Stuff You Should Know - How Product Placement Works

Episode Date: November 5, 2009

In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck take a look at the advertising practice of product placement, from its origins to different types to classic examples in film and television. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's time to reboot your credit card with Apple Card. Apple Card is designed to help you pay less interest. Unlike other cards, it estimates how much interest you'll owe and suggests moves to help you pay off your balance faster. Also you can keep more of your money. Apply now in the wallet app on iPhone and start using it right away. Subject to credit approval. Interest estimates on the payment wheel are illustrative only and may not fully reflect

actual interest charges on your account. Estimates are based on your posted account balance at the time of the estimate and do not include pending transactions or any other purchases you make before the end of the billing period. This message is brought to you by Discover. Did you know you could reduce the number of unwanted calls and emails with online privacy protection, the latest innovation from Discover? Discover will help regularly remove your personal info, like your name and address, from 10

popular people search websites that could sell your data. And they'll do it for free. Activate it in the Discover app. See terms and learn more at Discover.com slash online privacy protection. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

With me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, who's enjoying a delicious RC brand cola right now. How's that treatin', it's wonderful. It's satisfying and delicious to my mouth. Agreed, Chuck. Yes. Chuck, I know we've already mentioned this once, but I want to allude once again to the mysterious companion shows that are coming out on the Science Channel. Sure.

Pumpkin, Chuckin, and... That's close. The Road to Pumpkin, Chuckin? Yes. No, the road... Yeah, but they're in reverse order. Sure. The road begins at 8 p.m. Eastern time and they're on the Science Channel on Thanksgiving

night. It's a special Thanksgiving special, and you can kind of glean from the name what it's about, but we're not going to say too much more about it. And now, back to our regularly scheduled program. Chuck, I'm going to give you a little known but historically significant date in the 20th century. Let's hear it. March 31, 1999.

Okay. You give up? 15, 16 days after my birthday, 99, 10 years ago, I was in my 20s still, those were good days. No, what? On that day, the digital video recorder, known as TiVo, shipped its first product. Right. I happened to be outside that day the moment that that was shipped.

Oh, really? And I swear, I heard an audible, oh, s**t, sying out of every ad agency on the planet. Yeah. They have found a way to not watch television commercials. Yeah. Not only can you fast forward through television commercials, you can skip television commercials automatically. TiVo senses that break, much like your old cassette player in your car could skip to

the next song because of that break, right? Oh, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, it was bad news for advertising. Yeah, it was, and I have to admit that I do that as well. I record, I try to start even my Falcons games about an hour late so I can zip through the commercials there too. Oh, really? Yeah.

So you like to postpone gratification? Yeah, I've gotten spoiled here. You know they actually factor DVR stats into Nielsen ratings now, they figured out how to do that. Wow. That's a landmark change. Yeah, they factored in as whoever watched the show and then there's the secondary seven day window after the show premieres.

I remember them scrambling to come up with how to work that in, yeah, good for them. Yeah. Go Nielsen. Well, go Nielsen and I guess go advertising agencies because they figured out a way around it. Actually, it wasn't anything new but it's definitely been stepped up since the introduction of TiVo and that is something called product placement. Yes, product placement is a big time.

You might not have been paying attention toward the beginning of this podcast but we did it ourselves when we mentioned Chuck drinking a delicious RC brand cola. It's a little harder to be subtle when you are working in a audio medium. Sure. You have to kind of whisper. But the trick is in a visual medium like a television or a film, obviously you don't want to hit someone over the head with it too hard because then it can kind of backfire on you.

Right. So you want to be really clever with how you place it. You want it to be noticed but not to stand out. Right. And when done right it works like gangbusters. Absolutely. The key is to have a cool advertising exec working on this plan who has nerves of steel and knows where that line is because you want, as Catherine Neer, our esteemed colleague

who wrote this wonderful article, as she points out, it's very easy to cross the line and you want the product to fit in almost seamlessly. Yes, because the filmmaker certainly doesn't want that either. No. So even though it greases their palm a little bit and makes things possible many times, they still don't want it to be the focus. Any filmmaker worth their salt. They don't always have their palms creased.

Well, no. And you would think, well, yeah, they're always paying to have their product placed. There's actually three ways that it happens. Yes. The first way is when a product just ends up in a scene organically or without any contact with the company who manufactures it saying, give me money. Yeah, like a director or a prop master, someone says, hey, that'd be cool if Tom Cruise smashed this coke can against his head, his little tiny pee-like head.

