Filmdrunk puts together a video history of product placement in movies. Very entertaining:

I, for one, had no idea Hershey’s paid Spielberg to use Reese’s Pieces. The way I saw it, it’s entirely likely that a kid might use Reese’s Pieces to lure an alien into his house. (Also, did Speak and Spell pay anything?) I suppose since I saw E.T. long after its theatrical release — and after Reese’s Pieces were already popular — I never realized that Reese’s Pieces were relatively new when the movie came out and actually owe some of their popularity to the scene.

The whole thing seems a bit slimy, for sure. But I guess the thing is, we use, discuss, joke about and interact in various ways with consumer goods daily. I figured by now we’d be seeing more of this in television shows, since DVRs allow us to skip all the commercials and everything. I thought the use of Sun Chips as a plot device in an episode of The Office was a harbinger of more obvious product placement to come.

Now that I’m thinking about it I’m considering all the great uses of products in things I like and wondering which were remunerated. Obviously Arrested Development’s beyond meta incorporation of Burger King was genius. Did Abba Zabba pay for placement in Half Baked, or did Dave Chappelle just think Abba Zabba was the comically appropriate candy bar for that scene?

Oh, and for the record, I find most of Adam Sandler’s fast food bits in movies funny. The highlight of Little Nicky was when Sandler’s son-of-the-devil character — after needing to be coached through his first experience chewing and swallowing earthly food — declares, “Popeye’s Chicken is f@#$ing awesome.”

Because he’s right, you know.