Science fiction helped to invent product placement, with Steven Spielberg's shoehorning of Reese's Pieces into E.T., making them the official candy of penis-fingered growly alien visitors. But that wasn't actually the first instance of product placement in the genre.

What was? It's hard to say, but one of the earliest instances was the overexposure of Sugar Puffs cereal in 1966's Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. The movie version of the classic Doctor Who story starred Peter Cushing as the eccentric time-traveler, who visits a ruined future London where the killing-machine Daleks have taken over. There's no food or clean water, and the survivors of the Dalek attacks live in total squalor. But hey... did we mention Sugar Puffs cereal is sugary and delicious? Sugar Puffs helped to finance the movie in exchange for having their posters visible throughout.

Also, 2001: A Space Odyssey features prominent references to, and fake ads for, Pan-Am, IBM and Howard Johnson. But those were simply companies that director Stanley Kubrick thought would still be around in a few decades. As far as I can find out, no money actually changed hands — in fact, Kubrick contacted 50 companies and asked them to submit logos and designs for what their products might look like in 40 years.

Also this nifty bit of Marlboro promo in a Superman II fight scene predates E.T. by a couple of years. Kneel before our cool, refreshing smokes:

But yes, E.T.'s focus on Reese's Pieces may well have been the first high-profile example of product placement in a science fiction movie. The media reported widely that M&Ms had turned down the chance to be in the mega-hit, and Reese's Pieces reaped some extra publicity from all the coverage. The candy's sales spiked 65 percent after the film came out, and kids wrote to Steven Spielberg with fan art that featured Reese's Pieces prominently:

But there's also a lot of exposure for Coca-Cola, Coors beer, Speak'n'Spell and Pez candy, among other brands, in the movie. Here are some more screen shots:

Around the same time, TV's Knight Rider showed us the way forward in science fictional product placement: people will always want to buy the supercars they see featured on screen. (See below for Transformers and the new K.R.) General Motors gave the show's makers models of the new Trans Am, which they decked out as KITT, and people rushed to buy their own KITTs.

But E.T. and Knight Rider were like babies, or maybe monks, compared to the Back To The Future trilogy. Seriously, google "Back To The Future worst product placement" and set aside an hour or two to look at all the lists of the "worst movie product placement of all time" that include the BTTF trilogy. References to Pepsi are jammed into the first two films (like when Marty tries to order a Pepsi Free in 1955), his mom thinks he's named Calvin Klein, and the films ram Nike, Pizza Hut, AT&T, Hasbro and Mattel down your throat. (The DeLorean gets a free pass, because it's actually funny.)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home took advantage of its present-day setting to pimp Michelob beer — the official beer of the Federation — and of course, Scotty gets to know an Apple Macintosh better. The Trek franchise liked that product-placement money so much, Kirk and his crew go camping in Levis jeans in Star Trek V. Meanwhile, Apple got sluttier and sluttier, getting some first-class pimping in Mission Impossible and Independence Day — where a Mac notebook is the key to stopping the alien invaders. And then in Blade Trinity, one character goes to the iTunes music store to assemble a playlist for her ipod, which she listens to while fighting vampires. There's also a nice Apple plug in I Am Legend.

Another movie which wins a spot in the product-placement hall of shame is Demolition Man. Sylvester Stallone gets woken up in the future, and finds that Taco Bell/Pizza Hut has won the "franchise wars" and now all restaurants are Pizza Huts:

One of the first television series to be accused of shoving consumer items in your face was Babylon 5, which stuck a gigantic Zima sign over the alien boxing ring in the episode "TKO." Series creator J. Michael Straczynski insisted the show got "not a dime" for the Zima plug, and it was just for the lolz.

Men In Black got a lot of flak for its relentless pushing of the Ray-Ban Predator 2 sunglasses, which tripled in sales to almost $5 million after the film came out. And Men In Black II is another proud moment for product whoring. An alien intruder arrives on Earth and needs to assume a form to confuse us humans. So of course her/its eye lights on a Victoria's Secret ad:

And then there's the famous taxi chase in The Fifth Element, which leads up to the cops getting showered with McDonald's cartons. Good thing they still have Mickey D's in this dystopian future:

One trend in the 2000s has been movies featuring fake advertisements for real products as part of the plot, sort of a throwback to 2001. Who helped pioneer this? None other than Steven "Reese's Pieces" Spielberg, who has Tom Cruise walk through a mall full of personalized ads in Minority Report.

Michael Bay also crams The Island full of fake ads, including a Chanel ad that stars the woman Scarlet Johnasson was cloned from.

I, Robot pushed Converse's Chuck Taylor shoes so much, there's a whole Chuck Taylor web page devoted to the film. (The movie gets four Chucks out of five.) I have blotted this movie out of my memory, but apparently all Will Smith does in it is wave his "antique" Chuck Taylors around and talk about how fast he can run away from the killer robots, thanks to his Chucks. If you saw this movie and liked the shoes, could you buy your own pair? Gosh, I think so!

