Today I noticed something interesting in The Return of Malcolm Merriweather. Funny how that can happen even after having watched the same episode fifty times.
Anytime packages of real products (or signs advertising real products) are seen on TV, it is very common for the name of the product to be obscured. For example, there's a large thermometer (like Nurse Mary's, only bigger) at the filling station advertising Mail Pouch Tobacco, but the name is blacked out and all that can be read is the slogan, "treat yourself to the best." There is also what appears to be a yellow Pepsi soft drink machine out front with the Pepsi logo all blacked out. Anyway, in Aunt Bee's kitchen, when Malcolm is pretending to be drunk, there are two boxes of Alpha Bits cereal plainly visible on the shelf, but on one box the name is partially obliterated, showing only the letters ALP, and on the other box, ALP IT. What I can't figure out is why they would have gone to the trouble to obliterate the names on the cereal boxes, since that was and still is a Post cereal, and Post was at that time part of General Foods (not to be confused with General Mills), the sole sponsor of TAGS throughout its entire eight-year run. In that same scene, a box of Post 40% Bran Flakes can also be plainly seen (on the floor) and the prop department apparently didn't alter that box at all. Anybody got any theories? Paul Mulik _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list [email protected] http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
