In the second episode of last Sunday’s (May 1) Simpsons where …
SPOILER ALERT!
… Bart goes to fat camp, the drill instructor was clearly driving a Volvo. I can’t remember cars being identifiable in the Simpsons before. Several episodes revolved around cars (Mr. Plow, Homer buys Snake’s muscle car at auction, etc.) but they weren’t identifiable as real brands.
Is this something we can expect more of in the future or have they been doing it for awhile already?
P.S.
Advertising sucks!
One blatant example that comes to mind is when Apu mentioned, seriously, Linda McCartney’s line of vegetarian TV dinners.
With the rise of TiVo, I think this stuff will become more and more common. Arrested Development did a great riff on its sponsor Burger King a month or so ago.
–Cliffy
Hans Moleman drove a Gremlin way back in an early season. It burst into flames, though, so that might not be considered product placement.
“Alcohol has ruined my life. I’m 33 years old!” - Moleman
Patty and Selma have been driving an identifiable VW Thing for years.
Again, not realy product placement since you can’t run out to your local VW dealer and buy one.
Kind of straying from the product placement topic, but one of the slightly less regular features in the www.snpp.com capsules is ‘car watch’, in which car fanatics try to identify the make and model of just about every moving vehicle on the show. More often than not they can pin it down. 
Of course, for the rest of us, it may be a lot less often that we go ‘hey, volvo’ or ‘hey, beetle’ as opposed to ‘hey, car.’
Years ago, the company I worked for announced in our employee newsletter that they had paid a pile of cash to have their name on the box that a lighthouse lightbulb came in (maybe in the psychedelic chili episode? I don’t watch that much). Sure enough, the logo was on the box, in the correct font and color. So yeah, it’s been going on for a while.
There’s that one episode where they had the three Budweiser frogs sitting in a pond doing there thing:
“Bud”… “Wei”… “Ser”
Then an aligator comes up from underneath and swallows all three of them whole and says:
“COORS!”
Loved that one. Not sure if it counts though.
If you pay attention, nearly every scene involving groups of cars will have at least one old VW Beetle in it.
Occasionally a Microbus or Thing (besides P & S’) will pop up.
Remember when Nelson stole the “H” from Skinner’s car.
“Oh no! . . . . That’s how people know it’s a Honda!”
Not only that, but Skinner and Chalmers try to steal an “H” off Kearney’s Hyundai.
“Go faster, Neddy, he’s gaining on us!”
“I can’t! It’s a Geo!”
Also driven by Jeff Albertson, with rubbish bags for tinted windows. Oh, and Mr Burns drives, among other things, a 1936 Stutz Bearcat. {Bonus points for naming the colour which it isn’t}.
Simpsons Hit And Run, the brilliant driving game, features nearly every vehicle you can remember form the show, including the Monorail {yes, it is drivable}, Otto’s schoolbus, the Malibu Stacey convertible, the Canyonero, the Homer {complete with horn that plays La Cucuracha}, and Professor Frink’s flying motorbike. They didn’t bother to licence anything, so all the “real” vehicles have amusing aliases: CBG drives a Kremlin, and Apu’s Firebird has become a Longhorn {Apparently Knightboat is unlockable, too, but I haven’t worked out how yet}.
As far as legitimate product placement goes, Bart used to shill for Butterfingers, and in the episode where sugar is banned, as they hold a candy burning and the bars refuse to burn, Chief Wiggum comments “Even the fire won’t take 'em.”
I don’t know if I’d say that the appearance of the Volvo was necessarily product placement. I mean, I saw the episode and, even as a fan of Volvos, I didn’t even notice. Product placement usually includes giving a close-up of the logo, doesn’t it? I’m not sure, really; that’s the only time I ever notice that a car is getting product placement (and it seems to happen a lot.)
Every damned episode has been shilling for Frosted Krusty Flakes, though they never won me over until a rerun I saw yesterday with a billboard that read: “Frosted Krusty Flakes: It’s like having a birthday cake for breakfast!” Right after work I’m rushing down to the store to buy a box. I can feel my pancreas protesting already, but who can resist having a birthday cake for breakfast? My birthday isn’t for another five months, almost! Score!!!
That was hilarious. I don’t know if that was a condition of their appearance (one condition was that Lisa had to remain vegetarian permanently) but it was so completely gratuitous that it cracked me up. “We weren’t satisfied with the other brands on the market. You’d be surprised how often you’d find a big hunk of pork in them.”
I thought it was supposed to be funny, how this ruff ‘n’ tuff fat camp drill instructor drove a wimpy Volvo instead of an army-surplus Humvee. But I always thought it was funny that both Homer and Marge drive Chrysler K-Cars, Reliants, specifically, because Plymouths are even more declasse than Dodges, but what do I know from humor?
In Lady Bouvier’s Lover, Bart and Lisa sing about Armour hot dogs. And the whole family does a certain song and dance.
“I feel like Chicken Tonight, like Chicken Tonight, like Chicken Tonight!”
That’s it, you people have stood in my way long enough! I’m going to clown college!
On the DVD commentary, the commentators often claim that they put products into cartoons in hopes of getting some of that product for free from the manufacturer to thank them for the placement, although I’m sure they’re mostly joking. I remember them saying that about the Armour Hot Dogs song, and about the “Wang Computers” T-shirt that Martin wore in one episode.
They say that the only product they ever got for free by this method was a case of Stridex pads, which were mentioned by the Squeaky-Voiced Teen. 
It is NOT Burgundy.
Do I win?