Why did TV Land bother?

Cafe Society
1

Why does TV Land have a special opening for “I Love Lucy”? Also, TV Land bothered to make some cute thingy for commercial breaks, as well…why? - Jinx

2

Those were the original openings and commercial breaks for the show.

3

Your familiar “Heart” opening and closing was developed when the series went into syndication.

4

Thanks! I never knew that… Neat!

  • Jinx
5

The reason they haven’t been seen for years is because they featured various sponsor messages. The product was the intergral player, alongside the Ricky and Lucy stick figures. (This was Desi Arnaz’s idea-he didn’t like the way TV shows abruptly cut to commercial, so he decided to have the first commerical of each ad break be in the program.) Some of the products (such as cigarettes) can’t be advertised on TV today, and of course, the sponsors probably aren’t sponsoring the show now. TV Land has replaced the sponsor messages with their logo and the cast credits (for the beginning) and an “I Love Lucy will be right back” message (for the ad break bumpers.)

6

The practice of acknowledging sponsors in the show’s opening titles continued at least as late as the first, black and white season of The Beverly Hillbillies in 1963-64. When you see those episodes today, you’ll notice Jed points out something along the side of the road, just before the opening titles fade out. The original titles cut to a billboard advertising Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, with the voice-over, “Brought to you by Kellogg’s”.

Think Beverly Hills ever really had a billboard advertising corn flakes?

7

Wsn’t that the same deal with a lot of cartoons? IIRC, the billboards in “Top Cat” had cereal adverts.

Someone told me once that Fred and Barney from “The Flintstones” used to advertise cigarettes. Or is the teller full of it?

8

Nope, it’s true. Have a look.

9

I remember Kellogs being pretty big on insisting product placement. In one episode of My Favorite Martian, Tim and Uncle Martin come back through time from the old west and accidentaly bring an Indian with them (discovered in their back yard on horseback, both Indian and horse slumped in parody of the “end of the trail” statue). Cut to commercial, then back for the brief “dump” segment before the credits: they’re feeding the Indian Kellogs cornflakes while a voice-over announces that the show has been brought to you by…

(I don’t have cable, so for all I know, my revierie from the mysterious past is something you watched just last night)