While I’m sure a choir of naysayers will disagree, last night’s MODERN FAMILY was an excellent example of product placement done right. What made it work was the organic nature of the storytelling as opposed to the clunky placements favored by such reality shows as SURVIVOR or CELEBRITY APPRENTICE. From day one, we’ve known that Phil is a techhead, making it natural that he — like millions of other geeks out there — would be majorly psyched about the iPad. But instead of just having him talk up the product, an entire plot — including Claire once again failing in her attempt to be the perfect wife and Mitchell getting into a fight with a line-cutter — was build around it. More importantly, the show never lost track of its primary objectives, which are to be funny and entertaining.
Why can’t every network just get on board the hulu.com bandwagon? The CW recently announced they’re going to begin running more ads during episodes viewed on their website which would be fine and dandy if it weren’t for the fact that their portal kinda sucks.