We love the Power Glove.
Ever since Howard Hughes plugged Hershey in his 1927 air spectacular Wings, product placement has been a fact of life in mainstream cinema. Sometimes, films manage to seamlessly integrate brand names — see E.T., which introduced America to an adorable alien with a penchant for Reese’s Pieces. Here are ten product placements that aren’t so seamless.
1. Little Trees in Repo Man (1984)
This cult classic gave the finger to product placement by stocking its world almost entirely with generic-brand food products. At one point, the titular character even opens a can that’s just marked “FOOD”, leaving the audience to imagine what kind of Grade F hoofs-n’-horns meat he’s ingesting. Every car in this vehicular extravaganza features a pine-shaped air freshener, leading many to believe that Repo Man received financial support from Little Trees. Director Alex Cox emailed us to explain that between the filmmakers and Little Trees, no money changed hands, but a number of air fresheners did. Every Little Tree used was also scent-free, says Cox, because no one could handle the smell.
2. McDonald’s in Mac & Me (1988)
This E.T. rip-off features a ten-minute spontaneous dance number, set at a McDonald’s and featuring Ronald McDonald, assorted Mickey D’s employees, and a man in a bear costume. When have you ever seen anyone at McDonald’s happy enough to break out into song? There’s also a fair amount of Coke-guzzling in Mac & Me, which is almost enough to distract from the slimy, bulbous alien they’re trying to pass off as cute.
3. Sony Walkman in Ghostbusters 2 (1989)
The Ghostbusters are scientists, but even they need corporate help to animate the Statue of Liberty. Enter the Sony Walkman, prominently displayed as part of the MacGuyver-like set-up Egon and his pals use to go all Frankenstein on Lady Liberty. It should come as no surprise that media giant Sony had acquired Columbia Pictures, the studio behind Ghostbusters 2, the very year the film came out.
4. Nintendo in The Wizard (1989)
A lazy rehash of Tommy without the awesome music, The Wizard tells the tale of a little imp who runs away from home to compete in a giant Nintendo tournament. Along the way, he encounters every item in the Nintendo catalogue (including the Power Glove, which another character praises, in the parlance of the time, as “so bad”). Not even the presence of squinty hunk Christian Slater could distract audiences from some brief footage of the then-unreleased Super Mario Bros. 3.
5. Target in Career Opportunities (1991)
A landmark in product placement, in that it centralized the action inside the product — in this case, a Target retail store. It had everything a 1991 audience could hope for — gratuitous Jennifer Connelly cleavage, gratuitous Fine Young Cannibals on the soundtrack, and gratuitous jokes about a plethora of useful items easily found in any convenient Target location.
6. Taco Bell in Demolition Man (1993)
This action flick paints a frightening picture of America’s future: one in which cryogenically unfrozen criminals wreak havoc on fictional California cities and Sandra Bullock is in charge of a police unit. Most shocking of all is the fact that Taco Bell is the only fast-food restaurant left in existence. Apparently, some time before the year 2032, there was a massive “franchise war” that felled Ronald, the King, and Long John Silver. This left ample room for T.B. to muscle in with their talking chihuahuas and fifty-nine-cent burritos.
7. AOL/Starbucks in You’ve Got Mail (1998)
The only film in recent memory actually built around a corporate slogan. True love is impossible without a reliable Internet service provider… or overpriced coffee, as evidenced by the number of times Starbucks factors into the plot. You’ve Got Mail is basically just two giant corporations making passionate love atop an unnecessary remake of the 1940 Jimmy Stewart film The Shop Around The Corner.
8. Wilson/FedEx in Cast Away (2000)
Hanks strikes again. One of the products is literally a character in this Ron Howard epic — poor Tom goes so crazy with loneliness on his desert island he begins a friendly relationship with his Wilson volleyball. To its credit, “Wilson” turns in one of the best silent performances since Buster Keaton. Meanwhile, the Hanks character is employed by FedEx, which comes into play towards the end of the film when he delivers the package he was stranded with. Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor psychological trauma brought on by a plane crash and years of isolation can stop FedEx, apparently.
9. Converse Sneakers in I, Robot (2004)
This infamous dud gave Will Smith’s Detective Spooner an interesting character trait: he was obsessed with his vintage twentieth-century Converse All-Stars! Maybe the robots would spare humanity if they saw our sweet kicks.
10. Nokia in Star Trek (2009)
A controversial scene early in this much-ballyhooed reboot finds a young James T. Kirk joyriding in a twentieth-century hot rod that’s somehow made it to the year 2233 with nary a scratch. On top of that, the song Li’l Kirk rocks out to on his rubber-burning adventure is another relic from our time — the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” Yet even this spectacle is not asinine enough to distract from the Nokia logo on the in-car communication system. Apparently Captain Kirk’s stepdad really loved the ’90s.