"There's no denying the smooth taste." - Rod Serling

Now my wife and I watch oodles of HGTV and select home-makeover shows, mainly to incessantly mock them, but some exhibit a superior level of design and creativity that's fun to see put together within a specified, half-hour time frame.

If anything, two years of watching these shows imparts an understanding of color, placement and design theory that my feeble brain never truly understood before and I'm probably a better man for it (you should have seen some of my apartments).

But a dirty virus has begun to creep into some of the crappier ones - prominent, and I mean PROMINENT, product placement. And it's not so much with product placement per se, it's the surreptitious nature in which they're placed.

It's been around forever. And the current level probably was ushered in with The Apprentice or maybe Fear Factor. Heck, Rod Serling used to smoke Chesterfields during his conclusions to the episodes of Twilight Zone and then immediately do a commercial for them, saying, "There's no denying the smooth taste."

On this note, since Dale Levitski is competing on Top Chef, I thought I'd check it out.


Let's go over, minute-by-minute, a product-placement account of last night's second episode of the third season:

0:00 - 1:00 - Food & Wine Magazine, Glad and Evian

Okay, they sponsor the show. Free pass.

1:00 - 3:00 - Evian and Glad

Maybe not okay. Random food being put into the fridge by contestants just waking up and getting some coffee are, what do you know!, Glad Press-n-Seal. Glad BigBag boxes are stacked just below the counter behind a contestant drinking coffee, talking about his hard life and reading the paper with a Glad Pop-Top lid sitting next to it. An Evian bottle is on the nightstand as a contestant is roused from sleep because everyone needs pure, artesian water refreshment in the middle of the night.

3:00 - 4:00 - General Electric

Segments segue from the contestant filing out of their suite to the QuickFire Challenge is a zoom in on a GE Monogram logo, not once but twice, in case you didn't catch it the first time.

4:00 - 5:00 - Florida Citrus Fruits, Calphalon cookware

They're using citrus fruits as the focus of the challenge, so some leniency here, but FLORIDA CITRUS is everywhere, a key product to the economy of Florida and huge advertiser nationwide. Calphalon pans, absolutely identifiable to people that know them, are ubiquitous.

11:00 - Kingsford

Elimination Challenge is a upscale BBQ event brought to you by Kingsford charcoal, because only Kingsford elicits the superlative nature of 'upscale' and 'BBQ'.

19:00 - Toyota Rav4

The contestants are given a budget for their BBQ challenge and go to shop for the ingredients at Fresh Market. Upon finishing, they load up the food into the back of an SUV and close the door. As the door closes, we get a zoom-in and close-up of the Toyota Rav4 logo on the back of SUV. No accounting for the clunky sound the door makes as it shuts.

20:00 - 24:00 - Glad is back.

While the contestants prepare the food in the kitchen, Glad containers, curiously still in their cardboard boxes with the big 'GLAD' across the side, sit right next to a chef as he mixes, completely in the way. This is a timed event so a clock in the kitchen is intermittently shown. Next to the clock sits a Glad box, turned just so.

As they pack up and put all their prepared food into the Igloo coolers, an orgy of Glad containers explode onto the scene. We are shown a chef sealing some food into Glad Pop-N-Seals with another prominent Glad cardboard box in camera-shot. Glad Freezer Bags are everywhere.

28:00 - And Evian's back in play.

The contestants, back at the apartment, get ready to go to the challenge. Spliced between testimonials and various packing up, a camera follows a contestant through the room and then stops. The contestant keeps walking but an Evian bottle is squared up and in focus, the only reason to stop precisely there.

Dale just turned a lotion bottle's label away from the camera. Could just be a coincidence but he was absolutely absent from this episode. Maybe he wasn't playing ball?

28:00 - 33:00 - Kingsford and Aqua Island Homes

The contest begins. As we are given an opening montage to the setting of the challenge, there's scantily-clad beach-goers, palm trees, sand and...a real estate sign for Aqua Island Homes? Being the Kingsford challenge, Kingsford litters the BBQ stations. More Calphalon, more Igloos, more Glad, more Evian. Now Kingsford is sponsoring it, but the killer is when a contestant extols the virtues of the various kinds of wood offered to cook with. Mesquite, hickory and Kingsford offers all of them! Now that's convenience...and upscale.

Oh, zoom-out of the meat in a pan of one of the contestants with an Evian bottle snuggled up against it. Cold water right up against a steaming hot plate of meat. Does everyone know Evian has the signature lipstick-red pop top. Get that?

33:00 - New one with Moët Champagne.

Champagne is poured for the upscale and sexy BBQ with the Moët label turned just right.

37:00 - More Glad and Evian

Time to pack up. Hey, let's use Glad ForceFlex garbage bags. They're the ones that never rip, even under the biggest stress. While we do this, let's drink some Evian because this is tiring work. Better yet, let's drink some Evian out of their large, decorated bottles with the embedded seal lid.

The rest is contestant elimination silliness. Oh, the drama. At least Sandie didn't pontificate about how strong she is and how other, better challenges await her and she can't be defeated, as is the M.O. for contestants on shows of this ilk.


Anyone feel like some Kingsford-smoked BBQ. We can wash it down with some Evian. Afterwards, we can pack up the leftovers in Glad containers while drinking some Moët Champagne. Anyone?