Taking Subway From Burbank to Greendale

[caption id="attachment_14746" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="This guy just won an Oscar. No kidding."]

[/caption] It appears that after Community's Yvette Nicole Brown and Danny Pudi (Shirley and Abed) made a visit to the Buy More in the waning days of Chuck, they may have taken something more valuable than Big Mike's beloved marlin. In the series finale of NBC's fan-favorite (but ratings-challenged) spy comedy Chuck, longtime sponsor Subway capped their lucrative relationship with the show by buying the Buy More (the fictional big-box store where the series was set), thereby literally having a permanent home in Burbank. They didn't wait that long with NBC's fan-favorite (but ratings-challenged comedy Community, on which the sandwich chain made their first major appearance as a sponsor last night and set up shop at Greendale in the episode's cold open. In a world where increasingly-savvy viewers and listeners will target a show's advertisers to keep it alive or penalize its bad behavior, Chuck's audience had a very special relationship with Subway, who suported the show when it was facing cancellation. To show their appreciation, fans flooded Subway restaurants, buying footlong sandwiches and leaving comment cards saying that Chuck sent them. The campaign was widely credited with saving Chuck at the time, and so inspired TV industry insiders and jaded entertainment journalists that it was incorporated into almost every story that talked about the end of Chuck. The episode also managed to poke fun at brand identities and the idea of corporate personhood, which has been a hot-button issue since a controversial Supreme Court decision in 2010. Unsurprisingly, Community dealt with it in a backhanded way, with Subway basically imprinting its identity onto a single person who then [minor spoilers] proceeds to perform unspeakable sex acts. Whether this will be a one-off or a continuing relationship, it seems that Subway has found a new passionate fanbase to engage with their over-the-top product placement and gratuitous brand name-dropping.