South Carolina House of Representatives employee and independent filmmaker James “Bubba” Cromer is suing Showtime and HBO for switching his “hysterical Appalachian comedy” with a soft-core porno of the same name. It sucks to be blasted by disgusted friends and lawmakers mistaking Cromer for a smut-lite peddler, but maybe “The Hills Have Thighs” wasn’t the best title choice? It just begs the error of a space alien abduction, hillbillies and babes tale being mistaken for something… unclassy.
Weeds, which finished season four in September and has five and six on the way, has been a big score for Showtime—both here in America and abroad. And this type of creative cable programming has inspired some very creative promo ideas (remember this morbid but fun piece of NYC taxi advertising for The Sopranos?). First up (left), to help promote season three in Sweden, ad agency Le Bureau in Stockholm recently sent out these huge thc-free hemp fatties to press and media outlets with the tagline “Seriously Good Shit.” It’s a good, cheap way to make a memorable impression, because any time you can make a business contact keep your promo piece around the office for a while, you’ve succeeded. And I’m sure almost none of these were immediately tossed. Just looking at that dubious doobie is giving me contact munchies. Secondly, FCB New Zealand erected a 3-D billboard (right) with two six-foot sandwiches and some prop pop in baggies tagged with the line “a single mom dealing with life’s problems.” I’m not as high on this idea, but the agency did report that the fake weed was quickly stolen. Probably some of it was idiotically smoked, too. OK, I GOTTA go get lunch.
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