Appearing on the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975, host George Carlin jokes about the risks associated with traveling with a bottle of generic, unmarked vitamins. “If a policeman really wants to give you a hard time, he can hold you overnight while they check the vitamins,” he says before switching to his broadcaster voice. “That’s why I travel with Flintstones vitamins.”
The joke here has two levels of absurdity. One is a grown man traveling with children’s cartoon vitamins to avoid being harassed by the police. The other is that a recognizable brand might, in some way, protect us.
Four decades after Carlin mocked the concept of dropping a plug for kids’ vitamins in a monologue, NBC announced that SNL would be adopting a new business model. The show would run fewer traditional commercials and instead integrate more branded content into the show itself. Brands would work with SNL’s team to be featured in a limited six spots per year, which would also ensure that the branded content would still be featured as clips of the show are placed online.
Six years after announcing this new approach, SNL’s branded sketches have become a gross exercise in capitalism and comedy. Each of these sketches vie to see which one can be the most transparent, lazy, and stacked with cross-promotional opportunities. Let me show you what I mean.
The most recent branded sketch is also maybe the least offensive. We have a sketch based around the upcoming release of Street Fighter 6. The joke is that one of the voice actors is making inappropriate comments and sound effects. The set prominently features the Street Fighter 6 logo, and we’re even treated to a bit of game footage. Over on Twitter, the official Street Fighter account made sure everyone was in on the bit.
Last October SNL drew a bit of controversy with a sketch starring the Charmin bears and featuring a bit of intrafamily drama over toilet paper college. Some of this stemmed from claims of plagiarism of an animated short posted online prior to the season 48 premiere. Additional concern was raised when the Charmin sketch played adjacent to an actual ad for the toilet tissue on the Peacock platform. NBC assured everyone this was completely coincidental.
As SNL has become more comfortable with shoehorning branded content into its episodes, the sketches have gotten denser in terms of cross-promotion. No longer do sketches stop at promoting a single product. No, this is the era of corporate synergy.
A focus group is an easy premise in which to set a branded sketch. We saw this with SNL’s sketch simply titled “Blue Bunny” after the popular ice cream brand. Early on in the sketch, after the Blue Bunny brand is presented front and center, several characters declare their appreciation for Bomb Pops. Of course, both brands are owned by the same parent company, Wells Enterprises. Unlike the Charmin bears, this is just one big, happy corporate family.
Lastly I want to show you what might be the most egregious bit of sponsored content in SNL’s history. Simply titled “Arby’s,” this four-and-a-half minute sketch is quite literally a commercial for Arby’s incredibly affordable roast beef sandwiches. But wait, there’s more.
Halfway through, the sketch transitions from the incredible deals at Arby’s to those of Taco Bell. We go from five roast beef sandwiches for only $10 to the new $5 box only at Taco Bell. Our cast of characters is shocked — shocked, I say — that such deals can even be possible. Then one of them literally describes the four for $4 deal at Wendy’s. That’s a third brand, people. We have a hat trick.
As you’d expect by now, Arby’s, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s all fall under the corporate umbrella of the Flynn Restaurant Group. The restaurant management outfit began acquiring Taco Bells in 2012 and has continued to branch out into other franchise opportunities across the country.
It’s not that these sketches are necessarily unfunny. It’s more that they feel slimy.
SNL’s commercial parodies used to stand out as one of the show’s more compelling components. All the pockets of the world where you could go without being sold to were disappearing, but at least we could mock those who were making it happen. But they just keep finding new ways to buy their way in.
Just like those incredible deals at Arby’s.