Or if somebody in the Sopranos used a can of Raid on Tony, very violently, right? Yeah, Ralph sprayed Tony in the face during a fight. That's not good. It didn't end well for Ralph either. No. And the S.C. Johnson company who manufactures Raid wasn't entirely happy about it because really, number one, they weren't asked. Right.

And number two, they, it makes their product look kind of bad. Sure. You know, like, oh yeah, I forgot. Raid's really dangerous on humans, too. And they didn't use the can of Raid, you know, the fake things that Hollywood comes up with. My brother used to give me those little props as like Christmas gifts. I would love to have one of those, Chuck, by the way, got me a can of beer that we talked about in the previous podcast.

Well, that's legit. Those are just generic products. But he would send me like a Budweiser can was Bud Mace here and he sent me an Evian bottle that said E1 and, you know, they do it just in the same type face and it looks just like it. Yeah. Which I guess you can get away with. Yeah.

There's two other ways that this can happen. One is that the company trades some of their product for product placement, which is about as lame as it gets. Not really. Oh, yeah, we need 50 cases of Coca-Cola and we'll put your product in the movie if you give us free Coke. Who does that? Well, yeah.

But that's the kind of clamoring that you do, buddy. Oh, yeah. You've been like, hey, if you send us some Reese's Pieces, we'll talk about them in the air. Yeah, that's right. Huh. So yeah. But we're not famous filmmakers.

No, we're not famous enough to do it the third way, which I plan on doing. That's pretty much extortion. Yeah. Financial compensation. We're saying, we'll put your product in our movie or TV show or on the internet, whatever. We'll get to that in a little bit if you give us money in return. Yeah. It's a big deal for smaller films, though.

For sure. Definitely. When you think like, oh, this is the most expensive film ever made, $200 million or whatever. Wasn't it Waterworld that broke the $100 million mark or something and then Titanic broke the $200 million? It's just crazy money. I mean, this doesn't all come from one guy writing a check or one studio writing a check. There's Japanese masters involved.

There are charity groups. There's investment funds there, and then there's sponsorship, corporate sponsorship in the way of product placement. Probably the most famous, as far as I know, product placement was in E.T. Well, yeah, I just mentioned Reese's Pieces out of context, but yeah, E.T. was famously catapulted. I even remember this. I remember Reese's Pieces before E.T. and after E.T. because it was a big, big difference

in their notability. It was supposed to be M&M's, I think people might have heard the story. And I think the M&M people, they said, nah, the Spielberg, who wanted a million for it. Oh, is that what it was? He wanted a million. M&M's turned him down. Reese's said, yes, 80% jump in sales the month the movie was released. And really put it on the map forever.

And put product placement on the map as well. Yeah, sure. I mean, this can work. And it does. Chuck, let's talk about the first product placement that ever occurred as far as we know. Something in a little film called The African Queen in the 1950s. Kate Hepburn through a case of Gordon's Gen over the side of a boat. That's exactly right.

That was awful. That wasn't bad. It's better than Mike Kate Hepburn. I used to do a pretty decent one. I don't know what happened. We did a pretty decent one before we started recording. Or maybe I did Audrey Hepburn. No, that was not Audrey Hepburn.

No, maybe I used to do that one well. I can keep them straight. So yeah, Gordon's Gen paid the production company that made The African Queen, which at the time was either UA or Paramount as far as I know. Yeah, probably. And that was the first real product placement that ever took place. Yeah, that we know of. Did you know that about that same time it started to really gain traction and soap operas,

are named soap operas because they use product placement, often times soap products in their episodes. And it still continues on today. What is it? All my children had like a couple of months long storyline where Revlon factored into like the plot line the whole time. It's probably like the Revlon killer or something like that. Probably.

I'm sure someone knows. And we'll get, we'll hear about it. Yes, we will. All right. So we've got, it simply happens, it happens in exchange for the product or it happens in exchange for compensation or it doesn't happen at all. Most famously in the movie Repo Man. Yes.

Repo Man, filmed by Alex Cox, I think it's a... Wait. How do you know that? I just, I'm a fan of the movie. I am too, but I don't know who directed it. Well, he did Sid Nancy in Straight to Hell. He's a classic director. Okay.

