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Advertisements as part of the show

J

johnbasalla

On an episode of "Burns and Allen", a guy comes over for a visit. As it turns out, the only reason they have this segment in the show/story is so he can deliver an advertisement for Carnation milk. The key is that it's part of the episode, fully integrated into the story. On this episode Burns and Allen have a teenage girl staying with them for a spell. She's been waxing romantic about her "dreamboat" boy who she'll be going out with. When the visitor comes over, he decides to show her what good things she can do with Carnation milk because it's sure to please boyfriends and husbands.

How often was this kind of thing done in early TV? Is it legal to do today? It would be interesting to see it done on a modern show.

And, don't forget... Carnation milk comes from contented cows.
 
I don't know about fully integrated commercials but the seamless transition into a commercial (perfected by one Paul Harvey) was a common occurrence in early radio and in some types of early TV shows (notably game shows and sitcoms).

Don Wilson, Jack Benny's announcer and cast member, was famous for announcing the show and cutting right into a commercial seamlessly. Occasionally the cast members (on Benny and other shows) did the commercials themselves without a noticeable break between show and advert.

And, of course, it was common back then to have the sponsor's name right in the title of the show either with or without the star's name. That was because the sponsor owned the time and there was usually only one sponsor. The only show in my recent memory doing that is The Hallmark Hall of Fame and those were some years ago.
 
Each week at the end of My Three Sons--I don't remember if it was before or after the closing credits--the cast was seen and there was a brief little promo for Kellogg's Cereals of Battle Creek, Michigan. I don't remember if the Battle Creek comment was said by one of the cast members or another person altogether.
 
skippercollector said:
Each week at the end of My Three Sons--I don't remember if it was before or after the closing credits--the cast was seen and there was a brief little promo for Kellogg's Cereals of Battle Creek, Michigan. I don't remember if the Battle Creek comment was said by one of the cast members or another person altogether.
Click to expand...

Beverly Hillbillies did this too, plugging Kellogg's Corn Flakes.
 
landtuna said:
Don Wilson, Jack Benny's announcer and cast member, was famous for announcing the show and cutting right into a commercial seamlessly. Occasionally the cast members (on Benny and other shows) did the commercials themselves without a noticeable break between show and advert.
Click to expand...

Re, The Jack Benny Program (TV), likely you're referring to Don Wilson's Lucky Strike Cigarette commercials.

Carson's Tonight Show did sort of the same thing, with sidekick Ed McMahon stepping aside for live Alpo spots, using real dogs as props. And those commercials could go hysterically bad. Dogs were easily distracted by sidestage activity.
 
This kind of thing was quite common in the earlier days of broadcasting.

To some degree it's coming back. Note shows like The Apprentice and Amazing Race.

I suspect if Dish's "Hopper" and similar technology become widespread, commercials integrated into the programming will become widespread as well.
 
w9wi said:
This kind of thing was quite common in the earlier days of broadcasting.

To some degree it's coming back. Note shows like The Apprentice and Amazing Race.
Click to expand...

The Biggest loser is bad for that, you think it's another segment, but usually it's Bob Harper pitching the product of the week to the contestants.
 
Local live talk shows up through the 1970s did live commercials as part of their programming. The regulars would talk each day about certain products that they had to promote and talk about how they also used them at home. In Cincinnati, it was The Paul Dixon Show and The 50/50 Club (first with Ruth Lyons, then with Bob Braun). Nick Clooney also had a similar show in Cincinnati, but I never saw that one.
 
I'd be willing to bet that Harry Von Zell did that Carnation commercial
on "Burns And Allen."

Yesterday I was watching an episode of "I Love Lucy" on the Hallmark
channel. It was the one where Lucy and Ricky get Fred and Ethel back
together after the Mertzes have had an argument, then wind up having
an argument themselves. In one scene we see Ricky at the drugstore,
trying to eat a peanut-butter sandwich, and prominently displayed behind
him is a sign advertising Philip Morris cigarettes, the show's sponsor at the
time.

