The ABC television drama Life on Mars with Jason O’Mara and Harvey Keitel is the perfect show setting for brands. To put it intellectually, the central theme is about the overlap of past and present. What were some of the brands they dredged up? Theme song “Life on Mars” byMORE HERE
BOCA RATON – The weekly newspaper known for stories of aliens, Elvis and the like is coming back to life. A group of investors will revive the Weekly World News title, according to the Palm Beach Post. The company American Media Operations Inc. sold the title of the late newspaperMORE HERE
HOLLYWOOD – The Partridges are coming back. Nellie Andreeva of The Hollywood Reporter writes that The Partridge Family will return to television. Instead of ABC, the singing family will be on NBC. According to the story, writer Jeff Rake will have a new twist on the show, which will beMORE HERE
Verizon missed the call when they renamed themselves. The brand is a bore. Furthermore, there were likeable regional Bell names. There is no reason why Verizon can’t be a corporate name, even a new business name, but just because a merged company needs the name Verizon, it doesn’t follow thatMORE HERE
Say goodbye to TRL. Apparently, Viacom is going to give it a break. Visit our main website www.brandlandUSA.com. Questions? E-mail Garland PollardMORE HERE
The game show What’s My Line might return to television, with David Hasselhoff as a regular. Hasselhoff, currently an America’s Got Talent judge, has been talking to producers FremantleMedia, the company that owns the rights to Goodson-Todman game shows. “They got a take on this. It is so friggin’ cool,”MORE HERE
Now on with the countdown! Yes, you can still catch Casey Kasem’s original 1970s American Top 40 radio shows on your local FM. The shows have returned from a tape morgue in Hollywood, and have been completely remastered. They were remastered by “syndicated radio junkies” at the Cabot, Arkansas basedMORE HERE
The Children’s Museum of Manhattan is holding an exhibition on artwork from one of the great American publishing brands, the Golden Book. We all know the Golden Books for their gold leaf bindings and illustrations, and titles like The Little Red Hen. Every American family has Golden Books. Over 15MORE HERE
NEW YORK – Start-up media projects are a perfect place to revive dead brands. Condé Nast did this masterfully when it revived the magazine titles Vanity Fair and House & Garden, after they had let them go dormant.One of the boldest recent media brand revivals is the New York Sun,MORE HERE
BrandlandUSA reader Brian Stevens asks about the Tom Chapin children’s show Make A Wish. Says Stevens, “I wish someone could dig up some old “Make a Wish” shows with Tom Chapin. I used to love those.” Below is a clip of the show, which ran on ABC Saturday mornings inMORE HERE