Okay. He, Alex Cox, famously in Repo Man, used all generic products and if you've seen the movie, it's a cult classic now, you'll notice that every single product in the movie is generic and it came from Ralph's grocery store in LA. Oh, really? Yeah. Who used to make the beer that I sent you. So it really was generic products.

Yeah. They were real generic products. So technically there was a company that made those generic products that featured prominently. So there, I guess there was lots of product placement. It was all one company. Actually there were two companies. Also anybody who has seen that movie can tell you that probably the most prominent character in the entire movie that appears in just about every scene are the little tree, Christmas

tree air fresheners that show up on every vehicle in the movie. Yeah. Even the motorcycle. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And they actually, the company that made those actually sponsored that movie. So.

Yeah. They actually looked into that. I think this was, it wasn't quite a sponsorship, but they did send them free trees and apparently they, Alex Cox said they sent unscented trees because none of the actors could stand to like be cooped up with the scented ones for too long. That's very kind of them. Yeah. And they basically said, these really stink.

Can you send in some that don't, okay. But they are air fresheners, remember? So they didn't sponsor the movie. They did not sponsor it, but they, they sent him the swag that was used in the film. Why must you always humiliate me? I'm sorry. Stock up on everything you need to conquer cold and flu season at your local Jewel Osco. They have everything you need for any cough and flu needs this season.

Get cold and flu relief from products like Vic's Nyquil or Dayquil, Tylenol, cold and flu, Alka Seltzer, Mucinex and Bigelow teas. When you're feeling under the weather, Jewel Osco has everything you need to get feeling better fast. Find everything you need at your local Jewel Osco and feel better fast. You're ready to travel in 2023 and since 1981, Gate 1 travel has been providing more of the world for less. So let Gate 1 handle the planning for you with affordable escorted tours and European

River Cruises. And right now, through January 30th, use promo code HEART20 to receive 20% off your tour. That's promo code HEART20 through January 30th. Visit gate1travel.com for more information or to book your tour. That's gate the number one travel.com. Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. Um, so we talked about Reese's pieces getting a big pay off, right?

Yeah. I think the Japanese can do this too. You remember Red Stripe beer? Rock-a-rock-a-Red Stripe. Ray beer. Yes. Yeah. I love those ads.

Yeah. I like Red Stripe too. I do too, but I had never heard of that before the firm. See, I don't remember that in the firm. When he goes down to the Caymans and is hanging out with Gene Hackman drinking Red Stripe the whole time. Okay. And it was, it was so prominent that there were like articles in the New York Times and

Time and Newsweek written about Red Stripe beer. And it was so funny too, I remember like it wasn't about product placement. They were drooling over Red Stripe, like it was the hip new thing. Right. Like it could not have paid off better for Red Stripe. I think they saw, actually it could have, but they saw a 50% increase in sales after that movie was released. Right.

I get people probably were turned on by the cool little squatty bottle. Yeah. But I mean, it had been around forever and was sold in the United States. I think they probably used it to just kind of up their market presence. I'm sure that they got a lot more distribution after that. Yeah. The power of the crews. Yeah.

He's a very powerful, small man. Don't you wish that just for mentioning Red Stripe being in the firm, they would send us Red Stripe? Yeah. Maybe some retroactive compensation. Yeah. Some juice. You know, my uncle was in the firm.

You have DTs or something? No. Some juice is in some juice. Oh, gotcha. Okay. I thought you meant beer. My uncle was in the firm. I'm not surprised.

He just, he was living in Memphis at the time where they filmed it. Is Tom Cruise your uncle? Yeah. Is Gene Triple horn your uncle? Gene Triple horns my uncle. Yeah. He just had a little walk on like, let me walk in and give the papers to somebody. These pretzels are making me thirsty.

Exactly. Should we talk about Jerry McGuire? Yeah. This is a really good example of product placement going awry, Chuck. Yeah. If you remember in the Cameron Crow film, Jerry McGuire, Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Rod Tidwell was a professional football player who is getting constantly dissed by Reebok in the movie.

They're showing me no love, they're giving me no love and that was a deal made through Reebok and TriStar and it was contingent on at the very end of the film, after the credits, I think, there would be a phony Reebok commercial finally with Rod Tidwell that said, sorry Rod, we were wrong all along, love Reebok and Cameron Crow cut that from the end of the film and they got sued by Reebok, TriStar did, because Cameron Crow cut that scene. Well not only that, Cuba Gooding, Jr. is talking smack about him in at least one scene, right? Well they okayed that as long as the commercial played it. Oh, I got you.

