Parody Product Placement

Bugs Bunny: (upon seeing a Wal-Mart) Is this a mirage? Or just product placement?
Daffy Duck: Hey, who cares? With shopping convenience at such low prices!

— Looney Tunes: Back in Action

Product Placement is a fixture in media, for good or ill. Like any pervasive concept, especially one that is criticized so often, writers love to play with it. The result is Parody Product Placement, which can take several forms:

• A work promotes a made-up product, which sometimes exists In-Universe, using over-the-top or absurd claims that would never pass modern advertising standards. "Drink Boka Bola! It cures hangovers, takes off weight, and cleans your teeth!"
• A work promotes a real product in a way that is blatantly not complimentary or representative of the product's actual marketing claims. "Big Macs: For when you aren't fat enough already!"
• A work goes over the top in promoting a product, sticking brand labels on everything from street signs to the characters' clothing to the Fourth Wall and having characters mention it in every other sentence.
• A work takes a tongue-in-cheek ad break to shill a product in a way intended to poke fun at real advertising campaigns.
• A work makes a big deal out of how it refuses to indulge in product placement while simultaneously blatantly advertising things. (It only counts if it's intended to be humorous or ironic.)

Obviously, these aren't the only ways to accomplish the trope, but all share an essential aspect: poking fun at product placement.

See also Bland-Name Product, Product Displacement, Prop, Shoddy Knockoff Product, and Trade Snark.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Two Sprint commercials have made fun of this, presenting their commercials for the Instinct phone as movie trailers. They're actually called something like "the finest product placement movie this summer", with "finest" often replaced for a more genre-appropriate word (such as "scariest" or "heartwarming").
• A Budweiser commercial featured a movie director wondering why there was a bottle of window cleaner on the set of his medieval-period sword fighting scene. He's informed that if he shills products in the movie, the company will give him free stuff. Cue everything on set being branded with the Budweiser logo.
• Before the ban on product placement was lifted, UK watchdogs ITC ran an advert to publicize the ban; it ran as a parody of an Australian soap with two blokes opening a fridge to reveal it crammed with Kanga Brew beer, and leaving a can directly in front of the camera for twenty seconds while taking a ludicrously melodramatic phonecall.
• A Barclaycard advert was set in Venice so that Alan Wicker could say from a gondola that Barclaycard was accepted there more often than "certain charge cards I could mention". As he said this, a passing gondolier snatched his ice cream and began singing "Just one Cornetto, give it to me...", leaving a bemused Wicker asking "isn't this the wrong commercial?"

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: In the Season 4 finale, as the race is about to begin, Mr. Lightbulb tells the competitors to prepare... to advertise, and then interrupts with an advertisement for a drink. He is then informed that the drink was made by Sweet S. and faints, and the race begins.

Comic Books

• An issue of E-Man comics had an ad for "Hostess Tweakies" featuring Cutey Bunny, a parody of Cutey Honey. She defeated the villains by force-feeding them so many Tweakies that they could barely move.
• Alan Moore's First American strip, being a parody of both superhero tropes and American culture, also did a take-off of these.
• Green Lantern: Secret Files and Origins featured "the tastiest Green Lantern/The Flash team-ups ever!" First, the Golden Age GL and Flash defeat Nazi saboteurs with the aid of Secret Files candy bars and their secret ingredient. Then the Silver Age incarnations use the "space age taste" of Secret Files bars to expose alien criminals disguised as alien policemen (the real policemen absorb energy). Finally the Modern Age versions (Kyle Rayner and Walter West^note Not Wallace "Wally" West - it's complicated but involves parallel universes and Abra Kadabra) are halfway through an ad for Secret Files Powerbars, before Kyle starts complaining it doesn't make sense. "We defeat the bad guy by giving him food? And why is he standing at ground zero of his own weapon anyway? Who wrote this?" While Kyle argues with the director of what now turns out to be a TV ad, and learns they're still working off Alan and Jay's contracts, Walter learns that the "secret ingredient" is sugar.
• 2000 AD:
  • The Free Comic Book Day 2011 issue featured "Obmoz Battles the Twinklie Winkler!", in which a camp Silver Age villain in a typical 2000 AD Dystopia steals the official Government snackfood, only to be stopped by the Government's zombie crimefighter, Obmoz. Rather permanently.
    Obmoz: Light, tasty skull... creamy brain filling!
  • In the Judge Dredd storyline, The Pit, a gang of clearly unbalanced criminals calling themselves the "John Prescott Block Social, Welfare and Leisure Committee" stole a shipment of a nutrition-free but multi-flavored junk food called Grot Pot. This being Judge Dredd, their plan involved shooting a flying delivery truck with a rocket launcher, which then crashed into a monorail and derailed a train, causing mass destruction and the deaths of several people including a judge. Dredd was not happy.
• The first issue of Limekiller at Large opens with an ad for "Lil' Dolly Fruit Pies".
• Marvel Comics loves to spoof the old Hostess Fruit Pies ads they did:
  • In the issue of Marvel Team-Up released as part of the infamous mid-80's "Assistant Editor's Month", entitled "Aunt May and Franklin Richards vs. Galactus", Galactus took Aunt May as his new herald (under the name "Golden Oldie") after which she halted his latest attempt to devour the earth by serving him "Grosstest Twinkles".
  • In the early-90's comedy title "WHAT THE..?!", a hero offers "Stinkies" cupcakes to The Blob, whose whole gimmick is that he's fat. The Blob is initially overjoyed, but after reading the full list of ingredients of the wrapper and seeing that the treat is full of saturated fats, he proceeds to beat the stuffing out of the hero. "I'm trying to lose weight, you're not helping!"
  • Marvel again in Age of the Sentry, with advertisements for Marvel Fruit Pies with Fruit-like Filling.
  • An issue of Deadpool set in 1970s (thus fitting with the original ads) had him distract a mugger in this manner with bottles of "Party Time Fruit Liquor". ("It's refreshing, and delicious, and allows me to talk to women.") As the mugger is distracted, Deadpool apprehends the mugger and prepares to turn him over to the authorities. Then he remembers that he's on a strict time limit to finish another job and simply kills him instead.
  • Dan Slott's Spider-Man/Human Torch mini-series had a scene in one issue where Spider-Man distracted the Red Ghost's Super Apes (who had stolen the infamous Spider-Mobile) by snagging a store display of fruit pies with his webbing and yanking the display into the street. The apes immediately attacked the fruit pies and forgot about Spider-Man and the Torch. Spidey immediately calls the ad agency that gave him the car and tells them that the deal's off, but he's got an idea for an ad campaign they can use...
  • One early issue of Thunderbolts features a parody ad where Citizen V/Baron Zemo is convinced to abandon his plan to take over the world when he's given fruit pies instead. (it was actually written by fans and eventually redrawn by actual Marvel artists!)
  • During Spider-Verse, Morlun encounters a Spider-Man who attempts to give him fruit pies. It... doesn't end well for that Spidey.
  • Mentioned by Gwenpool in the retro-style ads attached to 2017's Marvel Legacy one-shot. She urged readers to buy her comic so that she wouldn't be forced to shill fruit pies.
• One issue of The Powerpuff Girls comic ends this way. After several pages of the girls fighting Mojo Jojo in a power suit, the girls get him to surrender with 'Mostest Fruit Pies' in a finale that pretty much rips off the Dexter's Laboratory example.

