Trying to Turn Knickknacks Into Gold at Awards Time

You know Hollywood’s gotten competitive when the people who dream up promotional trinkets for movies start talking about how they expect their talking tissue box to outdo the other guy’s blood-spattered snow globe.

All year long, studios deluge those in the entertainment media with all manner of toys, gimmicks, doodads and tchotchkes to build awareness for their upcoming movies. But around the holidays, when numerous high-profile movies are coming out just as critics’ groups are considering which films to anoint as the year’s best, the gift fest turns into a high-stakes game of one-upmanship.

Last year’s runaway favorite was the “Fargo” snow globe, featuring the film’s snowy roadside murder scene. They sat on writers’ desks for weeks, a publicist’s dream come true. Another hit: the “Waiting for Guffman” lunch box, a kitschy joke about the main character’s beloved “Remains of the Day” lunch pail. (Don’t ask.) Next came last spring’s “Volcano,” and with it, hundreds of chrome toasters with a piece of foam-rubber bread announcing that “The Coast Is Toast.” For “Picture Perfect,” a film in which a love affair sparks from a single photo, the press was treated to a disposable camera.

This season’s offerings include “Mouse Hunt’s” foam drink cooler in the shape of a wedge of cheese. Disney sent a dancing Flubber destined to be toted home for the kids. “RocketMan’s” astronaut survival kit tantalized editors’ taste buds with freeze-dried ice cream, strawberry Pop Rocks and the obligatory Tang. (But the Beano we could have done without.) For the much-heralded “Anastasia,” 20th Century Fox bankrolled mailings to introduce the star character with a doll created in her likeness, as well as other characters.

Christening the year-end Oscar hoopla with one of the most elaborate entries to date is the “Donnie Brasco” tissue box. Mind you, this is no ordinary pack of Safeway Select tissues. Open the box--which is decorated with film stills--and suddenly Al Pacino is saying, “Fuggedaboudit!” Hidden inside is a microchip that plays the memorable, 60-second scene from the movie once the box lid is lifted.

Spearheading the effort was Fae Horowitz, vice president of marketing services at Mandalay Entertainment, and publicist Nancy Seltzer who was hired solely to manage the “Brasco” Oscar campaign.

“Our mandate was to top the ‘Fargo’ snow globe,” Horowitz said. “We wanted something that would stay on people’s desks and resurrect the movie in people’s minds.”

The tissues have nothing to do with Brasco, but it is cold and flu season, and even journalists need to blow their noses. “There was no one icon from the movie. We couldn’t exactly send out severed body parts,” Horowitz said of the tissue choice.

But even a clever idea needs work. After 500 computer chips containing a scene of dialogue were sent from China and glossy boxes retrofitted around them, a problem arose: Pacino wouldn’t shut up. So an on/off switch was added. After two months of preparation, the boxes were ready to go, switched on so the audio would roll when the first tissue was tugged.

One hundred samples were sent to Seltzer’s Los Angeles office. “When I walked into the office Monday morning, there were dozens of talking boxes on the floor, all saying, ‘Fuggedaboudit!’ We ran around frantically, ripping open all of the boxes,” Seltzer said. In the end, boxes were shipped with the switches turned off.

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DreamWorks’ Becky Mann began planning “Mouse Hunt’s” teasers seven months before the film’s Christmas release. “These items are custom-made,” she said. “You can’t just take something and slap a logo on it.”

DreamWorks chose to send out 10,000 cheese-inspired drink coolers specially created by the company that produces the foam “cheeseheads” sported by Green Bay Packers fans. Mann also concocted a “Mouse Hunt” game, featuring a mouse, a trap and wheel of Gouda. “We try to do things that are fun and different. What’s most important is that the gifts are useful and that they tie into the theme of the movie,” Mann said. “If it’s a serious drama, we can’t exactly send out basketballs.”

Until recently, those basketballs would have been FedExed not only to the media, but also to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who nominate films for Oscars. In the past, members were deluged with coffee-table books, toys and other treats.

The campaigning got so out of hand that the academy cracked down about five years ago. Now, all that studios are allowed to send to voting members is a plain videocassette (or CD for musical nominations, screenplay for writing and so on). “All that junk tended to tick people off,” explained Ric Robertson, executive administrator of the academy.

For those who ignore the rules, the punishment is steep: They’re docked precious tickets to the awards show in March.

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Meanwhile, for the publicity machine, there seems to be no such thing as too much or too early. The current trend: deluging editors several months before a film sees the inside of a multiplex. To toot “George of the Jungle’s” horn, Disney dispatched 400 apes across the country last March to deliver singing telegrams and bananas, well ahead of “George’s” July release.

And just how much are the studios willing to spend on, er, junk that might well end up in the trash? “We can’t say,” Horowitz said of the “Brasco” tissue budget. “But it’s more than you think.”

Whatever the cost, for Disney publicity chief Terry Curtin, it’s worth it. “You can send one item to a media person, and if they write about your movie, it reaches millions of people,” she said. “When writers sit down to do their movie preview articles, there’s no real scientific reason for why they choose to mention some over others. A teaser campaign is an inexpensive way to put something fun in their hand and just maybe they’ll think of our movie when they put pen to paper.”