This Rant Brought To You By Panda Green Cola - It's Cola, But Green!

Imagine the scene. Chad McSquarejaw has just discovered his arch nemesis' plans for world domination. He now faces a race against time to reach Captain Bastard's lair on the other side of town. But before that he still has time to slurp down his favourite cola based drink. My that looks tasty. What brand is it. Oh the label on the can is facing straight at camera. Now the camera's zooming in just in case there are glaucoma patients in the back row. Now Chad's placed the can on a table so it dominates the mise-en-scene (DRINK PEOPLE!). Mmmm, I suddenly could go a Panda Cola for some reason. I wonder if they sell them here? Oh they do, in a cup with Chad McSquarejaw's face emblazoned on it.

Obviously the above scenario is the work of fiction, the major studios keep ignoring my script for 'Chad McSquarejaw and the Panda Pops Adventure', the bastards, but one trip to the local multiplex will tell you that by replacing Chad with Spiderman and the word Panda for Pepsi it's not all that far-fetched, although I seriously doubt the makers of the Panda line of soft drinks have the lobbying power to court Hollywood.

Corporate sponsorship, and the subsequent product placement, is nothing new. Any day now someone will restore one of those early films like 'A Trip To The Moon' and discover in tiny writing 'Levis' written up the rocket, I know the timeline might be off but I can't really be arsed researching what is a rather lame joke. The first solid case appears to be all the free publicity D.W. Griffith gave to the Klan in 'Birth Of A Nation' in return for a matching cloak and hood set (white), a wooden cross and some lighter fluid. Hollywood and the major companies have never looked back.

Product placement has now evolved into a two way thing. The product appears in the movie, the movie character appears in adverts for the product. Now we have James Bond popping up in between saving the world and pumping every half-decent bird in sight to tell us we should use Nokia phones because he does. We'll ignore the fact that while Nokia, or whatever phone company, went all out to create a phone that messages, records and plays video, has a built in MP3 player, shoots poisonous darts, can tap into the Pentagon's super computer, iron your shirt, make the perfect ham sandwich (two bits of plain Mother's Pride, slice of ham, that is all), and shockingly phone someone even when the user is in the countryside or a pub, for Bond us mere mortals will have to put up with a bog standard phone. I really don't get this idea of wanting a product because a fictional character uses it. I don't feel motivated to use something when it's endorsed by a real person, assuming anyone in Hollywood is actually real and not some creation of the Matrix (shhhhh, they're not ready yet). If Jade Goody recommends a curry house I see it for the shameless PR opportunity that both sides are using it for. When James Bond uses some fad gadget that isn't even available to me it motivates me even less to use that product. I'm not an internationally renowned superspy, and if i was I don't really see how the ability to Bluetooth homemade porn is of any use to me at all. All I'm saying is if I do buy a phone at the behest of Mr. Bond I at least want a feature that allows me to use it as a sniper rifle, or, if that's too dangerous, some breathing apparatus in case Blofeld pops open a trap door and I end up in a tank full of sharks. I doubt the ability to take grainy video is going to come in handy then. Get it sorted phone companies!

I want to see Bond as a real guy just trying to do his job as we would see how he would really react. "What do you mean I can't drive the Aston Martin? Why not Q? The makers didn't pay enough for their car to feature? What am I driving instead?" The look on his face when Q presents him with a Citroen C5 would be priceless. "God damn those French lobbying powers" he'd be heard to mutter under his breathe. I can imagine marching into M's office, "what's this that I need to wear Armani shoes on this mission? I'm climbing a fucking mountain!"

Keep all of this in mind as we embrace the news that Indy 4 is coming. I'm just dreading that the following is something we will see: Indy picks up the treasure. He smiles. Suddenly the ancient room begins to shake. Columns tumble and masonry falls from the ceiling. Indy runs through the doorway clutching the treasure. As he runs through another room arrows fire at him. He uses his whip to swing across a gaping wound in the floor. Suddenly a huge boulder rolls down from above. Indy runs with all of of his might. At the last minute he evades the boulder and rolls out of the exit to the temple. He picks himself up and dusts himself off. Then he turns to camera. "Hi, I'm Indiana Jones and in my hectic life I don't have time to be bothered by the pain caused by hemorrhoids so I use Anusol."

'Chad McSquarejaw and the Panda Pops Adventure' and the characters of Chad McSquarejaw and Captain Bastard are copyright Big Red. Or at least they will be if I can work out how to get that little circle c thing.