• One Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) story features Tails reading a comic within the comic that casts the Freedom Fighters as parodies of the Fantastic Four, with Robotnik serving in the Galactus role. Parodying the ads, Sonic manages to keep from Robotnik from eating the planet by giving him "Twinkles," which has the tagline "You avoid a fight with every bite!"
• A collection of Watchmen Delicious Fruit Pies parodies.
• Welcome to Tranquility gives us an ad for Minxy Millions Mini-Pies. In "Maxi Man vs. the Vampire," Maxi-Man helps some disco-loving teens escape a vampire's bite by giving the vampire Minxy Fruit Mini-Pies (oh, and also by knocking out the vampire's fangs.) "It tastes similar to real fruit!"^note Welcome to Tranquility: One Foot in the Grave #3
• An interlude ad in the Wildguard: Casting Call TPB shows Four-Teen stopping a robbery by Speeding Skull with Hostris Fruit Pies.
• A 1943 comic book ad for Wheaties included a single-panel comic with a variation on the theme: "Look, Fritz! Dose Americans are capturing our storm troopers mit free samples Wheaties again!"
  • Inverted in a different ad: "The Japs are getting smart - they're putting Wheaties in the boobytraps." Most commentators are more concerned with how the commander's assistant is apparently trained to spout Wheaties adlines on command than how the Japanese are baiting traps with cereal.

• Surprisingly played straight in one of the Famous Friends Subway ad insert comics from 2011, when the possibility of getting a sandwich distracts Black Manta from his actual plan.
• One of the characters in Lethargic Lad always attempts to stop the villains by throwing snackfood cakes at them, and is always baffled when this fails to work.
• There is a parody strip where Omaha the Cat Dancer is accosted by a mugger and notices he has his head wrapped in a towel to hold an ice pack to a toothache. In response, she pulls out an unwrapped Twonkie from her purse and (after picking off some of the lint) shoves it in his mouth. As he is writhing in pain, Omaha makes her escape while you see the slogan "You get an oral blight in every bite of 'Hotsizz Twonkies'"
• Twisted Toyfare Theatre featured a parody in which the Punisher gives the Green Goblin a Hostess Fruit Pie that's rigged with a bomb.
• In an example of What Could Have Been, Patton Oswalt once wrote another parody where The Punisher uses Pink Pants Fruit Pies to stop a villain called the Hooker Hacker. Fans later turned his script into a fan film.
  The Punisher: I'm going to cauterize your rectum, sealing it shut, so when you turn those delicious Pink Pants Fruit Pies into waste products the bilirubin in your feces will leach into your bloodstream and you'll die screaming! And I'll watch while having sex with this grateful prostitute!
  Prostitute: Cherry is my favorite!
• In the sixth issue of the Joe Books revival of the Darkwing Duck comic book, Darkwing Duck defeats the revived Splatter Phoenix by trapping her inside an ad for Mostess Veggie Pies. It plays out exactly like any superhero comic-endorsed Hostess ad you've ever seen.
• The DC Comics series 52:
  • Booster Gold, a superhero with a reputation for being self-interested, tools around Metropolis with a dozen logo decals stuck to his costume. (He later learns his lesson. And then explodes. But gets better.)
  • In the early '90s, Booster headed up a corporate superhero team called The Conglomerate as competitors for the Justice League. The members wore jackets over their regular superhero outfits that featured various DCU-native companies such as Star Labs and Lexcorp. The companies then made the mistake of insisting that The Conglomerate start looking after the companies' interests over the welfare of the world in general, which ultimately backfired on them.
• Transmetropolitan: At one point, the main character, Spider Jerusalem, very newsworthy, goes on a booze-fueled rant. As shown in other points, one can clearly click over to buy the booze Spider is holding as he does his thing. In another aspect, Spider, naive to the ways of City life, is hit with an advertising bomb that unloads ads in his sleep. Society isn't completely insane; chemically induced ad visions cause mucho neurological disasters and are illegal...until they aren't for about five minutes every few legal cycles. Guess what the citizens get sprayed with then? And last but not least, the TVs in your home don't seem to have an off switch... Spider's TV might be an exception, though. He explicitly programs it to change channels every twenty seconds in the first issue and leaves it on. Constant information overload probably goes with the territory of being a journalist.
• In one of the issues of The Simpsons comic, Homer mentions that during an interview you should mention products "Such as Chips Ahoy! cookies!" so they have to pay you.
  • Another issue featured a straight-up parody of the old Hostess Fruit Pies strips, where supervillain Crab (who is a crab) plots to steal Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy's basket of "Krusty Snak Kakes", with the intention of using their yumminess to bribe local authorities into selling him weapons-grade plutonium.
    Fallout Boy: Mmm! I can't get enough of that fruit-flavored filling — apple, rhubarb, cherry, and my favorite — plain!
    Radioactive Man: I only wish we had some national forum with which to share this information and tell kids to buy, buy, buy Krusty Snak Kakes!
• An issue of the Red Dwarf Smegazine featured Kryten promoting "Smeggo" washing liquid, only to get interrupted by Lister finding out that he cleaned his favorite shirt, which he did not want to be washed.

