Product Placement in cartoons?

H

halloween~freak~666

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I was just reading an article on product placement in movies, and it got me wondering, what are some examples of product placement in cartoons? Of course, there was the boost mobile episode of ATHF, and if we can count anime, In Akira, Kaneda's bike had a "Canon" sticker on it (referring to Canon film i assume as the logo was the same). Anything else (One could argue that the toy-based toons of the 80s and beyond are product placement, but since only the names of the characters are mentioned and not the names of the companies thats kind of a gray area)?
 
Japanese anime also indirectly advertise product placements, mostly by having subtle jabs and name brands like "Sany" and "Nantendo" or "Yomaha" or "Pippu" whatever. Something cheeky, if that counts any.

I believe the Harvey Birdman episode "Death By Chocolate" had a placement for AOL/Time Warner (if you could call it that) and Code Geass is legendary for it's Pizza Hut product placements.
 
There was a scene in an American Dad episode that takes place in a Burger King. It ended with Stan looking at the screen holding a BK cup and saying "Have it your way" with a forced smile.
 
Tenchi Muyo had plugs for Pioneer when characters are shown using electronics.

Cowboy Bebop had a plug for Salem cigarettes in one of the TV episodes and for Coca-Cola in the movie.
 
Not QUITE product placement, but all the characters in Lupin III who smoke have prefered brands, which are all real brands. I can' recall if they were ever shown or mentioned in enough detail in any of the shows/movies.

And Harvey Birdman also had the direct reference to Product placement, where everything became TaB related, and Harvey himself ran down a beach to a giant anthropomorphic TaB can, whom he loveingly embraced.
 
I remember in an episode of G.I. Joe, a character (Leatherneck, I think) was reading an issue of the Marvel G.I. Joe comic book. I've always wondered how they could've gotten away with that, since toy-based cartoons in the eighties had strict rules to prevent them from becoming purely half-hour commercials for toys.
 
Im more confused by how that could be done, unless it was like how marvel justified marvel comics existing in their (marvel) universe (ie, the comics were basically fictionalized adventures of their real-life superheroes).
 
Same for DC 's universe, which has its own DC Comics---which publishes "true crime" stories (presumably based on newspaper reports/descriptions) about Superman, Batman, etc.'s adventures. (A late 60s Batman comic story has him forced to track down a copy of his own comic for some reason....).

-B.
 
Shark Tale was lousy with jokey, thinly-veilled knock-offs of actual products and stores (i.e. The Gup, Coral-Cola, ect.). There was also "Farbucks" in Shrek 2.

Does Hogarth reading MAD Magazine in The Iron Giant count?
 
Oh yes, let's not forget the cover of Shinn's magazine in Phase 15 of Gundam SEED Destiny which promotes the singers of the opening theme at the current time, "High and Mighty Colour".
 
The last one does. The others are just parodies. I believe that this thread is just about actual product placements in animated films. If we're also including parodies of popular companies, we'd be here a while.
 
That's what I thought most of them in the world of cartoons were, unless the "product" being placed was a product of the same production origin, like my example:

Batman The Animated Series episode "Nothing To Fear" in which the security guard is reading a Tiny Toons comic, which was also on Fox at the time (FOX KIDS!!).

Over all of my years watching cartoons I've mostly just seen parody, though with movies there's more of a chance of actual product placement, and even then it depends on the origins of the reason why it's there. Maybe I come from a better time of cartoons or maybe I just come from a time when I was at a younger, less cynical age.

Oh I though of a fun/funny and deliberate one, though. Loony Tunes Back In Action, which was better than I thought it was going to be. "It sure was nice of Wal-mart to give us these complimentary Wal-mart fountain drinks for mentioning Wal-mart so much."
 
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