During one season of "My Three Sons," when Chevrolet was the sponsor,
we'd see drawings of Chevy models during the closing credits. And there
was always Fred MacMurray welcoming us "to our show for Chevrolet" (and
later for Hunt/Wesson).

The George Reeves "Superman" episodes always seemed to work in a bit
for Kellogg's; usually Perry White and Jimmy Olsen would come over to
Clark Kent's apartment for a bowl of cereal before heading off to the Daily
Planet. Lois Lane was never included in these commercials, since the producers
were afraid it might imply that she and Clark spent the night together (and remember,
this is 20-some years before Christopher Reeve's Superman gave up his powers and
then spent the night with Margot Kidder's Lois).
 
When I said "fully integrated", I primarily meant that there was no fade out-fade up-fade out on the commercial. It was part of or added to the shows script, and the character of the visiting girl continued in her role during the "commercial". I think it was Mr. Von Zell delivering the advert.
 
Intergrated commercials (they called them that) carried over from radio and the shows that did them we mostly carried over from radio, too (like Benny and Burns and Allen). The integrated commercial was fully integrated, it not only included reference's to the show's plot but often advanced the plot line. They were written by the show's writers, not the ad agency. Integrated commercials were used in the middle of the show.

This is in contrast to commercials done by the show's cast in character. They were not "integrated" into the story line. They usually appeared at the end of the show and made no reference to the episode's story line.

In the Burns and Allen Show mentioned (a kinescope of a live show), Bill Goodwin did the commercial. Goodwin was the show's announcer on radio and the first season of the TV show. The first season was done live from New York before the coaxial cable was completed to allow live coast to coast TV hook-ups. When George and Gracie moved back to LA, Goodwin received an offer to host a daytime show and stayed in New York. Harry Von Zell, who was Eddie Cantor's announcer, was hired to replace him.

Mostly, integrated commercials are edited out in syndication prints. A few have been left in Jack Benny episodes. I Love Lucy also had integrated commercials during the first season and these are included in some DVD packages.

In early TV, what we now call product placements (for the sponsor's product usually) were common. In Dragnet, Joe Friday and Frank Smith would often take time out from an interrogation for a smoke. The sponsor (Chesterfield) was not mentioned. In live variety or game shows, the sponsor's logo was usually displayed throughout. Contestants often received sample's of the sponsor's products. Most shocking, when Camel sponsored NBC Nightly News (then called The Camel News Caravan), they favored using shots of news markers smoking a cigarette. Shots of people smoking cigars or pipes were not allowed, except for Winston Churchill.
 
Mr. Pastirchak is correct. That's what I saw. It's on a DVD box set of "Burns and Allen" shows and I gotta tell you, if that's a kinescope on the DVD set, it's by far the best I've ever seen. It does not look like a kinescope at all. Nice and clear, both audio and video.

Have "Burns and Allen" shows from its last season made it to DVD? I'd be interested in seeing some of those as by that time Gracie had wanted out for a few years by that time.
 
landtuna said:
I don't know about fully integrated commercials but the seamless transition into a commercial (perfected by one Paul Harvey) was a common occurrence in early radio and in some types of early TV shows (notably game shows and sitcoms).

Don Wilson, Jack Benny's announcer and cast member, was famous for announcing the show and cutting right into a commercial seamlessly. Occasionally the cast members (on Benny and other shows) did the commercials themselves without a noticeable break between show and advert.

And, of course, it was common back then to have the sponsor's name right in the title of the show either with or without the star's name. That was because the sponsor owned the time and there was usually only one sponsor. The only show in my recent memory doing that is The Hallmark Hall of Fame and those were some years ago.
Click to expand...

