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TV writers fight back with ‘Subservient Donald’ Excuse the pun, but we’re surprised the Subservient Chicken still has legs. We were passed the link to this site, titled “Subservient Donald,” and there were all those familiar visual cues: the black background, the little box to submit a command, the subtle come-on to “tell a friend.” Only this time, instead of a chicken glaring back at us, there was a Donald Trump impersonator. When we asked him to comb his hair, he replied, “My hair? I mean, let’s talk about something that really sucks, like Home Depot, or Pepsi, or Doritos, or my hit TV show, The Apprentice.” The show’s obsession with brand names is part of the site’s point. Click on “brought to you by,” and you’ll find that subservientdonald.com is run by West Coast members of the Writers Guild of America, who are trying to stop product-placement deals from taking over TV shows. —Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

November 18, 2005 | Permalink

Comments

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Just like TV writers to steal ideas from advertising:)

Posted by: Bob | Nov 18, 2005 9:58:39 AM

What do they want the "Apprentice" contestants to be doing projects for? The Acme Corporation? The Ajax Hand Laundry? Compared to, say, those blatant plugs for the movie "Portrait of a Geisha" on "Medium," "The Apprentice"'s product placement is natural and less forced than others.

What the WGA wants is nothing more than to drive out a popular television genre that they're not making money off of--the better to make the world safe for hack Harvard Lampoon alums to crank out sixty crappy sitcoms a week, just like they did before "Millionaire" and "Survivor" changed the face of prime time television.

Posted by: Mark Jeffries | Nov 21, 2005 11:29:16 AM

I think the point they are trying to make is that, by allowing the product placement to determine where a show goes and what is going to be required, they are going to have to work that much harder to make it look "natural".

Reality shows are scripted and the writers are supposed to make all that "spontaneous" crap look like it was spur of the moment and not carefully thought out months in advance once the contestants have been chosen. "The Apprentice" and all the others are about as real as Jerry Springer.

The real issue is that the writers on these shows are cheated out of their shares because of the "reality" angle. Reality and game shows are loved by The Suits because they are cheaper to produce than the "crappy sitcoms" or dramas, thus meaning more money in the pockets of production companies' executives.

Posted by: I.Write | Nov 21, 2005 4:23:36 PM

Anyone see Good Night and Good Luck? I don't care why the writers are doing this... it's about time... or maybe even way to late. I'm mad as hell and I'm glad someone ain't going to take this advertizing bull anymore... ENOUGH already!

Posted by: Phil | Nov 21, 2005 6:31:53 PM

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