Comic Strips

• Foxtrot:
  Paige: I hate how the American Idol judges always have those Pepsi cans in front of them.
  Peter: It's called product placement, Paige.
  Paige: Well, it's tacky.
  Peter: Get used to it. Altoids(TM) Brand Mint?
  Paige: Yes, thanks! I find They're Curiously Strong!(TM)
• One Pearls Before Swine strip had Larry secretly eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in the closet because he's too lazy to catch a zebra. Pastis said in the Pearls Sells Out commentary that people ask him if he's paid by companies to mention their products. He says no, and that he's never been approached.

Fan Works

• Though Calvin & Hobbes: The Series is a non-commercial work, and it often plays this trope straight, it still manages to lampshade it:
  Narrator: A season of... product placement?
  Hobbes: Who's up for the What About Bob? movie!
  Calvin & Socrates: I AM!
• From one of the authors of the above, Attack of the Teacher Creature has a more obvious parody.
  "It tastes like a cup of heaven!" he whispered.
  "And it goes down smooooooooth," added Hobbes, quoting the soda ad.
  Sherman was confused. "Is this just an example of product placement?" he asked.
  "Who cares?" Calvin said, taking another gulp. "Fresh, delectable beverages at reasonably cost prices is enough to win me over."

• The Woeful, Sad Sorrow Of King Sombra: King Sombra engages in some shilling for the Friendship Express while telling his story.
• A Very Potter Sequel parodies this with Ron's love of Red Vines - complete with smiles directly to camera and zooming close-ups, as well as Harry and Ron's friendship being rooted in a mutual love of the things.
• Potion Masters Corner parodies that in Joey Richter's (who played Ron) interview. Snape interrupts Joey to mention Cookie Crisp frequently.
• Ultra Fast Pony: In "The Pet Games", the color commentary take a break from the game for "a word from our sponsors". It winds up being the show's normal opening credits, with a new voiceover:
  Tom Watergate: Now introducing Extreme Friendship! The great new taste, in glorious yellow.
• Angel of the Bat received a Hostess-style Self-Parody entitled "Sinfully Delicious," in which Gotham's titular Angel must stop her dogmatic, Christian terrorist enemy from... destroying a truck of Duchess brand Devil Finger cakes.

Films — Live-Action

• The live-action adaptation of Josie and the Pussycats was deliberately littered with Product Placement as part of Evil, Inc. Mega Records' Social Engineering. They not only decide who's hot and who's passe, but what brands, colors and styles are trending, and which are lame using subliminal Mind Control.
• The Shadow features a tense standoff between Big Bad Shiwan Khan and the titular hero that, completely out of nowhere, turns into an extended run of the two having a civil conversation about Lamont's exquisite tie and the in-universe tailor's shop which sold it to him. This was done as a parody of classic radio programs often having in-character advertisements for the show's sponsor during its intermission, including the Shadow himself, as voiced by Orson Welles, who shilled for Goodyear Tires during a summer broadcast season in 1938.
• The Truman Show has Truman's wife including product placement blurbs in her everyday speech. Later in the film, Truman asks who she's talking to.
• In Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the main characters are wandering through a Nevada desert until they find a Wal-Mart smack dab in the middle of it. When D.J. remarks how stupid it is, Kate simply replies "Product Placement. No one notices that anymore" and no one else cares, since they are thirsty and tired. When they leave, they are loaded with stuff and Bugs Bunny says "It was very nice of Wal-Mart to give us all of these Wal-Mart products for saying 'Wal-Mart' so many times."
• Spaceballs runs on "Moichandizing, moichandizing! Where the real money from the movie is made."
  Yogurt: Spaceballs: the T-shirt. Spaceballs: the coloring book. Spaceballs: the lunchbox. Spaceballs: the breakfast cereal. Spaceballs: the flamethrower! (FWOOM) The kids love this one. Last, but not least, Spaceballs: the doll. (holds up a Yogurt doll) Me.
  Yogurt doll: May da Schwartz be with you.
  Yogurt: Adorable.
• There's a scene in Wayne's World where Wayne and Garth say it's wrong to sell out, all while making nearly half a dozen product placements.
• Killer Tomatoes Strike Back: The film starts with every used product being literally black-and-white generics, but then the director appears on-camera and announces that they need more money, so they're selling product pitches.. which leads to ever-more-blatant examples as the movie progresses.
• Idiocracy has product placement everywhere, and it is parodied to show just how shallow and dumb the future is:
  • In Carl's Jr., the most common or popular portion size is 'Extra Big-Ass', such as their fries, and their motto has devolved into "Fuck you, I'm eating!".
  • Fuddruckers is shown devolving into "Buttfuckers", but is actually one of the few businesses to keep their function as a burger place.
  • Costco has grown to the size of a small city, with its own subway system and law school. The guy welcoming people says "Welcome to Costco. I love you."
  • Crocs shoes are made for prisoners.
  • Fox News Channel is still a news network, but has devolved into pure entertainment, with its newscasters dressed like porn stars.
  • Starbucks, H&R Block, and several other places have become brothels.
  • It seems that in the future, parents will name their kids after food companies: Joe's lawyer is Frito (Pendejo), the star of Ow, My Balls! is named Hormel (Chavez), the president's middle name is Mountain Dew, and there's even a reporter named Velveeta. And one named Formica. Essentially every named character from the future has some kind of Product Placement in their name.
  • One Cabinet member constantly drops ad slogans (most notably "Brought to you by Carl's Jr.") into his normal conversation, because they pay him each time he says it.
  • All clothes consist entirely of logos (usually foods).
  • Then there are the misspellings, that seem to accumulate over time due to mankind getting stupider. To list them, they are Buttfuckers, Nas-Tea, Uhmerican Exxxpress and St<A>r8ucks, along with some others.

