I want to make it abundantly clear that I am saying that as someone who is not a fan of a single Adam Sandler movie. A lot of his directorial works/productions follow a fairly cynical pattern: put in just enough effort to get a lukewarm reception at the box office to ensure studios will pick up future projects, then cram in as much product placement as possible to maximize profits. So it’s no surprise that Jack and Jill, a movie where one of the eponymous characters is apparently a marketing executive, is full of such marketing. But one specific instance has outlived everything else from that movie: Dunkaccino.
Everything about this scene is mesmerizing. The narrator calling Dunkin “D&D,” for some reason. The fact that they convinced Al Pacino to do any of this in the first place. His awkward talk-singing. The even more awkwardly shoehorned-in references to his other movies in between bits where he babbles gibberish. The magically materializing man in a coffee cup suit. Everyone involved seems to be putting tons of effort into their choreography, while whoever was in charge of the background track and shouts of “Dunkaccino!” put in no effort at all. The fact that replacing “Al” in his name would make it “Dunk Pacino,” which no one ever questions.
But this bizarre scene alone isn’t why I’m calling this the most effective product placement of all time. It’s the fact that years later, this had somehow become a meme.
It was so rife with comedic potential, the internet couldn’t help but chop and screw it. So many of these Youtube Poop edits had sprung up that eventually a Twitter account was created for archiving them: Daily Dunkaccino.
Yesterday the admin of Daily Dunkaccino announced that they would stop posting to the account 5 months from now, seemingly on the 1-year anniversary of them creating the account. When the time comes, we will all be pouring out some of that chocolate blend for the homies.
The reason why I call this the greatest product placement of all time is that 10 years after the release of Jack and Jill, we are still talking about this scene. Mr. Sandler and Mr. Pacino have probably long since spent the money Dunkin gave them to do this bit, yet the memory lives on. Have I purchased a Dunkaccino since these videos started surfacing? No, but here I am, talking about Dunkaccinos. And here you are, reading about Dunkaccinos. 41,600 people follow a Twitter account dedicated to the Dunkaccino scene, and even if only 1 in 1000 people who see one of those videos goes and buys a Dunkaccino shortly after seeing them, that’s 41 more instances of Mr. Dunkin leaning back in his office chair, steepled fingers and all, triumphantly declaring, “Gotcha.”
And sure, the scene itself is similar enough to all the weird Olive Garden stuff in Sonic, but will people be making Youtube Poops of that in 10 years? I think not.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to cobble together an edit where an amnesiac Al Pacino keeps asking “What’s my name?”
Why not keep the Twitter account going forever, using a bot to just cyclically post the same tweets at a daily cadence? And every once in a while there’s an advertisement. Seems like missed opportunity with such a big following.
Sometimes people do things for reasons other than money (Adam Sandler is not one of them).