LOST/Hot Tub Time Machine Cross Marketing(?)(!)

This sophomore blog is proving to be more difficult than I initially anticipated. I don't necessarily want to comment on the Chicago CTA issue - I share my thoughts on that cluster-f@*! with the 18-20 people at my bus stop each morning as 2-3 buses packed with Ukrainian teenagers pass us by. Lets just say I am not happy. Good.

Last night I watched the "Lost" 6.6 in real time, which meant that I was forced to also watch commercials. The trade off is worth it - especially in this hyper-social networking culture, where, if Fake Locke were to stab Ben Linus in the face with a soldering iron, I would know within eight seconds thanks to some jack-ass in my "network" that insisted on live-tweeting the episode or what have you. Regardless of whether its right or wrong that I have my phone next to me while watching is not really the issue here. Lets move on.

What I couldn't understand was the obvious effort of MGM Studios to cross-promote "Hot Tub Time Machine" during that hour of LOST. I counted at least 4 HTTM trailers during the one-hour episode. Does this seem ridiculous to anyone else? Is someone going to get fired for this?

On one hand you have the most enigmatic television show of my generation, replete with an insane amount of backstory, allusion and allegory such that it takes some bloggers 12-15 hours to prepare a review of each episode.

On the other hand you have a Hot Tub. Which is also a time machine.

Was the ad time on the CW all booked up?

I mean, I guess if I had to, I get it. Both LOST and HTTM have elements of time travel. Last season, LOST skipped through time like a broken record, while HTTM travels back to a "Hot Dog: The Movie" 1980's ski resort set.  Both LOST and HTTM quite possibly (based on one trailer) are tales of redemption. And they each deal with death in the own ways - LOST in the form of Dogen's demise and John Cusack's career as a result of HTTM.

I think that's where the similarities stop. Really, its almost offensive to the 13+ Million viewers of LOST to suggest that we would be intrigued by the HTTM trailer.

Its like a waiter at Custom House recommending the Mountain Dew to pair with your steak. Its just ridiculous and one of the biggest marketing 'misses' I have been privy to. 

A purposed alternative to getting upset about it...

Since winding down my world famous wedding blog (My Name is On the Invite Too), I have developed writer's block. It is not for lack of trying. Believe me, dear, dear reader(s), I have tried. I took your advice and started to blog about the new Bachelor. The problem there was that Jake is so, SO, boring and the girls are so, SO, ridiculous, that I could not bring myself to blog this season (lets just say the Bachelor Franchise will always be infinitely better when the Bachelor prioritizes God somewhere after boozing with and macking down the Bachelorettes)(Sorry, God). I even flirted shamelessly with writing an unemployment blog. In the end, I thought that - no matter how cathartic that could be -  my time would be better served actually looking for a job.

As Tenacious D says "You cannot manufacture insperado" and that was exactly what I was doing here. I was pressing. I wanted to prove to people that I hadn't lost my blog fast ball - that the infinitely amusing wedding blog was not a one-off - that I was more Jason Reitman than Diablo Cody.

It was not until my wife (H) and I were driving to and from Indianapolis (3 times in 6 days) that it dawned on me - or, um, slapped me in the face. According to my wife, I tend to indulge myself a little bit too often in the way I see things - which, admittedly, is a not always congruent with the prevailing social mores.

It sounds a lot worse than it is, believe me.

Funnily, I thought when we got married that H would be the one to (gladly) listen to me and engage me as I stop the DVR during Real Housewives and attempt to hash out who is the most reprehensible housewife of them all (its Vicki); or whether Sammi Sweetheart was really at fault when Ronnie slipped and slided all over the Seaside Boardwalk to fight someone older than me; or let ramble on about how much I hate the Chicago bus system (to name a few examples).

I have never been more wrong...and it has been proven to me time and time again. I won't say H doesn't care - she does. But, after the 100th time of confirming that she is zoning me out as I discuss how ridiculous it is that a city as big as Chicago only has 4-lane Highways, I concluded that H just would rather I share some things with someone else...like you.