Literature

• In Space Beasts, during a chase scene, Big Bad Bimbolurlina stops chasing the Fellowship crew for....Delicious Big Johnny's Ham Sandwiches
• In Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, a bunch of advertising executives representing a breakfast-cereal company meet with the producer of a Bible Times drama series sponsored by their client to debate the question: "How do we identify King David with Crackle-Crunchies?" They variously propose having David Time Travel into the twentieth-century to eat Crackle-Crunchies and David having a vision of God presenting him with a bowl of Crackle-Crunchies. The producer's own idea is to have King David invent the delicacy of Crackle-Crunchies and write down the secret formula in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• How to Be a Superhero lists this as one of the downsides of having a corporate sponsor:
  They [the sponsor] insist that you use their products in the fight against crime.
  • (This may be OK if they manufacture napalm, titanium plating or radar equipment, but it's not much use if they make children's clothing, toothpaste or sanitary napkins...)
• In Moving Pictures, C.M.O.T. Dibbler notices that if a single frame advertising the local eatery is accidentally left in and causes people to think about eating there for lunch, sticking five minutes' worth of the frame right in the middle of the movie will work even better. Dibbler adds increasingly blatant product placement for Harga's House of Ribs into Blown Away (set during the Ankh-Morpork Civil War, 300 years before Harga opened his doors) in a desperate attempt to break even, much to his nephew Soll's disgust.
  Sol: Hey, you there! Fifteenth knight along! Would you mind unfurling your banner? Thank you. Could you pop along and see Mrs Cosmopolite for a new one? Thank you!
  C.M.O.T.: It's ... it's a heraldic device.
  Sol: Crossed ribs on a bed of lettuce?
  C.M.O.T.: Very keen on their food, these old knights.
  Sol: And I liked the motto. "Every (k)night is gourmay night at Harga's House of Ribs". If we had sound, I wonder what his battlecry would have been?
  :: And later, as the city-set burns:
  C.M.O.T.: I hope Gaffer's concentrating on the tower. Very important symbolic landmark.
  Sol: It certainly is. So important, in fact, that I sent some lads up it at lunchtime just to make sure it was all OK.
  C.M.O.T.: You did?
  Sol: Yes. And do you know what they found? They found someone had nailed some fireworks to the outside. Lots and lots of fireworks, on fuses. It's a good thing they found them because if the things had gone off it would have ruined the shot and we'd never be able to do it again. And, do you know, they said it looked as though the fireworks would spell out words?
  C.M.O.T.: What words?
  Sol: Never crossed my mind to ask them. Never crossed my mind. [Beat] "Hottest ribs in town!" Really!
• In Bubble World, ads for Tracey's Famous Coffee are everywhere in Bubble World.
  There's nothing like a coffee cloud to start your day the Tracey way!
• In The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles, there's a shoe store that only offers movie tie-in shoes. Tim Tebow gets a pair of Hitch sneakers; they don't cost him anything, but in return he has to tell everyone about Hitch—the romantic comedy with a twist, starring Will Smith! Now available on DVD!