I could be here all day discussing the wealth of car product placement in recent movies. The Lost World: Jurassic Park features a new kind of Mercedes Benz SUV, and Steven "man-whore" Spielberg lovingly, frames a shot so you can see the Mercedes logo really clearly. That Steven. The Matrix Reloaded is such a great Cadillac ad, with its freeway chase, that the DVD even has a featurette about the product placement. Terminator 3 is brought to you by Lexus and Toyota. I Am Legend is one big ad for the Ford Mustang. Transformers is basically built around promoting GM's latest car models, and the second film is already getting buzz around the new Chevy Volt and Corvette models. The Dark Knight is plastered with Ford. We have a new Knight Rider show, which is basically a Ford Mustang infomercial as the car transforms into different Ford models. Fringe is also chock full of Ford.

Heroes has had product placement for Sprint, Apple, Dell and other brands, but also especially Nissan.

A new growing category of product placement in science fiction, rivaling cars and computers: phones. After all, if you're under attack by aliens, you really need to be able to reach your comrades in a hurry. Hence, Jericho's and Heroes' constant whoring for Sprint, Superman Returns' constant Samsung and Virgin whoring, Cloverfield's Nokia love, etc. etc.

It's pretty amazing. Judging from our research, there's been more product placement, and more blatant product placement, in 2008 than in the past few years combined. We could literally spend an entire post just listing all the product placement this year. And it's getting way more blatant, especially on television. As we mentioned above, Sarah Connor Chronicles set a new high-water mark with its hour-long Dodge Ram commercial last week. Smallville devoted an entire episode last spring to Stride gum, and how it can turn you into a superhero. And then there's Eureka, which has apparently been finding ways to feature Degree For Men in every. single. episode. this season, including the one where Degree provides protection from a lethally hot second sun.

Where will it end? How much lower can we go? In the interests of ironic dystopian amusement, I can hardly wait to find out.

Additional reporting by Katharine Duckett.

For Better Or Worse, SciFi's Most Adorable Sidekicks

Stitch: Lilo and Stitch

He burps and eats everything. A cross between a bug and a dog, he was sort of sweet... until he did the whole Elvis impersonation, and then I was out the door. I can't stand animals dressed as people (alien animals or otherwise).

R2-D2: Star Wars

An obvious choice, but possibly the cutest bucket of bolts in the history of robots. Despite being a giant trash can, he was surprisingly expressive — you could tell when he was mad by his fussing and futtering. If you took a vote on which robot you wanted to be stuck on a deserted Tatooine with, hands down it would be R2. While C-3PO is wonderful, if I had to chose it'd be R2 based on the fact that, "goodness gracious me," would get old after about five minutes. Sorry C, He's the droid I'm looking for.

Rebecca "Newt" Jorden: Aliens

Oh no, an adorable girl is left on an alien infested planet! Surely she won't be a massive hindrance at all. Too late, she's fallen into an air vent. Once I found out that the dirty blonde girl nickname was "Newt," I lost all my love for this character. You could make a case against Bishop as well, but he was OK in my book.

Hud: Cloverfield

He had me at, "I'm just saying how freaky would it be if a flaming homeless guy came out of no where." His innocence and one-liners completely humanized this story. I don't even remember any of the other characters' names really. Hud was a great mix of that 20-something guy that is part idiot and part child, which was most evident any time he tried to talk to Marlena.

Robin: Batman

He thinks everything Batman does is totally yay, which is valuable because one thing you don't want from a sidekick is questions. Especially when you say, "Robin go check out that scary cave with no light, I'll be right behind you." He makes a great victim when there aren't any ladies around for you to save. His boyish good looks play in his favor but, his naivete demeans him. Robin get a 50/50 split on annoying versus lovable.

Hurley: Lost

Not all people can pull off charming with that much going on, but Hurley manages to. His whole "cursed by the numbers" schtick and his ridiculous bad luck in his first flashback were borderline annoying, but once he went bananas his charm became more of a quirk. He's the heart of the island and a lot of people forget that as he follows orders from chiseled jawline Sawyer or smarty-pants face-stubble Jack.

Arthur: The Tick

The shy little moth to The Tick's massive ego. His nervous stammer and mutterings are the perfect compliment to The Tick. And let's not forget the fact that he's often mistaken for a bunny, that's cute laugh out loud.

Gizmo: Gremlins (2)

Another coin toss here, because don't we all like to get drunk and sing the mogwai song? And yet the need to dress him up as Rambo totally crosses the line from cute to crappy.

Short Round: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

One line, "YOU CALL HIM DOCTOR JONES." Everything about this character was harnessing the power of cute for good. From the boxes he tied on his shoes for driving to his open-eyed screams, all charming.

Wicket: Ewok Adventure, Star Wars

Who else could level out Mace's wild tantrums. Good cute, like the kind of teddy bear I would actually want to own.

Elliot: ET

After watching this movie who didn't dress up in an orange hoodie and bike around with a white alien bundle for Halloween, or Saturdays? Elliot is a spot on example of the right amount of child-like/charm wonder in a great sidekick.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Watching the trailer, you'd have no idea what to expect from the film. When you see a trailer for an American movie these days, you've seen the funniest lines, the biggest explosions, and you know all the beats in the story to look for. With this one, we went in knowing there's something about a toy and an alien, and a little kid who screams a lot... but only in the trailer.

