Product placement question in "Changeling".

November 29, 2008 4:41 PM

Did I encounter a modern product in the period film "Changeling"?

In the film "Changeling", Jolie's character fed her kid Frosted Flakes in 1928. The packaging was reminiscent of something you might see in that era. Google tells me Corn Flakes were around then and that Tony the Tiger was introduced to Sugar Frosted Flakes in the 50's. The word "sugar" was removed later.

Is my curiosity and subsequent searching for the answer to this question a result of clever marketing? Because now I kind of want a bowl of Frosted Flakes.

posted by peacecorn to food & drink (6 answers total)

According to wikipedia and to this timeline Sugar Frosted Flakes have only been around since 1952. You are entitled to make a citizen's arrest of Ms. Jolie.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 5:19 PM on November 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

My apologies--I misread. To atone, I went and looked at the Kellogg's site, which has a spiffy timeline. Sugar Frosted Flakes were in fact introduced in 1952, with Tony the Tiger as a mascot.

So, yes, you spotted an anachronism.
posted by neroli at 5:20 PM on November 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yup, definitely out of place.

(The one that made my ears burn was when the cop mentioned a "serial killer", almost fifty years before Son of Sam. Clearly someone had a fetish for serial/cereal anachronisms.)
posted by rokusan at 5:53 PM on November 29, 2008 [4 favorites]

To answer your secondary question: if it was a marketing trick, it doesn't seem to have had much impact, though something made interest spike a couple months before the film was released.
posted by rokusan at 5:56 PM on November 29, 2008

(Something.)

It seems like a misstep by the production designers, but perhaps they had a reason for the choice. For what it's worth, I also thought the protest signs seen in the trailer were wrong.
posted by dhartung at 10:10 PM on November 29, 2008

dhartung, no kidding- the protest signs in that movie were ridiculous. Some were hand-made- totally fine- but there were a lot of others that were made with some sort of printing technology that I really don't think would have existed in a regular person's home at the time. They looked like laser printer samples from Kinko's. Oh, also, keep an eye peeled for two Angelina Jolie tattoo sightings. (Also, the movie is bad.)
posted by pseudostrabismus at 6:32 PM on November 30, 2008