Wow. So it was all part of the deal and Reebok supposedly put in 1.5 mil into merchandise advertising and promotional support. They sued TriStar for 10 million and settled out of court and if you notice, if you've ever seen Jerry McGuire on cable, that commercial is back in the movie. Wow. So that had something to do or at least it was initially on Showtime, I don't know if it still is, but that was probably part of the out of court settlement.

Slip it back in there for cable and DVD or whatever and we'll make good. Cars also usually feature prominently in movies. Let's talk about cars. Yeah, there's actually been, you know, any time you see a movie where there's like a high-speed chase, you inevitably, invariably are shown the grill of the car that has the emblem. So you know exactly like the transporter, I think Audi's figured really big into that one.

Yeah, and Transformers, I think it was that new Camaro, Michael Bay is always trying to highlight the new models of Ford's and Chevy's. The first, I think the first time I ever became aware of product placement was a little movie called Robocop. Yes. Do you remember the Taurus from the future? Yeah, the Ford Taurus. It was actually the 1988 model Ford Taurus with a couple of ground effects on it that

Robocop drove. And I remember it coming out, like I think Robocop came out in 86 or 87. It was definitely before that Taurus debuted. Yeah, yeah. So the movie was its debut. And I remember seeing it on the road when it came out like, holy cow, there's the Robocop Taurus without the ground effects. That's exactly what they want.

It is exactly what they want. I didn't go out and buy a Taurus, but it is exactly what they want. Josh some other notables. Yeah. Clearly smoking the Vandit with the Pontiac Trans Am, one of the most classic. I would have gone with the bitching Camaro over a Trans Am, but yeah, Herbie the Love Bug was of course a big ad for the Volkswagen Beetle. Not a big ad, but big, uh, it works.

That's the thing that might not be intended like that. Sometimes it just works out. Sure. There's a classic movie out there that is centered around a sentient VW Beetle. Right. That talks. Yeah. Is that what sentient means?

No. It doesn't talk. I think he just reacts and interacts. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. No sentient is aware of your own being. Yeah.

No. I'm kidding. Okay. Um, I wasn't kidding. Back to the future. The DeLorean was prominently featured obviously, but I think if I'm not mistaken, that was after the DeLorean had already had its run. It was very tongue-in-cheek appearance.

Okay. Was that what it was? And actually I think Pepsi was, it was definitely a corporate sponsor of that movie. Right. Yeah. It was the truly bad BMW Z8 that was driven in the Bond film, The World is Not Enough. The Bond films are often used to debut new stuff. Yeah.

New cars. Because they're just such global events when those movies come out. They're perfect for it. And let's of course, Chuck, let's not forget my boy, Magnum PI, driving a Ferrari 308i, which by the way, I've been online. You can get one of those these days for about 30K. Really? Yeah.

And it costs you another 15K every time you needed oil change. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's a TV car. Some other notable TV cars are the Dodge Charger from Dukes of Hazard and the Trans Am from Knight Rider once again, getting some more love. And the Grand Torino.

What's called Camaro's? I don't know. Because even Starsky and Hutch use a Grand Torino. They could use a Camaro. They were bad. Yeah. I often think of us as the Starsky and Hutch of podcasting. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm clearly Hutch. Okay. That's fine. Who was that? David Soul? Yeah.

Nice. If you're talking cars, though, Josh, a little company called Audi took it to a whole nother level, as we say here in the south. In 2004, the movie iRobot, which had something to do with Asimov, right? Well, yeah. It was based on his book. The Audi RSQ concept car really plays a central role in that movie, and it wasn't just placed in that film.

It was built and constructed solely for that film. Right. With the input of the director of the movie. They designed it together. Yeah. And just for this movie. Yeah. It's nuts.

And did they ever release that as a real car to the public? Most concept cars aren't released as a real car. They're just kind of like, hey, check this out. Get excited about this. And then sorry, chumps. Some other examples of non-car who can forget Tom Cruise once again. We can't escape his tiny shadow with the Ray-Ban sunglasses and Risky Business. Yeah.

Classic scene. Yes. And Fruit of the Loom underwear. Yeah, Fruit of the Loom. What else? FedEx and Castaway, the film Castaway. Yeah. But not just FedEx.

