Allow me, if you will, a moment of pure silliness.

I was watching “The Wire” season 2 yesterday (and by that I mean all of it, in one day) and at one point in that quite excellent series, one character, Ziggy, plays a joke on another, Maui, by changing Maui’s desktop background to a photo of a penis. (Supposedly Ziggy’s own.)

Now, first of all, please don’t get the wrong impression: this is a mere blip in the sophisticated story line of the series, just as the spliced penis pic in Fight Club is merely incidental.

Incidental to the plot, that is, but no doubt a major headache for the clearance people. See, we now live in a world where a record company wants $10k for a 6-second Rocky ringtone played in the background of a documentary (sadly, I’m so not kidding), you better believe they aren’t just going to grab any old photo off the Net and shoot that.

They could have a cast member pose, I guess, but then he would be need to be paid residuals each time his, ahh, effort was shown in syndication. (Remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry kept getting all those small-amount checks?)

I don’t know. Call me weird, but I just find it hilarious (and a little sad) that it’s somebody’s job to review the script, find the image, and secure a contract with the owner just so they can have a brief practical joke in an episode.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Film.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.