Live-Action TV

• The Cry of Mann: On the parody after-show Tanking Mann, Becca and Rebecca get sponsored by a coffee-company called Colombe and "subtly" show off their drinks to the audience, complete with a zoom. Despite this, they don't even seem to enjoy the product, endorsing it just for the money. This meant to be another clear sign that Tanking Mann is not a good show, and that the people behind it don't actually care about what they're doing.
• The D-Generation: In one sketch, the director of a historical drama about Caroline Chisholm refuses to compromise his vision by resorting to an absurdly anachronistic product placement deal with Burger Palace. Gilligan Cut to a scene containing exactly that, with one of the characters quite obviously turning a soft drink cup to face the camera.
• Jane the Virgin skewers its Post sponsorship by having it appear as In-Universe product placement on Rogelio's telenovela, which leaves the creators wondering how to insert Honey Bunches of Oats into a climactic episode of a dramatic historical telenovela.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • WandaVision: Each of the sitcom parody episodes have in-universe advertisements, such as the Stark Toastmaster 2000, the Strucker Watch ("He'll make time for you!"), and HYDRA Soap. They're also astoundingly (but deliberately) misogynistic as hell, to match the decades they're supposedly from. Eventually, things move into the 2000's, so the fake ads include a Totally Radical claymation yogurt ad that suddenly veers off in a much darker direction, and an ad for an antidepressant that's supposed to make you stop thinking It's All About Me.
  • Ms. Marvel (2022) parodied Marvel's old Hostess Fruit Pies ads in the third episode with a short scene where Yusuf Khan buys one and gushes about how delicious they are.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus loved this, from a sketch which speculated on The BBC having to take on advertising (resulting in a costume drama sponsored by "Trim-Jeans" with hilariously inappropriate Product Placement) to an animated fairy-tale segment wherein the terrible dragon starts plugging Crelm toothpaste.
• Muppets Now: Miss Piggy's final segment of Lifestyle is brought to you by... Leaky Bucket! Which appears to be a garden variety bucket. Piggy gets increasingly irate with how it has nothing to do with the topic of her show, eventually taking it out on the bucket, only to find it's actually surprisingly durable.
• Stargate SG-1: In "Space Race", Carter joins up with an alien to participate in a spaceship race. The TV broadcast covering the race is half commentary and half cheesy shilling for the products of the MegaCorp that sponsors it.
• Studio C uses Dasani sponsorship ads as a running gag.
  • In The Gary and Carl Show sketches, Gary and Carl claim to be ad free while blatantly advertising Dasani. Eventually they start stealing the taglines from other companies.
    Dasani, A 15 minute call could save you 15% or more on your car insurance.
  • The vlog-running mafia member from The Vlogfather is sponsored by Dasani. He makes a victim hold a water bottle for product placement, and pauses to give a pitch while breaking into the house of a rival gang.
• In The Office (US), one of the signs of Michael Scott's ignorance towards New York despite his repeated visits there is the fact that his "favorite New York pizza joint" is a Sbarro.

Music

• "Subaru Crosstrek XV" by Hobo Johnson is a Car Song that goes into so much detail about the specifications of the car that it's practically a commercial for the car, particularly in a spoken outro that in the video is overlaid by text disclaiming that it's not a commercial or sponsored by Subaru in any way.
• "Dream Girl" by The Lonely Island starts with the announcement "The following song is brought to you by Chex Mix", which initially comes off as a Non Sequitur as the lyrics go on to describe the narrator's crush on an unattractive, unhygienic, possibly violently insane woman. This turns out to be a Brick Joke when the last verse goes out of its way to mention Chex Mix three separate times, then the last chorus turns into a full-on jingle for the product.

Podcasts

• Welcome to Night Vale will feature "a word from our sponsors" in every episode, all of which are the creepiest of DadaAds or just the announcer making weird noises into the microphone for two minutes, followed by a disturbingly peppy announcement of the company and their slogan.
• In-universe in The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) the eponymous radio Variety Show's "Guest vocalist" Romica the Singing Saw appears to be the Circus' blatant in-show promotion of its sponsor, Samuel Saws, who are reaping the benefits of the Circus' popularity.
• Behind the Bastards: In addition to his incessant Biting-the-Hand Humor, Robert will frequently announce before ads that some supposed major corporate sponsor is doing something horrible, like buying a private island to hunt children for sport.

Print Media

• Wizard:
  • One ad issue featured Jesse Custer and the cast of Preacher in a mock-Hostess fruit pies ad.
  • Another issue featured the 'heroes' of Marvel Zombies. Instead of fruit pies, they find two kids. Two tasty kids.
• In the MAD parody of The Matrix, MoreForUs explains how artificial intelligence has been using human beings as an energy source, and he holds up a battery to show where that energy is stored. The protagonist asks if it's an ordinary battery, and MoreForUs says that it isn't: "It's a Duracell Ultra! It contains at least 20% more humans than any other battery!"

Theatre

• A Running Gag in A Very Potter Sequel is Ron's love of Red Vines, which takes the form of him stopping scenes to offer people Red Vines, usually turning to face the audience and prominently displaying the logo. Ron seems to view them as a panacea and shills them as such.

Video Games

• In Grand Theft Auto V, the Show Within a Show Fame or Shame features Imran Shinowa, a judge who plugs various products whenever he gets the opportunity to do so (or is prompted to, whichever comes first).
• In Poker Night at the Inventory, Strong Bad may get Max to plug Telltale Games' online store during a game, directly to the camera,
  Strong Bad: Other than HOMESTAR RUNNER DOT COM, do you have any other favorite websites, Max?
  Max: Huh? I’ve got some favorite sites for laying in wait for criminals and general ne’er-do-wells around the city, if that’s what you’re asking.
  Strong Bad: I said, do you have any favorite websites, Max? [sotto voce] You’re gonna cost me fifty bucks!
  Max: Oh! [stilted tone] When I’m on the inter-net, I can’t stay away from double-u double-u double-u dot telltale games dot com slash store. [grin]

Visual Novels

• Mentioned in an April Fools' Day announcement for Katawa Shoujo, which would insert "sponsored lines" at random intervals, and subscribers could turn them off.

Web Animation

• Parodied in This Zero Punctuation episode.
  GAMETRADERS ROBINA
• Invention Pioneers of Note parodies this in Season 4, which contains multiple instances of forced and awkward product placement, as well as itself being a thinly disguised commercial for a restaurant.
• RWBY has an in-universe example. One of the students at Beacon, Pyrrha Nikos, is a Famed In-Story warrior and athlete. Jaune only recognizes her from her appearance on the front of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes cereal boxes.
  Pyrrha: "Yeah. It was pretty cool. Sadly the cereal isn't very good for you."
  • A later RWBY Chibi sketch involves her making a commercial for the cereal... where she visibly cannot stand the taste of it.
• Terrible Writing Advice has Stingers where various evil archetypes fight over the sponsor as if it was the secret to world domination or whatever evil goal they have.

