Remember E.T.?

Well, then, it's also easy to remember the mad rush of children to buy Reese's Pieces, in order to be like the alien hero.

This is only one example of "product placement," a practice which is growing more popular with each new movie in the film industry. Product placement is the practice by which manufacturers pay film makers to put their products in the movies, said Jill Savitt, a spokeswoman for the Center for Study of Commercialism in Washington, D.C.

The center recently petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to force movie makers to put disclaimers on films using product placement. The center would like what they call deceptive advertising to be regulated.

"The public is never told that they are being advertised to," said Savitt. As of now, film makers are not recquired to credit advertisements.

Savitt called product placement "the sneakiest form of advertising around."

"We are not saying that it should be banned, but it should be labeled as advertising." said Savitt.

Home Alone had 42 references to 31 products; Ghost had 23 references to 16 brand names; Pretty Woman mentioned 18 brands 20 times; Total Recall mentioned 28 products 55 times; and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had 18 references to brand names, according to the center.

"The name of the game is to get as many products as possible," said Brian Winston, School of Communications dean."They are important to companies."

"I think there's a sense in which the public ought to be protected from getting commercial messages. It's sort of a right-to-know," Winston said. "It is important that the public know that things are done that way."

Bill Uricchio, associate professor of communications and film, agreed.

"I think it's probably a useful bit of information for the public," he said.

Determining whether or not references to specific products are commercial messages is difficult, Winston said, explaining film makers cannot be obvious about product placement.

"It looks stupid if every car in a movie is the same make," he said.

Winston called product placement a form of low-level corruption by "people who put movies together like making deals."

But the practice is not the most serious problem facing the movie industry, Winston added. He said he believes foriegn ownership is a bigger problem because foreign owners do not use the same criteria for funding films.

Another problem is that film companies are no longer simply film companies, Uricchio said. They are parts of tremendous monopolies that promote smaller divisions of their enterprise, he said.

Uricchio, co-editor of Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and his Media, said the Batman film is a good example of this monopoly film making.

Warner Brothers, which produced the film also owns D.C. Comics, owners of the comic book, Uricchio said. The film's music was recorded by Prince, whose Paisley Park label is also part of Warner enterprises, he said.

Winston said that the rising cost of making films is not a mojor cause of product placement. But Savitt said the film's cost directly affects the number of product placements.

"$500,000, or the money received from the (advertising) company, is a mere drop in the bucket for a movie maker,"said Savitt, explaining that the more a movie costs, the more advertisements producers need to break even.