A recurring feature on Benny's show was to have the Sportsmen Quartet start out with an actual song, then segue into a musical plug for Luckies (and, later, State Farm Insurance), and I know I've heard one Benny radio show where he joins in the singing on a Luckies commercial.

There's another from "I Love Lucy": Lucy somehow gets the idea her marriage license isn't valid and forces Ricky to propose all over again, culminating in another wedding ceremony at the place where they married on the show and in real life: the Byrum (sp?). River Beagle Club in Connecticut. The old guy who runs the hotel at one point says, "Call...for...," then draws a blank; he can't remember the rest of it (the rest of it is, of course, "Philip Morris").

There was a show in the early '50s, "Martin Kane, Private Eye," sponsored by Sano and Encore cigarettes, and Old Briar pipe tobacco. Every episode had Kane entering the tobacco shop owned by Happy McMahon (Walter Kinsella) for a pack of cigarettes or some pipe tobacco (this was later phased out, with Don Morrow doing the commercials separately from the story during the show's last season).

And one other from Burns and Allen: Von Zell enters George and Gracie's house throwing fake snow and George asks him why he's doing it. Von Zell replies that in places like Southern California snow is not a problem, but there are areas where it is, leading into a commercial for B.F. Goodrich snow tires. (And I stand corrected on the Carnation commercial; there's one with Goodwin from the early days in which he's been out flying his private plane and says he radioed the tower and started talking about the merits of Carnation. George asks him why, and Goodwin says whenever's he near a microphone he just has to start talking about Carnation.)
 
skippercollector said:
Local live talk shows up through the 1970s did live commercials as part of their programming. The regulars would talk each day about certain products that they had to promote and talk about how they also used them at home. In Cincinnati, it was The Paul Dixon Show and The 50/50 Club (first with Ruth Lyons, then with Bob Braun). Nick Clooney also had a similar show in Cincinnati, but I never saw that one.
Click to expand...

Dixon,Lyons, Bob Braun, were 100% Commercial matter, besides pitching products, i don't remember ANY "Show Content".
 
johnbasalla said:
Have "Burns and Allen" shows from its last season made it to DVD? I'd be interested in seeing some of those as by that time Gracie had wanted out for a few years by that time.
Click to expand...

You'll likely hear from more informed R/D members on B&A Show episodes availiable on DVDs, but your question reminded me of a Larry King Show episode on CNN devoted to George Burns, 100 Years of Laughter.

King's guests were commedian Allan King, Carol Channing, Larry Gelbart, Phyllis Diller, and George's son, Ronnie Burns. Predictably, the conversation mostly reminisces about Burns & Allen, but son Ronnie also discusses his then on-going project for a website devoted to the comic duo's legacy. Sadly, Ronnie himself passed away several years after this taping. 100 Years... can be viewed on YouTube (4-parts).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKQR8Uw7Dpg
 
jfrancispastirchak said:
skippercollector said:
Each week at the end of My Three Sons--I don't remember if it was before or after the closing credits--the cast was seen and there was a brief little promo for Kellogg's Cereals of Battle Creek, Michigan. I don't remember if the Battle Creek comment was said by one of the cast members or another person altogether.
Click to expand...

Beverly Hillbillies did this too, plugging Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

As did The Monkees, plugging Rice Krispies instead.
Click to expand...
 
desertv said:
jfrancispastirchak said:
skippercollector said:
Each week at the end of My Three Sons--I don't remember if it was before or after the closing credits--the cast was seen and there was a brief little promo for Kellogg's Cereals of Battle Creek, Michigan. I don't remember if the Battle Creek comment was said by one of the cast members or another person altogether.
Click to expand...

Beverly Hillbillies did this too, plugging Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

As did The Monkees, plugging Rice Krispies instead.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I remember one episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" where Jed, trying to eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast, is constantly being interrupted and he keeps asking to be left alone so he can finish it. With Kellogg's Corn Flakes being the sponsor, I'm sure this is the cereal he was referring to.
 
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