Webcomics

• Double Subverted in a Captain SNES: The Game Masta crossover with a good deal of Lampshading. The Captain engages a Magus/Lavos hybrid after the original party was wiped out. Alex offers Mavos a SNES Fruit Pie, to which Mavos is disgusted at the blatant product placement. He takes it anyways and finds they are actually pretty good, but will still eat Alex's soul regardless. Then it turns out Alex spiked the fruit pies with Chocopectate and sends Mavos running toward the nearest bathroom.
• A recaptioned Hostess ad◊ appears in the gender bending parody Jet Dream Remix Comic. The fruit pies have significant side effects, but they are apparently considered desirable ones.
• The Order of the Stick did a parody of Hostess's Fruit Pie ads in this comic strip.
• This Questionable Content guest strip reveals the reason Faye's dad committed suicide...and segues into a plug for Hostess Fruit Pies.

• Shadowgirls also get in on the fun.
• Used in Shortpacked! to set up a joke about Hostess going out of business.
• In Something*Positive, Davan created stats for a villain from one of those Hostess ads and managed to capture his players, making Jason want to know the saving throw to commit suicide so he wouldn't be killed by such a pathetic villain.
  • Parodied (or Deconstructed?) in Super Stupor, also by R.K. Milholland, as the hero uses these to talk down Deathmaw - only to lament doing so because they feed into Deathmaw's eating disorder, and he hasn't been getting his diabetes treated.
    Deathmaw: Only Pinkee Cakes ever cared about me. Pinkee Cakes... and you.
• A postmodern dadaist version of Delicious Fruit Pies
• Played for Drama in Spinnerette, when Spinny visits her hometown and discovers that her childhood bully is mind controlling the whole town using drugged fruit pies.
• For a brief while, John Campbell claimed that pictures for sad children was being sponsored by the Long John Silver's restaurant chain. He made these two pages during that time, and for the duration of the joke, the pages in question were colored blue and yellow and the plain white background of the website was replaced with a splash ad for LJS.
• Nuzlocke Comics poked a bit of fun at the concept after his site introduced ads.
  • As did◊ Concerned.
• Oreos, saving squirrels from being eaten since 1912. At least according to the squirrel Sid from Sandra and Woo.
• Neglected Mario Characters is absolutely plastered with ads for a poker playing website, so they mocked this with both a poker machine being the "comic president" and the entertaining quote at the bottom of the page:
  Just as a note, Jay wrote these articles as a Mario fan. Unfortunately, he did not play poker. That is why we had to get rid of him. Some of parts of his writing come from factual Nintendo information. Which gets in the way of the gambling. The rest was his own imagination. After Jay left, others continued in his stead, until becoming addicted to poker.
• Homestuck has some jokey references to Betty Crocker (with Gushers being used as health items) and Doritos (with Bro's shitty, glitch-filled licensed skateboarding game.) The former company factors more and more into the story until it's revealed that Betty Crocker herself is Her Imperious Condescension, the ruler of the trolls, and rules the earth (as well as Derse) in the kids' Alpha timeline. Jane is also the heiress to the company in said timeline.
• In Knights of Buena Vista, the game "FantasiaLand" (used for the settings in the Campaign Comic) has some product placement. Or at least Bill guesses that's why Haagan-Dazs is included in settings that take place well before that company existed.
• In a strip from The Petri Dish, Dr. Thaddeus Euphemism drinks Coca-Cola with a human-sized Coke can behind him. Bob says, "So we're making money with not-so-subtle product placements now?". The next strip reveals that it was their boss Gordon Noble's idea and it was indeed an idea to make money.

