I was watching a Family Guy rerun yesterday evening on TBS and in the middle of the episode, Bill Engvall and his "family" pop up on the bottom of the screen and pause the show. They do a short, 10-15 sec ad about the new show, then resume the show. They did it twice in one episode.

I was really pissed off at first, and then a little impressed because it was virtually a commercial that you couldn't easily skip if you were DVRing. Might be the future of tv commercials as advertisers get more fed up with people just fast-forwarding through commercials on DVRed content.



[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 11:26 AM. Reason : example]

6/5/2008 11:25:38 AM

ya i saw that exact same thing the other night, cheeky bastids

6/5/2008 11:31:42 AM

That would piss me off a lot. It's pretty cocky.

6/5/2008 11:31:56 AM

i didnt mind it as much since it was a tbs self promotion. if it was something for dr. scholls or some shit like that i would probably be pretty angry

6/5/2008 11:46:22 AM

I noticed the commercials for different shows on whatever channel your watching will be the first one or the last one on the commercial break. Even though I fast forward through the commercials, I always get that last one, which most of the time is an advertisement for another show on the same channel.

6/5/2008 11:49:11 AM

a new way of doing the same thing

you guys dont think its a coincidence when you were watching baseball on Fox a few years ago and the entire cast of That 70's Show or some other Fox show is sitting front row at the game? and the announcers are like "hey theres the cast of That 70's Show...blah blah blah...watch it on Fox"

6/5/2008 12:01:46 PM

FUCK

I knew they were going to get around DVR somehow

damn it all

6/5/2008 12:16:33 PM

^^that's the clue to stop fast forwarding

6/5/2008 12:17:13 PM

I noticed this and its not too bad for rerun shows like this

but I'd be pissed if they did it during a first run show

like during a real tense moment on Lost, Jimmy Kimmel pops up and is like "Hey watch my show tonight...Brendan Fraser is going to be on it !" .... then it would suck

and if they ever did this to a live sports game, I'd want to fight somebody



[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM. Reason : x]

6/5/2008 12:33:04 PM

they already KIND OF do it at live sporting events...but its mainly some ad for a show on ESPN or ABC and they run it during the sporting event between downs...kind of like that retarded FOX robot but its with graphics from shows

6/5/2008 12:39:39 PM

yeah thats no so bad because theres a natural break in the action

What I'm talking about would be like theres a play at the plate and Scott Van Pelt walks in an pauses it and tells us to watch sportscenter after the game

6/5/2008 12:42:51 PM

I like it better than the ones that keep your show playing but just pop up in the corner over the top of it, cutting the volume off of the show you care about while talking for 20 seconds about the show you will never watch.

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 1:31 PM. Reason : ]

6/5/2008 1:31:18 PM

That sucks.

6/5/2008 1:34:14 PM

arrested development called fox out for doing this, although fox's commercial didn't involve pausing.

6/5/2008 1:44:48 PM

you can still fast forward through it.

6/5/2008 3:24:21 PM

x

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 3:44 PM. Reason : x]

6/5/2008 3:44:18 PM

^^not very easily. I'm not sure if all DVR's work like mine, but it will cut back a few seconds from where you actually start the fast forward. So you'd have to fast forward past the little interruption and hope you time it right so it stops just at the end. Really all you're going to save yourself is a few seconds.

6/5/2008 4:14:21 PM

the bill engvall thing was not in the middle of a show, though.

right after he went off, a preview for that stupid mike myers movie came on... so it was leading into another commercial

6/5/2008 4:16:47 PM

^the one i saw was directly in the middle of Brian's dialog and the show continued minutes before another commercial.

the video is a bad example

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 5:02 PM. Reason : add]

6/5/2008 5:01:25 PM

VERY FUNNY

6/5/2008 7:41:54 PM

it just did it on family guy again

6/5/2008 8:23:06 PM

Again.

6/5/2008 8:51:39 PM