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Always Sunny In Giving People A Reason To Buy: Sitcom Produces Gag Product Featured On Show

from the business-models-that-work dept

Tue, Dec 15th 2009 7:03pm — Mike Masnick

Earlier this year, we wrote about the sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which has a bit of a cult-like following among fans of the show. As we wrote, the show was doing a cool thing to connect with fans, by doing a live tour and screening a new episode in theaters around the country. It was a cool idea, and we were surprised other TV shows didn't do things like that. But, of course, the rest of our favorite "CwF + RtB" business model equation is beyond connecting with fans, you also have to give them a reason to buy. And reader Jeff alerts us to something else that the show recently did. In an episode last month that involved the various characters in the show discussing their new product ideas, at least one of them, the Dick Towel (um... NSFW) was turned into a real product (again, NSFW) and offered for sale for $20. According to Jeff, in an email he recently received from the site, so many people have ordered that they're a little late in shipping, and it looked like over 4,000 towels had been sold. Connect with fans and giving them a reason to buy appears to work with television shows as well... Of course, others have tried similar things as well, and there's even an entire company, Omni Consumer Products, that tries to license brands from movies to turn them into real products...

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Filed Under: always sunny in philadelphia, dick towel, reason to buy

10 Comments

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Ranzear (profile), 15 Dec 2009 @ 7:51pm

This reminds me of the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag, an April Fool's Prank gone totally awry with demand and was eventually licensed into a real product in time for this holiday season.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/bb2e/
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lux (profile), 15 Dec 2009 @ 8:37pm

Lawyerings
Charlie better snatch up a patent on kitten mittens before he gets Bell Lab'ed.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Dec 2009 @ 9:56pm

Re: Lawyerings
He's busy doing Charlie work.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Dec 2009 @ 7:35am

Eddie Murphy called, he wants his idea back from Beverly Hills Cop - find out how many t-shirts that school sold after the movie came out.
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Money Mike (profile), 16 Dec 2009 @ 7:47am

Re: Re: Lawyerings
I think Dee can and should do Charlie work.
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Money Mike (profile), 16 Dec 2009 @ 7:54am

Re:
Too bad for him that he called you, when he should have been calling the Patent Office. If he had patented it, he could have prevented anyone else from doing something similar ever again - or at least let them do it for a few years and then take all their profits.

I guess Eddie Murphy just doesn't understand how business works.
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nasch (profile), 16 Dec 2009 @ 9:54am

Re:
Funny thing is, that's exactly the kind of product ThinkGeek would sell. It didn't even occur to me it would be a prank when I saw it. If they want an April Fool's Day product it's going to have to be really, really over the top, or something actually impossible. Otherwise it will just look like the rest of the crazy stuff they actually sell. I love those guys...
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Dec 2009 @ 11:48am

Bird law.
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Cole, 18 Jan 2010 @ 10:59am

It rretty much looks like Beverly Hills Cop I agree. And I don't think it's good. It's like reading the same essay when you are the teacher in the class and all the students used the same essay writing service to get thir task done. Where are new ideas?
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susy, 7 Feb 2011 @ 6:34am

Such programs originated in radio, but today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms, and art forms.The most irritative thing for me when i here the laughter behind the screen. But this one http://bytesland.com/view/Britains-Best-Sitcom-Dads-Army-2004-TVRip-Xvid steel makes me fun))!
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