Underhand Pitches

Next they’ll be marketing silk purses as sows’ ears. These days, self-deprecation, brutal honesty, and impolitic carping are preferred sales strategies. Consider these recent promos. — Caroline Kepnes, Missy Schwartz, and Karen Valby

Even perpetual underdog George Costanza might be horrified. In late October, ABC began airing five ads for Jason Alexander’s ratings-challenged sitcom, Bob Patterson…starring Alexander’s old costar Jerry Seinfeld (left). ”I have noticed a resemblance between Bob Patterson and an actor that I used to work with,” Seinfeld smirks in one spot, ”although I don’t see any resemblance in the ratings.” Ouch! Says a rep for Seinfeld: ”Jason Alexander sent in a few scripts and Jerry chose the ones he liked best.” Still, the spots are a far whine from earlier ABC rhetoric. Last July, ABC Entertainment cochairman Lloyd Braun declared a ”jihad” on NBC’s Tuesday lineup, dubbing Bob his anti-Frasier weapon. But since ABC bumped Bob to Wednesdays after just three airings, we bet he’d eat those words faster than you can say The Michael Richards Show.

How do you sell a twice-remade horror flick? Brag about your R rating, for starters. In TV ads for Thirteen Ghosts, the voiceover trumpets American Pie’s Shannon Elizabeth (pictured, right) and then notes: ”This film has been given an R rating for horror, violence, gore, nudity, and some language.” Director Steve Beck says he had no part in the decision to spell out the ratings advisory, but he’s down with it. (Warner Bros. declined to comment.) ”If you think about 17-year-old boys and graphic violence and nudity,” says Beck, ”boy, they’re probably running for the theaters.” You can almost smell the burning rubber.

And now a word from our anti-sponsor: Jonathan Franzen, the notoriously reluctant Oprah Book Club novelist, stopped by Manhattan’s ultrahip KGB bar Oct. 28 to read from his bestselling tome, The Corrections. But when the event’s host invited questions from the largely bespectacled crowd, the embattled author sniffed: ”It’s so chain bookstore to do a Q&A.” And it’s so Franzen to alienate more potential readers.