, with actual media properties, vs Marvel's minimal presence. Meanwhile, If you look at Roseanne, especially when David and Darlene are doing their own comics, everything you see is DC and Vertigo-branded posters, t-shirts and comics. Prior to the 1980s, you didn't see much in the way of product placement. Tv even went out of its way to cover brand logos. I can recall seeing an episode of One Day at A Time, where Bonnie Franklin had brought home groceries, including obvious Coca-Cola bottles, with the Coke label covered up. The difference is that the FCC loosened up restrictions on that kind of thing, under the Reagan and Bush administrations. Prior to that, you often had specific commercial sponsors for a program (such as Dolly Madison baked products, for the Peanuts specials). The major place for product placement was on game shows, where those manufacturers paid to have their item on the show, or provided them as prizes. I would suspect Marvel took advantage of the newer rules to increase their profile, in hopes of selling their properties to Hollywood. DC had already sold theirs and didn't need the product placement, as such. Jump ahead several years and watch the first season of Malcolm in the Middle, when he has a play date with Stevie. They end up bonding over comics, all of which were Image titles. The best comic related placement, though, was in MASH, when Radar would be seen reading a comic. Problem was, they were all contemporary comics, including issues of Avengers, rather than 1950s comics. To all this I would only add that the examples I provided went far beyond basic product placement. In the second example, the show was almost literally littered with Marvel merchandise, and in the first, it even made its way into being a secondary plot point. This was far more than a "Here's a check -- put a comic or two on screen." Your Malcolm in the Middle example would be more comparable if, say, they specifically bonded over Spawn and said so several times in the episode. That's really what I'm finding so unique about the practice. That's what I mean, though, as far as deals of different scale. For a certain fee, your product is on display in a casual way. For a much bigger fee, your production becomes a commercial for the product. It's entirely possible that Marvel shelled out some major dough to make Thor a big presence in Adv. in Babysitting, though it is equally possible that the source of it all is writer David Simkins, who worked, for a time at New World Pictures, which purchased Marvel Comics, in 1986. Simkins has been involved in a lot of genre productions; so, it is possible that it came from him. He's been a producer on Powers, Adv. of brisco County Jr, Dresden Files, Grimm and Blade (the tv series). he's also written for the same, plus The Human Target and Lois & Clark. I'd be willing to bet he's a fan. Especially since Thor was pretty unknown, outside of comic fan circles. The Incredible Hulk Returns didn't hit tv until 1988, after Adv in Babysitting. Meanwhile, director Chris Columbus, who wrote The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes, was known to be a fan and was once in line to direct the Fantastic Four movie, way back. I'm betting the connection is Simkins and Columbus, as far as Thor in that film. My Secret identity? Hard to imagine that was created by people who weren't comic fans; so, they might have gone for Marvel. Marvel was known to bend over backwards to help promote themselves in Hollywood (to the point of really bad movie option deals, which still plague them). Warner may have just kept DC to in-house productions. Things is, in years since, even book publishers have been paid to insert brand names into novels and Hollywood into scripts, beyond just product placement. Really, Spurlock's documentary is a great one to watch, as he gets financing via this route, while also illustrating how the deals come about and the control it gives the company whose product will be on display. Because of deals he makes, Spurlock could only fly on a specific airline and stay in a certain hotel chain, as well as create commercials for them within the film. A great bit, though, is when he discovers a shampoo, called Mane and Tail, which is sold for humans or horses! Spurlock is giddy over the idea and they approach the makers about it and secure a deal, that includes inserting this commercial in the film... |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,870
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 22, 2018 8:26:08 GMT -5
It's entirely possible that Marvel shelled out some major dough to make Thor a big presence in Adv. in Babysitting, though it is equally possible that the source of it all is writer David Simkins, who worked, for a time at New World Pictures, which purchased Marvel Comics, in 1986. Simkins has been involved in a lot of genre productions; so, it is possible that it came from him. He's been a producer on Powers, Adv. of brisco County Jr, Dresden Files, Grimm and Blade (the tv series). he's also written for the same, plus The Human Target and Lois & Clark. I'd be willing to bet he's a fan. Especially since Thor was pretty unknown, outside of comic fan circles. The Incredible Hulk Returns didn't hit tv until 1988, after Adv in Babysitting. That's actually why I see it as being more of a Marvel agenda -- between Adv, in Babysitting in '87 and IHR in '88, it looked like Marvel was trying to raise mainstream awareness of their least popular solo title. As for My Secret Identity, sure they were big comic fans, but the very very obvious placement of exclusively Marvel comics and merch suggests more. Could be, as you said, that Marvel was just happy to lend their trademarks for the show and the producers were happy to get their help, but Marvel was definitely proactively involved, one way or another. It's that active involvement in both Adv. in Babysitting and My Secret Identity, one year apart, that I find intriguing and that I want to know more about. And I hear your point about different levels of paid exposure; I just never saw it done quite to this scale. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2018 13:42:31 GMT -5
To this day I stil refer to Vincent D’onofrio as Thor.
