This time? Mad Men. And no they haven't just introduced an autistic telephone repairman on Mad Men. Don't forget the show takes place in the 1960's -- autistic people are institutionalized.
Today the Internet is swelling with stories of our favorite ad-men and the women who pretend like their husbands don't cheat. Apparently the 5th season of Mad Men has been green lighted although negotiations with the head honcho (the show runner) are still ongoing. On the table, a 30 million dollar pay day and some other demands. The Blogosphere can sum up the issues better than I can but apparently the sticking points are 3 (a shorter episode, to allow for more ads, getting rid of a couple of characters (please not Joan, Sally Draper, the-soon-to-be-the-second-Mrs-Draper, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling or the old dude but you can have Henry Francis) and the third is that they want to have product placement within the show (to be able to make more money).
Certainly there are products which exist today that could be used on Mad Men but I don't see a whole lot of opportunities because many products which are used are not in fashion anymore. They already give us Coke (or is it Pepsi), tons of booze, Lucky Strike. Mad Men certainly can't be the product royalty heaven that shows that take place in the present day can be and cannot even touch the 4 hours of truly painful movie storytelling that are the Sex and the City movies which are let's face it, one very long advertisement for anything and everything. It's not like they can show a woman scrubbing a floor on her hands and knees using Mr. Clean or whatever, I guess they could but Betty (or more rightly her housekeeper Carla) doesn't have a Swiffer or a vacuum cleaner with GPS and women today don't scrub floors on their hands or knees (and if you can find a cleaning woman who will, please, whatever you do give her my number). Sure booze they can do (but then I am quite sure MADD will get all up in their stuff promoting drinking and driving and the petitions will fly. It's not like zillions of American women are going to watch Betty Draper, cig in hand, reading directions on how to make Jello off a box of Jello and that Jello is going to be the new go-to-dessert. Maybe in one of Don's drunken hazes, he will fantasize about Joan sauntering into Wegman's seafood bar. Oh, wait Wegmans doesn't serve hard liquor. Maybe she will travel in a time machine then to buy her Swanson tv dinner and a Yoo-hoo (she's pregnant remember).
More brilliant minds than me can probably envision and it, but I find it hard to believe that Mad Men of all shows is pulsating with gajillion-dollar-opportunities for product placement. Certainly they have the viewership but considering that even margarine was a rarity in those days I find it hard to believe that there is a multitude of product placement opportunity in that show.
Come on now AMC and anyone and everyone else involved with getting this show on the air, stop being so damn greedy, be happy with the tons of advertisers you have, DVD sales and the rest of it and give us Don Draper back!
Although they have announced the fifth season the deal has not been inked yet. How ironic would it be if Mad Men didn't go forward due to advertising?
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