Clearly, FedEx features prominently in it, but they did such the writer, clearly this is the writer. They did such an amazing job of Wilson Sporting Goods manufacturers. Yes. And their volleyball. That he, there's basically two characters in the whole movie and one of them is a Wilson brand volleyball. Yeah.

Name Wilson. Exactly. Yeah. But it's so perfect. This is actually maybe an example of the almost being taken out of the seamless. The product isn't being seamlessly woven into the, into the plot. I thought it worked actually. It did work.

I'm saying it works so well that I don't think must go buy Wilson volleyball. Right. You know? Yeah. It was just another character. Yeah. I thought it was great. I wonder, well, I guess they've proven the things like, or Reese's Pieces that it works,

but do you really get a jump in volleyball sales because of that? I don't know. It seems unlikely to me. It will be COO of Wilson Sporting Goods, please write us and let us know if you guys saw a jump in sales. Yeah. I'd like to know that. You know, Josh, now they have, it used to kind of be just a willy-nilly, let me see

what I can do DIY thing. But now there are, most corporations have entire branches, well, not a branch maybe, but they'll have people that work exclusively with product placement and they search out films and contact them to try and get their products featured. They have, I think they're called officers for integrated branding. Is the division usually? Yeah. It's great.

Sure. They want to leverage their brand and as much of a granular level as possible. Call it shillmeister. Sure. That's a great one. So Chuck, this has become quite the booming little cottage industry. Big time. In 2006, they spent $1.6 billion for product placement in movies, $1.8 billion for TV.

Wow. Most of that went to a show called American Idol. Yeah. And that one is full of it. They will do anything for money. Because remember, AT&T, if you call AT&T and you can text AT&T and vote for your favorite person on AT&T and that way, when your person wins, you can thank AT&T for being around. That's the kind of thing that secret stoles out each week.

I feel dirty, Chuck. You know what they paid? What? Everyone, every sponsor, AT&T, Coca-Cola and Ford, each paid $26 million each. Per episode, not per season. Is it per episode? I think it is per, well, per ad deal, we should say. Yeah.

I don't know how many episodes that is, but... That's a lot of dough, man. It is. It is. And reality TV as a whole has really embraced this. This is where I don't mind it that much. I'm a big Top Chef fan and that show is heavily sponsored. Like Padme will come and say, if you notice in your GE Monogram kitchen and you see GE

Monogram everywhere or we want to thank the GLAAD family of bags for supplying us with this blah, blah, blah, but reality shows, they don't have the hugest budgets and if they can get an entire kitchen donated by GE Monogram, then good for them and give them a little love back and it's reality TV. What is? It's not like ruining the through line. You don't have to suspend this belief to watch reality TV. It takes the guesswork out of watching.

I have to suspend this belief that Padme is not really my wife. I'll bet you do. That's what I do. At times. Yeah. Especially when your eyes are shut really tight. Chuck, there's been some really great examples of product placement being treated tongue in cheek.

Yeah. Remember in Wayne's World? Yeah. Where they're going off about how they don't... They won't do any product placement. They won't be corporate shills and while they're doing it, they're showing the products that they're... Yeah, I think Pizza Hut was one of them.

Yeah. In New Brun? Little. Yellow. Different. Better. Right. And like the little yellow pill is on his black and white hand.

Yeah. It's pretty good. Josie and the Pussycats apparently. I didn't see the movie. I didn't either. But I guess in their two minute, 25 second trailer, there's like 30 instances of product placement. Yeah.

As a spoof though, right? Yeah. I think they're just trying to take the piss out of it as our English fans might say. Yes. Which means it shouldn't be bleeped out. And also, have you ever seen State and Main Chuck? I love that movie. I love that movie too.

So that happened. Do you remember? That's my favorite line in that movie. Do you remember? Remember when Alex Baldwin crashes the car? Oh yeah. And then he just gets out of the car and goes, so that happened. Right.

He's all kind of dazed a little. Yeah. He's hit his head clearly. Love that movie. You remember one of the very minute subplots was that was about product placement. Oh yeah. They were having a real problem with it because it's... The movie was set in the 19th century.

Right. The movie they were making. Yeah. And they had corporate sponsorship from like a brand new cutting edge like Office Supply Company. Right. So they finally figured it out and they kind of show it very subtly at the end. Right.

