TNT -- We Know Marketing

Mix Tape for the MP3 Era (On TV)

Mix tapes are so 1980s and mix CDs just aren't as cool.

But if you could make an MP3 mix that looked like a cassette tape, that would be cool, right?

Two years ago, the Mixa came out -- $40 bucks for a USB flash drive that looked like a cassette tape. (Plus, it can hold as much music as 50 or 60 mix tapes and won't sound crappy if you leave it in your car for a few months -- yeah, Stop Making Sense, I'm talking about you.)

Flash forward to today: I get a cardboard package designed to look like an oversized cassette box, marked with the TNT logo and the reminder that they know drama. I love the packaging (and love the fact that I somehow landed on this particular swag list) and love the fact that the show is being marketed by its music. How cool is that?

Inside is a 2GB flash drive that looks like this (that shiny thing above it is a quarter to give you an idea of its size). This is a very cool (and heavy) device that contains about half of the first episode of Men of a Certain Age, a new hour-long drama with Ray Romano, Scott Bakula, and Andre Braugher. The drive also has three songs on it (one by CCR, one by Whitesnake, and one by Styx).

Now, I'm not sure I know anyone who loves CCR, Whitesnake, and Styx, but perhaps such creatures exist. And maybe there's a market for a show about three college friends in their 40s who complain about marriage, careers, and failing eyesight (in which music is part of the background but not as important as I might want it to be). And maybe Ray Romano's image is so squeaky clean that it is necessary to see him back up to run over a wounded possum twice. And maybe there's a reason why they didn't put the entire show on the drive (even though there's 1.85GB free out of 2GB). And maybe since TNT sent me this cool swag, I'll mention that the show premieres on December 7th.

So... (you might be wondering) how's the show itself? And does TNT really know drama as well as they know marketing?

Um... did I mention how cool the USB drive is?