Watching Queens Of Mystery last night (a story involving an old Rock Band reforming but I won't go into that) got me wondering about why characters in TV shows never use Google. My initial thought was that perhaps it constituted product placement but a quick WebSeek found an article from TV Insider that suggests getting the right permissions from Google is not easy.
I know I have seen a variety of non-Google sites over the years but apart from last night's example - which I thought was rather clever - I can only currently recall one other. Does anyone else have a fictitious TV Seach Engine to add to the list?
WebSeek - Doctors
SirCheesy - Queens of Mystery
Voggle - Coronation Street
Fictitious search engines in TV shows
Re: Fictitious search engines in TV shows
Didn't John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme do a sketch based on this idea? (Radio 4.)
Re: Fictitious search engines in TV shows
I wonder if it is easier to create a fictional engine rather than have problems with misrepresentation i.e. type in query and the top response tells you whodunnit, where to find them, and what the motives were. A similar thing to the almost standard disclaimer that 'Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental'.
It got me thinking about what I used before Google came along. Altavista, AskJeeves, Yahoo!, and Northern Lights all sprang to mind, but I am sure there were others. Webcrawler also seems to ring a bell. Its about 27 years ago that I first started with email, and I think 25 years since I used the web with the browser Mosaic, and then Netscape. In that time so much has come and gone, so perhaps there is also an element of not mentioning something by name, and just using an idea to keep some sort of shelf life for a programme.
It got me thinking about what I used before Google came along. Altavista, AskJeeves, Yahoo!, and Northern Lights all sprang to mind, but I am sure there were others. Webcrawler also seems to ring a bell. Its about 27 years ago that I first started with email, and I think 25 years since I used the web with the browser Mosaic, and then Netscape. In that time so much has come and gone, so perhaps there is also an element of not mentioning something by name, and just using an idea to keep some sort of shelf life for a programme.
-
Don Satchley
- 625 lines
- Posts: 359
- Joined: Sat Dec 08, 2012 7:02 pm
Re: Fictitious search engines in TV shows
Don't forget Lycos and Metacrawler!
Re: Fictitious search engines in TV shows
"All the Web", as well, that got taken over by Yahoo, but I still have it bookmarked.
-
David Smith
- 405 lines
- Posts: 88
- Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:22 pm