Product Placement In Old Television Shows

Lately I've been binging old television shows, particularly I Love Lucy and Miami Vice. I've noticed a similarity in both - smoking. Rarely does an episode go by without either Lucy, Ricky or someone else on Lucy lighting up a smoke. Same with Crockett in Miami Vice. I got to thinking, was this by design. I realize that a lot of people smoked back in the 20th century, but for a cigarette to be smoked in nearly every episode - seems like product placement/subliminal messaging to me. I have no way to prove my statement, but I wondered if any of you might have noticed the same thing in older television shows. I'm wondering who the primary sponsors were for both of the shows mentioned above.

 

I just found an advertisement at archive.org for Phillip Morris starring Lucy and Ricky

Philip Morris 'I Love Lucy' : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 

... and here's an article about Miami Vice I just found ...

Virtues and Miami Vices

 

Can you tell what brands they are smoking in the shows? If not, I don't think it's product placement. But they did do commercials.

Here is the strangest one I can think of:

 

Good point. So far, I can't tell. Oh wow, Fred and Barney burning one.... hilarious!! (and sad)

 

Looks like it was actually common to have commercials during I Love Lucy that featured Lucy and Desi. Kind of blurred the line between the show and the commercial.

 

The Red Skelton Show was sponsored by Johnson's Wax, and there were occasionally jokes about that. Someone came in to Freddy the Freeloader's shack and cleaned up the place, and he was horrified--saying, "Oh, why did I let someone in here who dusted with Pledge!!"

 

Product placement was common on TV back then. When I was a kid, I remember Kelloggs hosted The Beverly Hillbillies they sometimes had a box of Kelloggs Corn Flakes visible in the kitchen.
Ford was a sponsor of Hawaii Five-0, every car used in the series was a Ford, Mercury or Lincoln. Similarly, everybody drove a Studebaker in Mr. Ed.

 

The original 1965 Charlie Brown Christmas was sponsored by Coke.
So there were a few animated shots showing Coke cans that have since been edited out of all subsequent versions. Though you can find the Coke sequences online.

Saw a screening of the uncut Coca-Cola "A Charlie Brown Christmas" 1965 CBS special.

 

The Linus the Lion Hearted cartoon series was created by General Foods specifically to promote Post cereals to kids. Several characters (Linus, Sugar Bear, Lovable Truly, So-Hi, Rory Raccoon) appeared on the boxes of Post cereals. Sometimes the cereals were mentioned or seen in the cartoons.