While the movie is a "Stephen Chow Film" about CJ7, which turns out to be a weird sort of alien/toy hybrid, the real star of the film is Xu Jiao. She plays the part of Dicky Chow, a boy, who receives CJ7 as a piece of flotsam his dad picked up in the junkyard. She has more screen time than either Chow or the completely CGI-ized CJ7, and she's both charming and funny.

In fact, for the first time in one of Chow's films, children are the real stars of the movie, and he gets some stellar performances out of them. Check out the round-headed boy (who is also played by a girl) who wants to be an entrepreneur in the clip above. He ends up becoming Dicky's nemesis (more on that in the clip below), and later you realize you could watch an entire movie about the daily lives of these schoolkids.

Anyhow, the basic plot is that Dicky and his father are extremely poor, and Dicky's father works long hours in a construction job just to be able to send his son to an expensive private school. As a result, they live near squalor in a house that is falling apart, and he can't afford to buy Dicky any of the cool toys that the other kids have at school, like CJ1, a sort of Sony Aibo looking robodog. Dicky feels left out, and his dad goes searching through the junkyard to find a toy for Dicky.

That's where things go wonky. He finds a hunk of bright green phlegm-colored plastic that looks like either a strange basketball, or something that fell off a fisherman's boat. It's a poor toy compared to a robot, that's for sure. However, when Dicky's dad locks him in a closer for misbehaving (something Dicky does frequently), the ball comes to life and puts Dicky in some sort of a holographic projection that shows him a set of instructions in rebus-form. Later, the ball comes to life, and eventually becomes a little half fluffy / half plastic toy dog.

Dicky thinks the dog has magic powers and can help him handle the bullies at school. In fact, some of the best scenes in the movie are the fantasy sequences (like the scene below where CJ7 faces "the most violent dog in the world") that unfold in Dicky's mind. In reality, CJ7 is more like a little Pomeranian toy dog than a robotic alien savior, but he does come imbued with E.T.-esque healing powers that work on both people and machines.

Eventually Dicky has to learn to live without CJ7, although this is a movie aimed at kids and families, so don't expect it to end on a sad note. Much like Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, this film is a bit like Looney Tunes on acid, with extreme over the top action sequences and CGI effects. The scenes with CJ7 and Dicky at school are the best in the film, and highlight how creative this Chow can be. At its worst moments, the movie drags a bit with Chow himself struggling at his job, or the heavy-handed father/son relationship which is tenuous at best.

CJ7 might look cutesy Hello Kitty-ish, but we totally want one on our shelves. The film opens this weekend, and is definitely worth checking out, especially if you like slapstick comedy and a little cuteness in your aliens.

This trailer shows the film's storyline way more clearly than the earlier teaser trailer, including Chow losing his construction job, romancing a rich lady, and scavenging in the junkyard to find something his son can use to impress the rich kids at his boarding school. And then of course he finds the alien critter, which helps the boy (who's actually played by a girl) fulfill every kid's school revenge fantasies. Including soccer p0wnage and putting the smackdown on the mean teacher. I'm not sure if the sentimental streak in Chow's humor will win over American audiences without kung fu in the mix, but I bet it'll do well in China. [Twitch]

The true horror in I Am Legend, and other stories like it, is having to watch what happens to people when they're robbed of society. It's no accident that Mary Shelley, author of horror-scifi classic Frankenstein, later wrote a post-apocalyptic book called The Last Man. Like many storytellers in the genre, she knew that no monster is scarier than a human being without companions.

Often the aloneness monster rears its head in post-apocalyptic scifi: New Zealand indie Quiet Earth tortures us with fear when our protagonist discovers he's the last guy on the planet; and the masterful 28 Days Later amps up the fear right away when the hero awakens to find himself alone in the middle of an abandoned London. Possibly the most desolate portrait of this aloneness comes in Vernor Vinge's novel Marooned in Realtime, where a handful characters who can travel forward in time find that they've "jumped" to a future where humans are mysteriously gone. The time-travelers head to the future in longer and longer jumps, trying to reach a world where apes or spiders have evolved into intelligent life that can keep them company. But it doesn't happen. The sun just grows older and dimmer, and the lost humans never cure their species-loneliness.

Of course, there's being completely alone and then there's being "the only one." Being completely alone can sometimes be peaceful, as Ripley demonstrates in Alien when she crawls into her pod after ejecting the alien into space. But being the only human left in a world of mutants, super-evolved apes, or alien invaders - that's more typical in scifi horror. It forms the basis of often-retold stories like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and countless Alien ripoffs (often little more than slasher movies in space).

Still, no matter what horrifying creature menaces that army of one, the true terror lurking beneath the surface is the loss of protective community. This isn't a fear that humans reserve for themselves, by they way. The scary parts of E.T. (and yes, there are some) have to do with E.T. being a castaway who is vulnerable on a world dominated by homo sapiens. And those who read Frankenstein know that what makes the reanimated man into a monster is his realization that he's alone among creatures who want him destroyed.
Image from Marooned in Realtime book cover by Stephen Martiniere.