Web Videos

• Italian Spiderman parodies this trope, with the "Il Gallo" (a fictional label, mind you) cigarettes often smoked by the main character — he even blatantly exhibits them during one episode.
• The Irate Gamer: In his Yo! Noid review, he notes at the beginning that the game's developer sold out by making a bad game based on a Domino's Pizza mascot. As he reviews the game, he wonders why Domino's would do such a thing. He then gets a check from Domino's and decides that selling out isn't a bad thing and starts promoting and namedropping random products ("After all, a logo can go a long way.") while praising the game. He finally stops when he sees how bad the ending is and decides that he'll only sell out to himself.
• Tobuscus manages to parody this trope and play it straight at the same time. His schtick is to get paid by advertisers to produce parody videos about their products, under the theory that humor creates buzz. On the other hand, some of his videos are straight parodies, such as the FarmVille series (which almost got him in copyright trouble due to an overzealous Zynga employee). As if that weren't enough, any time a brand name appears in any of his videos or he mentions one in passing, he yells "Sponsor!", whether the appearance is sponsored or not.
• The Nostalgia Critic's review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture:
  Critic: So to put it bluntly, he'll be back after these messages. [lights start dimming] No, hey what are you doing? That was a joke. It wasn't serious. It wasn't serious. No, hey, what are you doing? STOP! [a real blip ad plays and then the lights come back on] Chester, report!
  Chester A. Bum: We are being intersected by a word from our sponsor!
  Critic: Dammit. These advertising execs are getting more and more clever. Raise our shields against anymore commercial plugs!
  Chester: Yes sir. Incidentally, this swing of the shields is brought to you by the delicious taste of Diet Coke.
  Critic: Chester!
  Chester: Sorry, sorry.
• RedLetterMedia in their Half in the Bag series ended their Jack and Jill review by purposely shoving various products in front of the camera, mocking the movie's overuse of it.
• Some of the challenges in Desert Bus for Hope. "This episode of Qwerpline is brought to you by Jack Flank's Plank Flank Blank Shank."
• The product placement for U by Kotex feminine hygiene products is relatively subtle in Season 1 of Carmilla the Series and quite subtle in Season 2, before returning with a hilarious vengeance in the first episodes of Season 0 in the form of a mountain of pads and tampons.
• CDZA and The Key of Awesome did a crossover video parodying the overuse of this trope in hip hop songs, entitled "Hip Hop Shopping Spree".
• The Spoony Experiment: In the review of The Dungeonmaster, Spoony jokes that the villain's name Mystema "sounds like some sort of hemorrhoid infection, or some sort of tropical disease" and then we see commercial-style testimonials from some of the other Channel Awesome contributors who are "suffering" from mystema. Dr. Insano then presents "XCALIBR8" (the name of the artificial intelligence/technology created by the hero) as a medicated lotion that can cure mystema, followed by more Channel Awesome testimonials.
• El Bananero:
  • His most famous videos and the reason he becomes a referent for Latin American youtubers is thanks to his Infomercials that parody existing products, as well creating new ones, all of them with the "call now" placement. Some of his most famous "products" are Sofa-natico, Kit MacGyver, Gas-T-Rico and Gaytorade.
  • The most notable case of Continuity Nod about the above is Muñeca System, an inflated sex doll that can do a lot of things apart of being just a sex doll which Infomercial became El Bananero's first success. Well, with the time, Muñeca System became his girlfriend (a Yandere one, by the way) and appeared in a lot of videos and even has a dedicated Halloween Episode as the Fetishized Abuser.
  • He also made his own beer, Cerveza Melorto ("Beer Metheasshole"), with a proper ads with an Ode to Intoxication (parody of Argentinian beer ads that use this resource).
• Parodied by CollegeHumor in "Wait: Is This Video BRANDED?!" in which the four characters deny accusations from the others that they're being a corporate shill while shilling products themselves. This includes Trapp holding a potato chip bag so that the logo is prominently visible, Grant hawking his phone's capabilities like he's being filmed, and Katie getting a Dramatic Wind to blow back her hair when she drinks a soda.
• Bennett the Sage has done these as occasional gags in his anime review series Anime Abandon:
  • At the end of a gory scene in the "Genocyber Part I" review^note in which a scientist wakes up to find that he's handcuffed to a bed and his torso has been flayed down to the skeleton, a "Not going anywhere? Grab a Snickers!" "ad" pops up.
  • In the X review, he calls out a blatant scene where the main character drops down in front of a Coke billboard.
    Subtle product placement there, Potzi. Well, you can count on me to keep artistic integrity and keep corporate sponsorship at a bare minimum...just like the prices at your local Sizzler. *cut to a Sizzler "ad" that ends with "At least we're not Denny's!"*
  • While reviewing Burn Up!, Sage notices that one of the bit bad guys looks a lot like Wilford Brimley, which leads to an extended parody of Brimley’s memetic plugs for Liberty Medical.
• In Todd in the Shadows' review of 6ix9ine and Nicki Minaj's "Trollz," he pauses the video to announce his videos are now sponsored and begins to shill Pop Tarts, covering up Nicki's breasts in the music video with two boxes of Pop Tarts. Then he gets a text that no sponsors want to be associated with the video, all his sponsorships are cancelled, and he's banned for life from eating Pop Tarts.
• SMPLive has "JokoPods", a parody of Apple AirPods.

