Nowadays, it’s not unusual for soap operas to resort to awkwardly timed product placements as a way to get extra money for the show. Hitfix reported that last week on General Hospital, currently the longest running soap opera that’s on air, Ned Ashton (Wally Kurth) and Olivia Falconeri (Lisa LoCicero) are talking and Olivia brings up that the new Doctor Strange movie is coming out and that there’s no one she’d rather see it with.
The name dropping of Doctor Strange may seem weird, but both General Hospital and Doctor Strange come from Disney, since Disney owns both ABC, where General Hospital airs, and Marvel, the studio where Doctor Strange comes from, which makes sense as to why there’s cross-promotions of the movie on the show.
After the awkward scene, people took to Twitter to make fun of the placement.
But, of course, the Doctor Strange/General Hospital promotion isn’t the only shameless product placement on soap operas over the years. A few years back, NBC’s long running soap opera Days of our Lives must have received a great product deal from General Mills, as they repeatedly had Cheerios placed into different scenes of the show.
In one scene, Melanie (Molly Burnett) and Nathan (Mark Hapka) are trying to study for a test for Melanie’s nursing school and decide to help move the studying along with a nice bowl of Cheerios.
In another scene, fan-favorite couple Bo (Peter Reckell) and Hope (Kristian Alfonso) also talk about all the health benefits that Cheerios, since Bo didn’t do so well on his latest police department physical.
Perhaps the most awkward of all product placements on the show comes from a scene in the Brady Pub, where Caroline (Peggy McCay) says she’s going to make some more Wanchai Ferry Chinese food for Sami (Alison Sweeney), Rafe (Galen Gerig) and her kids. But, since Caroline works and owns her own pub, wouldn’t it make more sense for her to give her grandkids and great-grandchildren food from her pub? Not in the logic of Days of our Lives.
Of course, bad product placement isn’t just saved for soap operas. When The Secret Life of the American Teenager was on the air, the show also aired a badly placed product promotion in one of the scenes between Kathleen (Josie Bissett) and Grace (Megan Park).