It is interesting to read up on trivia about the evolution of the script and how at one point Sara is obsessed with the Chicago Bears instead of Thor. And that Dawson might have been a manly woman at one point.
|
|
|
|
Post by Icctrombone on Feb 22, 2018 18:25:34 GMT -5
Whenever I watch The Big Bang Theory I feel the same way about the overabundance of DC images.
|
|
|
|
Post by chadwilliam on Feb 23, 2018 0:11:46 GMT -5
I remember The Toy (1982) with Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason having a scene in which Pryor dresses up as Spider-Man in an outfit which I imagine had to have been made for the film. From what I recall, the moment is elaborate enough that it doesn't seem as if a Spider-Man costume was chosen arbitrarily for the film. Pryor (again, this is based on a memory I would have formed at the age of seven or so over 30 years ago) doesn't just wear the costume, but climbs a wall with it on, too. It's one of the only scenes I recall from the film so it seems like it served its purpose.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2018 8:08:13 GMT -5
Whenever I watch The Big Bang Theory I feel the same way about the overabundance of DC images. BBT is, in some ways, like a Soviet programme after a putsch - all references to the "purged ones" have been completely expunged, so the comic book shop shows only DC titles, and the show pretty much only has DC comics in the apartments. Though, in fariness, they do talk about Star Wars and some Marvel characters, and do criticise crap DC ones (notably Aquaman and the GL film) |
|
|
|
Post by Batflunkie on Feb 23, 2018 15:29:47 GMT -5
BBT is, in some ways, like a Soviet programme Sometimes it just feels like an experiment to make audiences dumber and possibly more open to embracing..... those commie reds!!!
|
|
|
|
Post by String on Feb 23, 2018 22:00:44 GMT -5
Whenever I watch The Big Bang Theory I feel the same way about the overabundance of DC images. BBT is, in some ways, like a Soviet programme after a putsch - all references to the "purged ones" have been completely expunged, so the comic book shop shows only DC titles, and the show pretty much only has DC comics in the apartments. Though, in fariness, they do talk about Star Wars and some Marvel characters, and do criticise crap DC ones (notably Aquaman and the GL film) BBT is a production of Warner Bros TV which is owned by Time Warner. Thus, they don't have to pay any sort of fees or penalty for displaying actual DC comics since they own the company. My understanding is, they would have to pay some sort of licensing fee or royalty for actually showing any Marvel books on a consistent basis (for instance in the comic shop). This doesn't prevent them from simply discussing Marvel characters though. Now how this works for independent publishers, I don't know. Because I have seen instances of Dark Horse comics being displayed (most notably Hellboy and BPRD) and for a season or two, a Usagi Yojimbo poster was displayed prominently on the underside of one of the back issue bin tables. |
|
|
|
Post by comicsandwho on Feb 23, 2018 22:31:37 GMT -5
Regarding product names being covered up, in the first couple of seasons of 'Diff'rent Strokes', Arnold was shown reading a particular issue of SUPERMAN (# 332, cover date January, 1979). Eventually, they covered part of the title with tape. The comic later showed u in the infamous 'Bicycle Man' episode, where the Gordon Jump character (a pedophile) had it in a stack of generic comics.
|
|
|
|
Post by tarkintino on Feb 24, 2018 19:19:05 GMT -5
I was re-watching Adventures in Babysitting (1987) yesterday and considering just how heavy handed Marvel's presence is in a film that you wouldn't expect to have anything to do with Marvel. In addition to the youngest kid being obsessed with Thor to the point that her room is decked out in Thor merchandise, she walks around with a Thor helmet for the entire movie, and even (arguably) meets Thor by the close, there are several other superhero references dropped in the film, and all of them are Marvel. This correlates to the period in which Stan Lee had moved out to Hollywood in order to finesse multimedia deals for Marvel. Somehow, this odd little product placement/sponsorship must have come about as a result of Lee's presence in Hollywood too. In the 1980s, Lee was still doing what he did in the 1970s--selling Marvel properties for development as TV or movie projects. However, in terms of product placement to make Marvel more visible, its not like Marvel was ever out of the public eye in one way or another. The Incredible Hulk ended its 5 year run on CBS in 19 82, while the second Spider-Man cartoon (syndicated) ran from 1981-82, followed by Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends on NBC (1981-83), The Incredible Hulk cartoon (1982-'83), and two of three live-action Hulk reunion movies aired in 1988 & '89. Let's not forget, Cannon Films had the rights to and were developing a Spider-Man movie in that decade, and true to Cannon founders Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, it was heavily publicized in trade papers, entertainment magazines, etc., for some time. Despite Cannon's horrible, earned reputation as a movie production company, there was some interest in seeing a Spider-Man film promising to be some big budget comic come alive. So I think Marvel never really left public consciousness to the point it was relying on product placement. |
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 10, 2018 8:34:38 GMT -5
Whenever I watch The Big Bang Theory I feel the same way about the overabundance of DC images. That actually has changed over time.. they had multiple comic references to both companies (and even some indies) on screen in the early days.. but at some point there was some sort of marketing deal, as it's now all DC, and in fact they seem to sometimes go out of their way to mention things, where before it seems more a natural part of the story. There are also alot less scenes at the comic store now, probably so they don't have to be so blatant about excluding Marvel. |
|