Like it's like the name of the Office Supply Company printers or something like that. That was like Ye Olde, whatever it was. Exactly. That was classic. Yeah. Poor Philip Seymour Hoffman was the writer that had to deal with that. Yeah. It was a great role.

It was a great role. Josh, not only if you're talking about American Idol, not only will you see ads splashed all over the place, you... A big thing now is to actually sponsor, I wish I could think of the right word, it's not even an ad really, but if you go to their website, parts of their website are sponsored like the Old Navy Fun and Games section. Right. And when was the last time you went to a Falcons game?

I don't remember, Chuck. When was the last time you went to a Falcons game? You know, the red zone is when a team has the ball on their opponent's 20-yard line. I'm familiar with the sport of football. Yeah. So, if they're inside the 20, that's the red zone, that means you're trying to score a touchdown. It is not the red zone in Atlanta anymore.

What is it? It is the Ford Drive zone. I've seen that. There's also the Old Spice red zone. Yeah. It depends on your team, I guess. What city is sponsored by what team. Right.

Or who the highest bidder was that season. Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. So, vice versa. fast. You want to talk about books real quick? Sure.

Who's the author here? I've never heard of her, actually. Fay Weldon. Apparently, she wrote a book. She was contracted by Bulgari, the jeweler. Contracted to write a book. She didn't just have an idea, and they said, hey, can you slip Bulgari in there?

They contracted her to write a book that centered around Bulgari, and she did so, and it was called the Bulgari Connection. Right. Well, they did it. They contracted her to write this book, and it was exclusively for their highest-end clientele. Right, just as a gift.

Right. See what we got this famous author to write a book about. Exactly. And here you go, Mr. Moneybags. But she did release it, though, as a book, and was chided in many circles. I would imagine so, because that put her in league with such other titles, Chuck.

I know what's coming. This is Skittles Riddles Math, the Hershey's Kisses Edition book, the Eminem's Brand Counting Book, Twizzlers Percentages book, and the Cheerios Christmas Playbook. Yeah, apparently kids' books are rife with this kind of thing. I didn't know that. Kids' book and Fay Weldon books. Yeah, I had no idea.

And Katherine gave a great example here. She said something about, you know, if you think that maybe they just sponsored the book and put their name on the title. Not true. The Oreo Cookie Counting Book. Literally, you're counting Oreos. You open up the page and you're counting.

This is how you teach kids to count by counting cookies. Count Delicious Oreo Cookies. So we talked about the first product placement. We should have qualified that, Chuck. As far as we know, it's the first product placement in a movie. Cat Hepburn throwing Gordon's Gin overboard. That's right.

Right. The oldest product placement that Katherine could come up with was in a song, Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Yeah. Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks. You got it. That's one of the more obvious product placements. But from what we can tell, it was not accidental,

but it was, he was certainly not given crackerjacks and they didn't pay him anything to do that. Yeah. But still very famous example. Let me give you an example that has yet to happen yet. It's an example of product placement from the future. Look at this. Okay.

On the November 8th episode of The Family Guy, viewers will be treated to what has been called pretty much a 30-minute ad for Windows 7. Really? Really? Yeah. Is this one of the things where they sponsor the show ad-free? No.

The whole episode's about it. Oh, okay. Huh. I can't imagine not making fun of it, though. I'm sure they'll make fun of it because they have to, you know, you want a cool ad exec and Seth MacFarlane's not a complete sell-out. But he, I'm sure it'll be as cool as a 30-minute

infomercial cartoon can be, and probably even cooler than it can be. To be classy. Wow. You've got rich little sitting over here. Good Lord. But do you want to know where I found that little tidbit of information? On fox.com.

No, I didn't. Where? Do you want to know? Yeah. Folks, there is a site out there where if you are looking to arm yourself against product placement, you can go to, and it'll give you a heads up on what's coming out. It's an industry website called productplacement.biz.

www.productplacement.biz. Wow. The actual name of the site is Product Placement News, and it's all like basically press releases and articles about the industry of product placement. Holy cow. It's pretty cool. That's awesome.

Yeah. I guess the final example that Katherine mentions in the articles is noteworthy is rap music. Starting way back with Run DMC and My Adidas. Sure. I don't know that. I mean, I think they did that themselves though. They were both fond of Adidas.