Western Animation

• Dexter's Laboratory had a segment with Captain America expy Major Glory and his "Justice Fruit Pies".
  Mathemagician: Not Justice Fruit Pies! The Delicious treat you'd have to be crazy to hate! Oooh, I give up!
• The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Mermaid Man vs. Spongebob" had ad with Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy advertising the "New Krusty Kids Meal" at the Krusty Krab.
  Man Ray: How can I be evil with flavors this good?
• Van Beuren Studios "The Sunshine Makers" was originally made as a promotional film for a long forgotten product called Borden's Milk, which is used in the cartoon as "Sunshine Milk" to make the evil gnomes happy.
• In an episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Harvey Birdman's drink suddenly turns into a can of Tab. Then there is an extended live-action sequence where Birdman and a 5-foot can of Tab frolic on the beach.
• Sealab 2021:
  • A few episodes are choked with fake ads for Grizzlebee's, a riff on the Kitschy Themed Restaurant. "Grizzlebee's: You'll wish you had less fun!"
  • And at that, the episode "Tinfins" was itself one long advertisement for a fake movie, interspersed with advertisements for a fake restaurant.
  • Not to mention during the interviews with the makers of the movie, they clearly had Grizzlebee's.
  • As Captain Murphy learns, you don't mess with corporate sponsors.
• Frisky Dingo had some fun with this, as an entire episode simultaneously hawked and mocked the Scion TC: Killface plans to spread his plans for world domination on Live with Mitzi & Verl, but his first segment got bumped because the hosts were so caught up in discussing the car, then it takes up a good chunk of his second segment as well, before he sarcastically screams that once he takes over the world, "you won't have much use for 17-inch alloy wheels". The studio crew takes this impetus to show ad footage of the Scion behind him as he rants about everyone falling victim to "Scion fever", which the hosts and crowd also take and run with. He then storms out of the studio, and gets splashed with mud by a passing Scion TC.
• Futurama:
  • A few jokes mocked this by putting advertising in dreams, and also with Nixon's repeated shilling for "Charleston Chew" during his speeches, although that one might be a matter of them finding Nixon saying "Charleston Chew" hilarious.
    Futurama is brought to you by: Molten Boron!
    Female Voice: Nobody doesn't like Molten Boron!
  • Used again in the "Gunderson's Nuts Holiday Spectacular Featuring Futurama"
    Amy: They're nut so good!
  • By the year 3002, the Academy Awards have added Best Soft Drink Product Placement as an award category, and product placement seems to have become a film genre in itself. Nominees include They Call Me Mr. Pibb and Snow White and the 7Ups. Another episode shows that Star Trek: The Pepsi Generation won an Emmy.
• The Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Boost Mobile" features the titular cell phone as an actual character who has moved in with the core cast after Shake took an in-universe product placement deal, much to everyone else's annoyance.
• American Dad!:
  • Parodied in "Black Mystery Month", when Steve and Stan stop at a Burger King:
    Steve: Why did we have to come to a Burger King to read the map?
    Stan: Because the economics of television have changed, Steve. [awkwardly, towards the camera] Have it... your way!
  • Ironically, Burger King was the first sponsor American Dad ever had, and just a few episodes before "Black Mystery Month", two characters visited Burger King with absolutely no trace of parody whatsoever.
• The Venture Brothers:
  • In one episode, the favored cigarettes of notorious badass Brock Sampson is revealed to be Marlboro cigarettes — which in the Venture Bros.-verse are called "Manboro".
  • King Gorilla, one of Monarch's jail buddies from the last part of Season 1 and beginning of Season 2, makes his return in the second half of Season 4. At the welcome back party King Gorilla is now suffering from lung cancer and the gift Monarch gets him? You guessed it — a carton of cigarettes.
  • "The Rusty Venture Show, brought to you by... Smoking."
• An episode of Arthur had Francine filming a music video. When asked why she put a bottle of tomato ketchup on top of a tombstone, she explained it was product placement.
• In The Proud Family, Oscar Proud managed to get his Proud Snacks onto product placement in the ending of the episode (after his attempts at getting his commercial aired resulted in it being interrupted, the first time due to a pointless breaking news story about a TV show getting cancelled, the second due to Penny protesting). It airs on a TV show, and... well, let's just say that the snacks apparently killed one of the co-stars upon ingestion on-the-air. Also counts as a subtle Take That! to The Parkers.
• The school principal from Mission Hill, after reading the announcements, gives an obviously mandatory shill for Clearasil: she says the slogan awkwardly and looks left and right as she does it.
  "Help stamp out... Zitsophrenia... with Clearasil."
• In Kim Possible, one of Dr. Drakken's schemes to Take Over the World is to distribute a mind-control shampoo. When nobody buys it for obvious reasons — namely, the label tells people what it does (Dr. D believes in truth in advertising) — he tries to get a famous rapper to plug it in a song, reasoning that people will buy anything if it's plugged in a song. When that doesn't work, he tries to become a rapper via winning an American Idol Expy in order to plug it himself.
• In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Money", Gumball's refusal to sell out to Joyful Burger has the rest of the Wattersons resort to increasingly less subtle means of Joyful Burger product placement to convince him.
• In Barbie: Video Game Hero, besides the movie being about Barbie herself, she rewrites the final level of the game as a Just Dance game.
• Neo Yokio: The show has a bizarre fascination with giant Toblerones, appearing in multiple episodes. At one point, a big Toblerone is even used as a bludgeoning weapon.
• Kaeloo: In Episode 135, the show's budget runs low (in-universe), so Kaeloo makes a deal with a sausage company to sponsor them in exchange for product placement. For the rest of the episode, Kaeloo, Stumpy and Mr. Cat stop whatever they're doing every five seconds to say something about sausages. The show's director finds this an excellent idea, so he ends up making them advertise products for several different companies.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle: In the "Wossamotta U." story, the chancellor of the university bemoans the fact that the Coke machine is being removed from the faculty lounge.
• Subverted in The Critic when Orson Welles, while in the middle of recording Franklin and Eleanor's video will, suddenly starts shilling a brand of Ms. Pell's Fishsticks.
  Welles: And remember, there is no fish stick like Mrs. Pell's.
  Lawyer: (Off-screen) This isn't a commercial.
  Welles: I know, that was just a declaration of love. (Eats one) Yes. Oh, yes! They're even better raw!
• In the Rick and Morty episode "Total Rickall", a flashback parodies product placement with special edition 3DS consoles.
  Rick: You guys, we gotta hurry! I just got back from Wal-Mart; they're selling Nintendo 3DS systems for $149.99 on sale, plus every time you buy one you get a $50 gift card! Brings the total price down to $110 after tax! Now listen: we can flip those sons of bitches for 230 bucks apiece easy! They're all limited edition Zelda ones. Hurry! Hurry, come with me! We can be rich and we also get all to keep one and we can play Nintendo games! Nintendo, give me free stuff!
• Total Drama, being its own Show Within a Show, occasionally engages in product placement from its sponsors, which are just as questionable as everything else it features. Examples include Mary's Lambburger ("Mary had a little lamb. Had."), Humpty Dumpty's Meat Shack ("At Humpty's, all the king's horses feed all the king's men!"), and Chef's Roadkill Café ("You hit it, we spit it!").
• In a Bugs Bunny cartoon, a singing commercial proclaims, "Crumbly Crunchies are the best,/They look good upon your vest!/Feed them to unwanted guests;/stuff your mattress with the rest!" It seems to be in the cartoon strictly for Rule of Funny.
• An episode of Beany and Cecil had Cecil doing a plug for "Herrings, the only smoke ge-filtered to my distaste!"
• It's Oppo initially presents itself as a fictional Nick Jr. program. The first sign of things being off occurs when partway through the short, Chester Cheetah shows up to share Cheetos with Oppo. Then things get weirder and creepier from there.

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