Word: plugs
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Some people think less of him. Says Arnold Shaw of the music-publishing firm of E. B. Marks: "Someone like Clark is a one-man trust." Adds Marty Mills of Mills Music, Inc.: "People know that Clark will lay it on [i.e., plug a song] if he's got any stake...
...before millions of viewers not long ago, Georgie went on and on about his watch, a Bulova. When being Person to Personed by Ed Murrow, Jessel lovingly showed off five clocks in his house; all five were gifts from Bulova. (Genial Georgie insists neither mention was intended as a plug...
...Such plugs, even when they grow out of genuine comedy, bring payoffs (sometimes known as payola) of varying kinds; the My Sin plug reportedly was worth more than $1,000. Sometimes the payoff goes to the performers, but usually to writers or other employees of a show. Last week the Federal Communications Commission belatedly began to investigate TV's predilection for the plug. The announcement aroused widespread dismay. Moaned Actor Walter Slezak: "Everybody has become so suspicious that if you say 'Oh, my God!' on television, people think you're being paid off by the Holy...
Everybody's Doing It. The plug system is so well organized that there are lists setting out which firms pay what-and it would not be possible if U.S. business did not eagerly go along. Many a performer jokes about the practice. Arthur Godfrey slipped in a mention of a popular brand of shoes and then conspicuously followed by specifying his own shoe size. On his NBC show, Interviewer Tex McCrary enjoyed displaying people who happened to be clients of his pressagentry firm...
Some stars play along with the racket because crack writers are tough to come by, must be pampered. According to Hollywood folklore, Jack Benny once used a quick series of five plugs which furnished the home of a writer who was about to get married. But a writer often has to exercise all his creative talents to ease in a plug. Working on a racing yarn, one writer yearned to plug a well-known drug product. Solution: he named a race horse Anahist...