Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Seinfeld & The Junior Mint

Faith Barlow




Kramer is holding a box of Junior Mints when he goes to observe Roy's surgery with Jerry. It's not the logo that is necessarily prominent at first, but rather the candy and where it lands. The show revolves around this particular candy and the name is used several times throughout the episode. Jerry and Kramer go as far as to have a quick dialogue about how "refreshing" the candy is. And at the very end of the episode, Kramer offers up his mints to Roy and the doctor. The entire episode is also called 'The Junior Mint'. If that's not product integration, I don't know what is.


I believe this product is integrated into the show, obviously, as comic relief. The episode and the characters in the show all had to revolve around the Junior Mints. There is a pretty big fan base for the show so the dialogue between Kramer and Jerry was a mini-commercial for the candy. The candy just so happens to fall into Roy's body and, in turn, the two characters exchange a positive conversation about how good the candy really is.


I don't believe that the integration detracts at all from my pleasure of watching this particular show.If anything, it adds to the quality of the episode and makes it humorous. The use of the Junior Mints in this episode make the situation with Kramer more realistic even though something like that would almost never happen. It only adds to Kramer's character and also adds to the show's comedy. I believe product integration depends on the type of the show. There are times, though, that product integration is way too aggressive like in Extreme Home Makeover and it takes away from the quality of the show.
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ABOUT THE BLOG

This is the blog for the TR section of Media & Society, Fall 2008, at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. The blog will feature postings by students on a variety of media topics.