TV writer realizes people have DVR, adjusts accordingly
I watch Two and a Half Men. I think it’s funny. Entirely predictable and highly formulaic, but funny. I’m not trying to learn anything when I watch it, or expand my cultural exposure to anything whatsoever. I just like thinly veiled dick jokes on network television.
So I was somewhat surprised when I read that the show actually has a very un-predictable, un-formulaic aspect to it. And it’s the last second of every episode, literally. The show’s writer, Chuck Lorre, chooses to use the vanity cards (You know when a show ends and they remind you who produced it? That’s a vanity card.) as little personal diaries. The thing is, vanity cards usually only air for a second or two after a show ends, so you’d have to use some sort of magical time-shifting machine to actually read the entire thing. Luckily, that technology is readily available for about $9.99 a month from your local cable provider.
Shown at about 8:29 p.m. and 9:29 p.m. Eastern time, his Chuck Lorre Productions vanity cards feature an essay — usually about 100 to 200 words — on subjects such as meddling network executives, Hollywood culture and his own family drama. The messages can’t be read in full as they air, because they’re shown so briefly, but they can be read by viewers who have DVR technology with a pause button on their remote control. The cards have attracted a cult following, as well as the attention of network executives.
I have precisely zero statistics (Hey! That’s a statistic!) to support me, but I feel like DVR technology has been around for long enough and has made its way into enough households that TV types and advertising whatsits would start to alter their gameplan a bit. I’m waiting to see an ad on TV that is shown in split screen. The left side of the screen would be for regular type TV viewers stuck in the present tense, and the right side would be for time-shifting future watchers such as myself. For example, let’s say you want to advertise auto insurance. (They do some TV ads right? ) The left side of the ad would be your standard ad, and show some sort of car crash, in real time, and with sound, while the right side would show the same thing silently in slow-motion (which would appear as real-time while being fast forwarded through). Left siders get the added benefit of seeing a dramatic slow-motion car crash (a definite audience pleaser which also hammers the whole “seriously, get insurance” point home), and right-siders get to see a high-speed car crash Benny Hill style. It would be different, and people would talk about it. And that’s kind of the idea, right?
Oh, the WSJ article has a few samples of the vanity cards available, including an audio only vanity card in which Mr. Lorre plays a jazz guitar version of the Knight Rider theme he learned during the writers’ strike.
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