Tic, Tac, Dumb

I don’t spend a lot of time in the cinema itself, it’s all payperview and downloaded crap these days, but I was with my parents and it was a choice between Atonement and… Wait! What about “Juno”? I happen to be a huge Michael Cera freak (www.clarkandmichael.com is mad hilarity) and so we went. Turns out the film’s fabulous - and finally a director, young Reitman, whose deft skill at creating coming AND serious turns, makes me sit up and go “I’ll tell everyone.”

However, there is a main character, Orange Tic Tacs, that actually threw me for a loop. Not since “My Big Fat Greek TV Movie” and the Michael Considine obsession with Windex, has a major American product placement (non-paid, I am told) been featured so “cool-y” in a major motion picture. And yet Ferrero USA, makers of the Tic Tac thang, have not done a thing to capitalize on Paul’s (Cera’s) nonstop fascination with the little orange one calorie treats (they actually use those words in the flick!).

I remember a billion years ago (94) when Quiz Show came out and Geritol was featured as a sponsor and it took six months and a few Oscar nods before that brand did anything to make hay with the news. And back then, social networking did not exist- not to mention the fact that Geritol was a sponsor of a SCANDALIZED show within the movie, so in fact it wasn’t too positive.

But heck, Ferrero, most known for Nutela and other badly-named old brands, has an opportunity to go for broke here with the one movie everyone is talking about that doesn’t star Johnny Depp.
They have their arms folded, I can tell, and it’s probably because “Juno” is about a 16-year-old pregnant kid — a brilliant and mature one, mind you — and they don’t want to get caught up in a debate about whether the candies support unwed young Mommies.

This is where the Punk mentality about making noise comes in handy. I can only hope that the Tic Tac makers out there somehow, somewhere, get their shit together and create a Tic Tac Orange subsite for people to share what’s orange about their lives — and even maybe create a little old chat room for lovers of this fine new American-made talk of the town. I want to see a Tic Tac character that, like that dancing baby of yore, appears in the oddest places throughout our Wide Web world.

If not, they are going to have orange mud all over their face. And in the DVD, you can best be sure a clever mini-doc on how Reitman and screenwriter Diago Cody (whatta name) “chose the Orange Tic Tac” …will be a wasted opportunity because by then we’ll have moved onto the next gimmick in our fast and fickle lives.

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