AT&T on TV

[Mark Smith]

Has anyone out there noticed that AT&T's equipment is appearing in a lot
of TV's evening soaps. For instance; Dallas, Dynasty, The Colbys, and
Knot's Landing all have AT&T PC's in the offices and most of the phones
(non-residential) are Merlins. Even the desk in the lobby of the La Mirage
(Dynasty) has a Unix Pc 6300. Is this a coincidence or does AT&T have some
sort of agreement with these shows? I never see AT&T commercials during
these episodes. Do they sponsor them in any way? Just curious. I will
welcome any answers either by mail or on the net. Thanx...

--

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
May the Quest for the ElfSword be
your ultimate goal in life...
Mark Smith
-|=============- GM "Game Master of a Higher Order"
ihnp4!pur-ee!pur-phy!mrstve!mark
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Tom Nadas]

My suspicion is that they pay a fee for these product placements. In
a similar vein, note that Maddie on MOONLIGHTING has given up her
Kaypro Robie computer for an Apple Macintosh, complete with external
drive.

Robert J. Sawyer
in Toronto
c/o
--

Tom Nadas

UUCP: {decvax,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,allegra,utzoo}!utcsri!tom
CSNET: tom@toronto

[Jeffrey Silber]

There are companies that specialize in getting products to appear in movies and
television shows. There is usually a small payment involved to the show. In
most cases all that is added is subliminal exposure, but in some cases there has
been a major benefit to the product (the best example is Reese's Pieces in E.T.
-- an opportunity that was turned down by M&Ms). Columbia Pictures is owned by
Coca Cola, so don't expect to see too many Pepsi products in their films and
television shows.

Also -- the phone on Crazy Like a Fox is a merlin.

--

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A million here, a million there ... they all add up.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeffrey A. Silber sil...@devvax.tn.cornell.edu
Business Manager JAS@CORNELLD
Center for Theory & Simulation {decvax,ihnp4,cmcl2,vax135}!cornell!devvax!silber
in Science & Engineering 265 Olin Hall
Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853

[TITUS]

>
> Has anyone out there noticed that AT&T's equipment is appearing in a lot
> of TV's evening soaps. For instance; Dallas, Dynasty, The Colbys, and
> Knot's Landing all have AT&T PC's in the offices and most of the phones
> (non-residential) are Merlins. Even the desk in the lobby of the La Mirage
> (Dynasty) has a Unix Pc 6300. Is this a coincidence or does AT&T have some
> sort of agreement with these shows? I never see AT&T commercials during
> these episodes. Do they sponsor them in any way? Just curious. I will
> welcome any answers either by mail or on the net. Thanx...
>

> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> May the Quest for the ElfSword be

> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Yes, I have noticed this too, and I work for an AT&T Product Center!! The
fre advertising is great. Now if only I could get the product in as plentiful
supply as it is shown on tv I'd double my sales!

Does anyone in ATT-IS know anything about the above, I'd be interested.

Thanks,
Keith Titus
AT&T Bell Laboratories
WHippany NJ 201-386-2229
whuxl!keith
------------------the Right Choice--------------------------------

[L.VANDERBILT]

There was a discussion about this 2 to 3 months ago in net.att ( i think
that's the newsgroup name). It seems that there is a person whose
job it is to get our products into these shows. The interesting thing
is that if you watch the shows week to week, the computers change
with each episode. One week there might be an AT&T PC on
someone's desk, but the next week there might be an APPLE on the
same desk, and so on.

Please no flames about AT&T posting to the world, since this doesn't
just apply to AT&T. Thanks.

Lynn
houxm!houxa!lmv

[Andrew Klossner]

[]

"This week, "Moonlighting" was so very strange ..."

I'll say. No meta-comments! I waited 52 minutes (program runtime sans
commercials) for the twinkle in the eye, the mischievous glance at the
camera, and it never came. Sigh.

There's a Macintosh in Maddie's office. Can anyone identify the black
workstation in David's office?

-=- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew) [UUCP]
(tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay) [ARPA]

[Jeff Meyer]

In article <2...@mrstve.UUCP> ma...@mrstve.UUCP (Mark Smith) writes:
>
> Has anyone out there noticed that AT&T's equipment is appearing in a lot

> of TV's evening soaps. For instance; Dallas, Dynasty, The Colbys [...]

What gets me is how much the Macintosh is seen in different programs. David
and Maddie's office on MOONLIGHTING is literally littered with them.

Of course, my favorite Computer on TV is watching Dr. Auchlander get on the
Pirate's Bulletin Board on the last episode of St. Elsewhere...

"I don't have a code name... how
about Wile E. Coyote..."

Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!mori...@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>

[Dave Hsu]

In article <4...@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> sil...@batcomputer.UUCP (Jeffrey Silber) writes:
>
>Also -- the phone on Crazy Like a Fox is a merlin.

>Jeffrey A. Silber sil...@devvax.tn.cornell.edu

I'm not certain if this is from tie-ins...the Merlin happens to look very
snazzy. Why, just last month, I was watching TV, and lemme see here...
Airwolf on CBS was using a white Merlin, some soap opera on ABC was using
a red one, and some NBC movie was using black ones. All at the same time
(maybe they were talking to each other?)

Gee, and I thought it would be sort of impractical to have your house
rewired (and have an expensive controller installed) just to hook a Merlin
up to one phone line...

-dave
--
David Hsu Communication & Signal Processing Lab, EE Department
<disclaimer> University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
h...@eneevax.umd.edu {seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!eneevax!hsu

ARPA n. [acronym for Advanced Research Projects Agency.] An agency of the
U.S. Department of Defense established in 1968 to test its defenses
against misuse and piracy in the large-scale distributed processing
environment.
-Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"

[Darrel VanBuer]

A few years ago, I did a little consulting for a computer oriented TV show,
and the tech staff was always trying to scrounge the loan (or better) of
exotic equipment to dress the sets or do some effect. The most impressive
item I saw loaned was a 2K x 2K plasma panel about 4 or 5 feet square (for
which they only had a canned demo to draw a world map). The most they
"gave" for such loans was one line in the credits; small stuff didn't even
get that.

--
Darrel J. Van Buer, PhD
System Development Corp.
2525 Colorado Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90406
(213)820-4111 x5449
...{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,orstcs,sdcsvax,ucla-cs,akgua}
!sdcrdcf!darrelj
VAN...@USC-ECL.ARPA

[Mark Smith]

In article <23...@utcsri.UUCP>, t...@utcsri.UUCP (Tom Nadas) writes:
>
> My suspicion is that they pay a fee for these product placements. In
> a similar vein, note that Maddie on MOONLIGHTING has given up her
> Kaypro Robie computer for an Apple Macintosh, complete with external
> drive.
>

That Kaypro Robie made its way to Florida for last week's episode of Miami
Vice. Don Johnson was clicking away at the all too familar black keyboard.
Seems sort of a step down since the week before he was typing on an IBM PC.

[Randy Murray]

AT&T must have dumped a truck-load of equipment on the unfortunate
CBS made-for-TV movie _ASSISN_ starring Robert Conrad.

There were PC 6300's, UNIX PC's, Merlin phones, and a few other goodies
in this _Terminator_ rip off. Sounds as if a plot's afoot.
Too bad the movie didn't have one too . . .