That's what her point is, is most of the instances in rap music like Busta Rhymes had a song called Pass the Covossier, Part 2. Most of these come out because of the artist fondness for the product. And then, afterward, the product will get in touch with them and say, hey, Busta, thanks, man. You really did us a solid. And so, here's a year's supply worth of Covossier. And some trees. And whatever else.

That's actually happened a lot earlier than with the advent of hip hop, what you just described. Sure. There is a very deep seated rumor surrounding Janice Joplin, who you might remember had an affinity for Southern comfort. Yeah, big time. We drink fifths of it on stage during the show. Yeah.

We'll go through a fifth during the show. Sure, Janice. Yeah. You know she couldn't hack it the first time she went out from Texas to San Francisco? Yeah. She had to go home. She had to go home. She was like, I can't do this.

And then she, I guess, started really, really getting wasted. And it was like, okay, let me try again. And that one took. She met up with Pigpin and it just went downhill from there. Yeah. Did you ever read those letters? Wait, hold on. I wasn't done with my story.

Well, I'm not done with my part either. All right, go ahead. Did you ever see the letters from her sister that she and her sister wrote back and forth at Documentary? No. It was actually very touching and very sad. She wasn't like Miss Big Pants Rockstar. She was like a really sweet down home girl that was, like you said, it was very shy and

nervous and close to her family. Pretty tragic. Yeah, that is tragic. So let's hear about this. One of the times somebody dies at age 27. That's pretty tragic, you know? Sure. Apparently there's a rumor that Soko was so fond of her drinking their product and hawking

it just by taking it up on stage that they bought her the mink coat that she wears on the album cover for the album Pearl. Wow. Yeah. Classic cover. Yeah. Those big round glasses. I've also heard they bought the Rolls Royce that she's standing next to as well.

Really? Yeah. You know, I got a little tip for you. Janice Joplin spent her last night at Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood drinking Southern Comfort, went off to a hotel and died, go to Barney's Beanery and ordered the Toad in the Hole. Thank me later. And if you want to know more about product, God, I feel like such a jerk saying this after

that. If you want to know more about product placement, you can type product placement into the handy search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And that means it's time for Listener Mail. Indeed. Josh, I'm just going to call this our favorite high-speed story so far. All right. Man, Chuck, you got the turnover going.

We did our Cannonball Run episode recently and we asked for high-speed stories. We got a bunch of good ones. We don't want to plug those because it's unsafe to drive fast, kids. This came from Jamie in Chicago. Jamie works at a financial advising firm and we help him get through some long workdays, Josh. He has an Uncle Matt that's a pretty big car collector. He never owns more than two to three cars, but he always has a nice Corvette or a muscle

car from the 70s. It'll buy, picks up, and then sell or trade. Cool. In the 1980s, Uncle Matt was living in Kansas. He had just bought and fixed up his Corvette and he took it out on a nice, flat highway in Kansas to see what it could do. He was going between 120 and 140 when he saw the flashing blue lights in the mirror and Cop pulled him over.

Cop walked up and says, do you know why I pulled you over, sir? And Matt said, I tried to fumble through some answer about how fast he was driving and the cop said, I pulled you over because in this state, we have a law that all aircraft must have their tail numbers displayed on their wings. It turns out the cop was a gearhead and more interested in looking under the hood than giving him a ticket. So not only did he not end up giving him a speeding ticket, he just said, keep it down to more of a land speed level and send him on his way.

Sweet. It's a good for Uncle Matt. That is a good one. Yeah, it's good. Well, I guess we're done with the speed stories, right? Yeah, we're not going to read too many of those. Well, then I guess that means that we should just have a grab bag this week, huh? Yeah, grab bag.

Anything you feel like saying to us, you just go ahead and say it. Send it in an email to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

You're ready to travel in 2023 and since 1981, Gate One Travel has been providing more of the world for less. Let Gate One handle the planning for you with affordable escorted tours and European River Cruises. And right now, through January 30th, use promo code HEART20 to receive 20% off your tour. That's promo code HEART20 through January 30th. Visit GateOneTravel.com for more information or to book your tour. That's GateTheNumberOneTravel.com.

Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. The South Dakota Stories, Volume 2. I could see beyond the black hills and the way they called for exploration. I could feel the air, the way it paints against skin and fills hungry lungs. I could hear the way the water ran for miles and the way the bison grazed. The way our boots meet the earth as we step past expected. I could imagine my time in South Dakota and I wish to go back because there's so much

South Dakota, so little time.