TV Home Forum

The Simpsons in the UK

(April 2020)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
RD
rdd Founding member
I do remember the tagline from Domino’s sponsorship of the Simpsons - “Delivering a fresh slice of family life in 30 minutes” (must have been the days when pizza companies still claimed to deliver that quickly).
NW
nwtv2003
rdd posted:
I do remember the tagline from Domino’s sponsorship of the Simpsons - “Delivering a fresh slice of family life in 30 minutes” (must have been the days when pizza companies still claimed to deliver that quickly).


This was also around the time when Sky Digital was a new venture and then Open was added in 1999, where you were able to order Domino's Pizza through your TV, and I remember they made a big deal of that at the time. For good measure I'm fairly certain Domino's had a page on SkyText for promotional purposes.

There was a Simpsons episode from the early 2000's where there was a derogatory joke about Domino's Pizza, which Sky cut back in the day, when Domino's were the sponsor.
NG
noggin Founding member
rdd posted:
I do remember the tagline from Domino’s sponsorship of the Simpsons - “Delivering a fresh slice of family life in 30 minutes” (must have been the days when pizza companies still claimed to deliver that quickly).


This was also around the time when Sky Digital was a new venture and then Open was added in 1999, where you were able to order Domino's Pizza through your TV, and I remember they made a big deal of that at the time. For good measure I'm fairly certain Domino's had a page on SkyText for promotional purposes.

There was a Simpsons episode from the early 2000's where there was a derogatory joke about Domino's Pizza, which Sky cut back in the day, when Domino's were the sponsor.


Yep - I remember the novelty of using my TV to order pizza (and also check my HSBC bank statement!). All through the magic of a 56k (or was it just 28.8k?) dial up modem (also used to ensure boxes stayed in the right homes to avoid multi-room fraud)
JA
james-2001
I ordered Domino's through NTL back in 2002 aswell. Funny how quickly the novelty of interactive TV died off.
NW
nwtv2003
I ordered Domino's through NTL back in 2002 aswell. Funny how quickly the novelty of interactive TV died off.


Certainly on NTL it did, whilst it was great they used the Two Way system so it didn't need a phone line, but it was a pain in the backside to load, navigate and then it usually caused the set top box to crash. Most of the good Apps were removed after a year or two.
PA
paul_hadley
Another relic that was defunct when broadband and smartphones came around.
GO
gottago
I'm sure I read somewhere (probably on here) that Domino's orders through Sky were actually quite profitable and were the only element of Open that made any money.
NG
noggin Founding member
I'm sure I read somewhere (probably on here) that Domino's orders through Sky were actually quite profitable and were the only element of Open that made any money.


Yes - the heady days before broadband and smart phones...
ET
ethanh05
Domino's was a long-running sponsor on Sky One (and also on Channel 4 at launch) - but eventually had to give it up because of Ofcom rules around advertising foods high in fat, salt and sugar around programmes which appeal to children.

this article from 2008 has some interesting tidbits - it was the longest running entertainment sponsorship deal on multichannel TV; and "The Simpsons had the highest proportion of under-16s in its audience of any UK TV show running outside children's programming airtime or specifically targeted at young viewers."

I remember after the initial Ofcom ruling, they flipped their sponsor credits to advertise "Domino's delivery service", in case you wanted them to bring you, er, the healthier options on their menu.

Incidentally, who replaced Domino's after they left? I recall Currys sponsoring them for a while around 2009-ish, but I don't think they were directly after Domino's.
RE
Rexogamer
Kinda off topic but what is T4? There’s been a few mentions here but for the life of me I can’t figure out what is is. Presumably a stand on C4?
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
T4 was the "teenage programming" strand, it aired as a block on Channel 4 years ago.
Mike W and Rexogamer gave kudos
JA
james-2001
Wasn't just teenage programming, they aired kids programming too until Channel 4 all but gave up on that in the early 00s.

T4 didn't end THAT long ago really, I'm suprised there's people on here who don't know what it is.

Newer posts