4th\SW Quadrant 12\10 '07

The Approval Matrix: Week of December 10, 2007

Kevin Federline Details'
"Father of the Year"

Suri Meets the Spice Girls

Free Britney posted the following on The Hollywood Gossip: Celebrity baby extraordinaire Suri Cruise spiced up her life, if you will, taking in a private concert with the recently reunited Spice Girls. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter took in a show with the group during a surprise visit in L.A. as they rehearsed.

According to the Spice Girls’ official website: “Tom and Katie enjoyed an impromptu audience with the girls and were treated to an exclusive performance, while [Suri Cruise] danced along to the music."

Said Holmes’ pal, Victoria Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice: “[My husband David Beckham] and I are great friends with Tom and Katie. It was lovely of them to come down to rehearsals, a nice surprise. Katie has told me that she used to be a big Spice fan, so it was great for her to meet the other girls.”

No word on whether the whole TomKat clan went over to peep the sub-par Dancing with the Stars after the Spice Girls rehearsal.
(The photo of the family leaving the rehearsal is also courtesy of The Hollywood Gossip)

"30Rock" Product Placements

In the "Jack-tor" episode of "30 Rock," the opening segment spoofs the entire notion of product placements in TV shows. Calling them "pos-mens," Jack explains to the writing staff the notion of product integration thru positive mentions. Liz challenges the integrity of the concept, then one of the writers exclaims "Hey, this is Diet Snapple?!", and the whole room bursts out with positive mentions of the drink, culminating with the hot young office assistant staring with bedroom eyes into the camera declaring that she only dates men who drink Snapple. Later on, as a few characters are getting on to an elevator, a guy in a Snapple suit asks for directions then walks off camera. (Deeje)

... "30 Rock" had an interesting bit of product placement: the oven that "vice president of East Coast and microwave oven programming" Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwon) developed, the GE Profile Trivection oven, is real (notice what it says on the lower left corner of that web page: "The GE Profile oven with Trivection technology becomes a star on NBC's new sitcom, 30 Rock."). NBC decided to air an ad for the Trivection oven right after the scene where Jack talks about the oven to Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and producer Pete (Scott Adsit). (TV Squad)

"30 Rock" Product Placement for Verizon

Dr. J. Robert Cade
Inventor of Gatorade
(September 26, 1927 - November 27, 2007)

Dr. J. Robert Cade, who invented the sports drink Gatorade and launched a multibillion-dollar industry that the beverage continues to dominate, died Tuesday of kidney failure. He was 80.

His death was announced by the University of Florida, where he and other researchers created Gatorade in 1965 to help the school's football players replace carbohydrates and electrolytes lost through sweat while playing in swamp-like heat.

The sports and energy drink industry — led by Gatorade and worth more than $19 billion last year, according to a British study — began with a question asked in 1965 by Dwayne Douglas, a football coach at the University of Florida: Why didn’t his players urinate after a game?

Part of the answer came quickly: football players lost so much fluid in sweat in swamplike Florida that they had none left to form urine. It took longer to explain how the loss of fluid and electrolytes affected blood pressure, body temperature and the volume of blood.

In a subbasement, Dr. Cade and his researchers then concocted a drink to rehydrate athletes, and to replenish carbohydrates, in the form of the sugars sucrose and glucose, and electrolytes (sodium and potassium salts). (NY Times)
(Photo courtesy of University of Florida, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)