Oh the crazy things executives do during upfront season.
Media buyers in the audience at Cartoon Network’s presentation Wednesday morning cheered a video clip from the game show Hole in the Wall when they recognized that one of the teams was comprised of Stu Snyder, president and COO of Turner Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media; Cartoon Network Chief Content Officer Rob Sorcher and ad sales head John O’Hara.
The silver metallic suits they were wearing might have made the stunt uncomfortable enough. But on top of that, the relentless wall kept winning and the executives were shown getting dunked in the water over and over again.
That water was cold, said Snyder, who admitted to being first to voice the idea of playing Hole during the upfront presentation. Sorcher added that the upside of the two-hour shoot is that while the camera was rolling, he got to tackle his boss. “That’s something you don’t usually get to do on most jobs,” he said. O’Hara complained that once you got dunked, you stayed wet and water filled your shoes.
Outtakes from the shoot will likely be used in numerous internal Turner meetings, they added.
At the end of the clip, the three-man team was able to smoothly get through a hole shaped like a dollar sign. Sorcher maintained that he’d really performed the head stand that enabled him to fit through the space and that he was disappointed that the way the scene was shot, his face wasn’t visible. O’Hara added that the dollar sign was very appropriate during upfront season. “That’s why we’re all here,” he said.
