Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 22, 1990 TAG: 9004190093
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: BUS2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: YARDENA ARAR LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Of course, the exposure isn't exactly a real-life advertiser's dream.
"Would the Hindenberg have paid for placement in the newsreel?" AT&T spokesman Burke Stinson queried rhetorically during a conversation about the AT&T ad in the film.
"We're tired of taking your [garbage]," it says. "If we fold, you'll have no damn phones."
AT&T is taking the joke in stride: "We might not be amused, but we're not taking offense, either," Stinson said, noting that during the 1960s, AT&T was indirectly spoofed almost weekly on "Laugh In" by Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the telephone operator.
"When you've been lampooned by Lily, how dastardly can Dudley be?"
But not all "Crazy People" targets are as philosophical. United Air Lines, informed by the media that its ad is headlined "Most of our passengers get there alive," was concerned enough to ask Paramount to let it screen the film ahead of time and was denied permission.
In many major studio films, when brand-name products are visible, their manufacturer has paid for the privilege - a practice known as product placement. But there was no product placement whatsoever in "Crazy People," even for items that didn't appear in ads.
This may have been because most advertisers want to see scripts to know how their product will be used, and circulating the "Crazy People" script might have alerted those companies whose names do appear in the ads.
"Crazy People" producer Tom Barad, who is also a senior vice president at Paramount Pictures, said the ads "had to be created with real products because it would not have had the same impact to use fake ones."
A few of the ads would not have been funny with fictitious brand names. For example, a Volvo ad headlined "Boxy but Good" works because everyone knows Volvos do, indeed, look boxy.
The United Air Lines ad could have been written for any airline. Ironically, Barad said, United was chosen because "we actually felt United seemed to have the best travel record at that time - the least number of crashes. It was at a time when there were planes crashing every week, but none of them were United."
The only ad that does not use a real brand name is a cigarette commercial headlined "Pulmonary cancer, perhaps. Flavor, for sure!" Barad admitted this was partly because cigarette companies are notoriously litigious, but said it was also because the ad dealt with "the effects of the product," while the film was focused on the excesses of advertising.
Could the companies involved successfully sue for copyright or trademark infringement? Paramount's line is that the ad parodies are protected by the First Amendment, but "in this business, you're always prepared for the unexpected," Barad said.
In an ironic footnote, some of Paramount's TV spots for the film - which include some of the fake ads - ran into trouble with two networks, ABC and CBS.
"Although we thought they were funny, we felt the actual use of brand names in this disparaging depiction was inappropriate," said Matthew Margo, vice president in charge of program practices for CBS' New York office. "These are clients of CBS."
Even fake ads that didn't offend the advertisers would pose a problem, Margo added. "When you give exposure to a particular brand in a commercial, it can become difficult to schedule commercials for competitive brands in the same commercial break."
CBS did approve some of the ads, but Paramount decided not to place any with the network. However, the studio apparently wanted its spots on ABC enough to concede to the network's request that some brand names be edited out of the commercials.
Wasn't that something of an insult to CBS? "Draw your own conclusion," said one Paramount spokeswoman.
by CNB