Thanks to BoardGameNews, I found this article, "Brandtique Of The Week: The Games Hasbro Plays," which details some recent product placements on TV. Notably, all the games that show up are from Hasbro, the only company that could afford this. While I generally prefer the games of lesser-known game companies (with the exception of a few titles Hasbro produces under its Avalon Hill banner), I applaud the prime-time exposure of boardgames. The appearance of Battleship on How I Met Your Mother (featured prominently in the linked article) was a hilarious scene on a show that I watch weekly.
Most of the product placements don't feature so prominently in the show's plot. I've set a wishlist on my TiVo to automatically record any show that has the words "board game" or "boardgame" in its description, but that doesn't amount to much; the only things that my TiVo catches are replays of the movie Clue and one episode of Everybody Loves Raymond that had Raymond and his wife trying to spice up their bedroom life with a "sexy" boardgame.

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Posted by erik to HipSmart at 2/22/2006 11:07:18 AM