The scene from Saving Silverman where Judith rejects the gross milkshake Wayne made and requests a Big Montana from Arby’s is so weird. It’s funny, although not as much today as when I was in high school. Regardless, the joke does seem completely random. Watch it for yourself:
Like, was this a product placement thing? Did Arby’s pay for their product to be incorporated into the movie? That seems plausible on the surface. However, the fast food chain wasn’t exactly targeting a youth demographic back in the early 2000s. In fact, the opposite was true.
They launched ads featuring Rodney Dangerfield voiceovers and Barry White crooning back then. It would be years before the roast beef peddlers would even think about going after a younger crowd. Seriously, Arby’s was seen as a joke to most high schoolers in Sacramento back in 2001. That dimly lit place your grandpa ate at.
Related: The Arby’s mystery: Does anyone actually like this place?
Then you have the Big Montana itself. A normal Arby’s sandwich apart from the fact it claimed to have a half pound of roast beef. By the way, this was not true. The one time I ordered this monstrosity, I couldn’t help but think, is this it? Where’s the beef? Sorry, wrong fast food company.
Anyway, Saving Silverman name-dropping the Big Montana from Arby’s was so odd. It clearly felt like a dig at first. But then the way the sandwich was presented in the rest of the scene made you think the proprietor of the Jamocha Shake must have been involved.
There is more to this than that, though. The scene doesn’t work if another fast food item is used. Arch Deluxe. Double Decker Taco. Wendy’s Fresh Stuffed Pita. None of them work. Maybe the Jack in the Box Pannido plays. But feeding a woman some sandwich that already looks like a penis is probably a bit on the nose, even for an early 2000s “save the man from an evil woman” film.
Saving Silverman using the Big Montana from Arby’s as a joke was kind of perfect. Sure, it’s probably a throwaway line in some unmemorable movie for most. But for a select, it is comic gold and simultaneously gross product placement.
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