Enforced Plug: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Myth Busters]]'' has started doing this in recent shows, including short segments where they bust myths like "The new Jetta Foobar Turbo is smelly and noisy, because it is a diesel."

* ''[[Extreme Makeover: Home Edition]]'' sometimes degenerates to this, when they can't find a less obvious way to reveal that they're completely stocking the house with products from Sears and its subsidiaries.

* Parodied in ''[[Extras]]'', where [[Coldplay]] star Chris Martin makes an appearance on Andy Millman's sitcom after expressing "interest" to him and his producer. [[Executive Meddling|The producer ignores Andy's reasoning that having a celebrity randomly crop up in the show would not make much sense and even moves the filming day just to accommodate Martin's own schedule]]. His sudden appearance on the show is ham-handedly dealt with and is simply used as a vehicle to advertise Coldplay's "greatest hits" album, Chris Martin wearing a t-shirt with the album cover on it and Andy being forced to blatantly ask when it was being released. The critics jump on the event and blame Andy for it, claiming he was using it simply to "prop up his lame duck of a sitcom".

** This has escalated in recent seasons, with Panda Express and other food items. It's always [[Lampshaded]] in a [[Money, Dear Boy|we have to pay the bills somehow]] kind of way.

* Parodied in one episode of ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' where the characters start blurting out [[The Burger King|Burger King]] mid-speech or the camera keeps jump cutting to a Burger King restaurant. Even the narrator thinks Burger King is awesome.

** Somewhat played straight in ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'' with Subway.

* There was a really painful example of this in a recent episode of ''[[Bones]]'', in which the characters apparently decided that the best way to solve their current case was to consult Cesar Milan, TV's "Dog Whisperer." This plug was particularly [[Egregious]] because it took up about half of the actual episode. A good [[Drinking Game]] might be to watch this episode, and take a shot every time someone stares at Cesar in contractually obligatory awe.

**** However the [[A Wizard Did It|justification for a random school trip to Florida]] did alleviate the blatant nature of the episode by way of [[Rule of Funny]].

** Add ''[[Modern Family]]'' to the list, as they just did a Disneyland episode.

** Later seasons have this plug almost [[Once an Episode]], likely because Subway was instrumental in promoting the show and keeping it on the air.

* The Nissan Versa in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' started out as creative and original product placement, but later cars degenerated into this trope.

* In ''[[Seinfeld]]'', Jerry would often randomly and blatantly offer other characters a Snapple, who would always decline.

** There was a decent amount of product placement in that show in general.

* On ''[[The Office]]'' manager Michael Scott often mentions various generic products that he thinks are the best thing ever. However, Michael Scott is the show's resident idiot and the show is presented as a [[Mockumentary]], so it is quite likely Michael is being paid to do this, and not the writers.

** A common form is for him to mention a product (like an in-flight magazine subscription) in dialog with a coworker, and then expand on the greatness of the product in a talking head. Other times though, like with his ''[[Cracked]]'' (before it was a website) Magazine subscription, he tried to distance himself from the product.

** Sean Hannity recently started doing this as well on his radio show, usually during the short segment before the top of the hour. Hannity also occasionally uses callers as a segue to talking about his Escalade.

*** The late Paul Harvey was the uncontested king of this.

** As does Mark Levin... it's quite annoying, since they will move into this without warning. "Health care reform is a mess! But do you know what we need? We need Carbonite, to secure our computer data!"

*** They have to get paid somehow.

***** The ad revenue is what allows those ten million dollar contracts to be paid, so yes.

* One vintage radio show that [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]]d this all to pieces was ''[[Fibber McGee and Molly]]''. Midway through each episode, announcer Harlow Wilcox would drop in on the McGees (or they'd run into him while on some errand in town), and would quickly shift discussion of any topic to extolling the virtues of Johnson's Self-Polishing Glo-Coat floorwax. It got to where Fibber or Molly would groan and say "[[Here We Go Again]]" or some variation thereof whenever Wilcox - or "Waxy", as Fibber nicknamed him - began holding forth.

== [[Web Original]] ==

* ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' spoofed this, with Linkara's robot double pointing out a plug, and Linkara snaps "Shut up, hippie! He gave me a discount!"

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[American Dad]]'' [[Lampshaded]] an enforced plug for Burger King. Stan and Steve were discussing about how to expose the truth about peanut butter in a ''[[National Treasure]]'' [[Whole-Plot Reference]] at a Burger King restaurant, and Steve asked him why they were at a Burger King. Stan told him that [[Product Placement|the laws of TV economics have changed]].

* Parodied in the ''[[Freakazoid]]'' episode [[Mission Impossible|"Mission: Freakazoid"]]. The show opened with the announcer saying "This episode is brought to you by Anubis Markets, a division of Osiris Foods. However, this will in no way affect the contents of today's story." But the story was periodically interrupted with Anubis Markets ads, and at the end, all the characters turned to the camera and delivered an extended ad for Anubis Markets ("Food so good you can eat it!")

* The latest ''[[Futurama]]'' [[Christmas Episode]] parodies this, especially early and late in the episode.

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