The Mentalist

I was watching The Mentalist last week which had an episode where a former NFL QB named Doc Dugan was believed to have been killed by a car bomb. It turned out to be Doc's assistant but it was decided to let the world think Doc was the one killed in the hopes it would be easier to find his killer. Anyway... in one scene Doc is watching a report on TV about his death and it included some footage of him playing football. The first thing that caught my eye were the uniforms so I re-wound it a couple of times and I'm positive the footage used was from an Argos/Ticats game at Rogers Centre. Did anyone see the episode and notice that?

watched the show
didnt look at the footage
would be surprised

At the 10:47 mark you can see two teams facing each other on TV (in the background) and these two look suspiciously like Tor. and Ham. but I am unable to verify. looks like a good game. :smiley:

Yes i seen that aswell on the last episode I had the exact same reaction basically jumped outta my seat and said that was the CFL

That doesn't surprise given the high number tv shows/movies film in Canada.

The Mentalist isn’t filmed in Canada. I suspect it was just a lot cheaper to get CFL footage compared to NFL.

I also noticed this on a tv show called The League, which is about fantasy football for NFL, I had to rewind it a couple times but it was defiantly 2 CFL teams playing! I think it might maybe save the tv show a bit of money in not putting the NFL on their show? But I'm not sure how that would work.

Yup, lot easier (cheaper) to get rights to incorporate CFL footage in a US TV show than NFL footage.

it surprises me that they would have to pay cfl, or NFL for that matter, anything for such a little blip in which neither the teams nor the league is actually stated, by word or by logo, etc.

IN fact, as for the cfl, I could see it being worth it for them to pay to have the product shown on american tv shows and movies, if it was clearly identifiable.

It doesn’t matter that the league and teams weren’t stated - the video is still owned by the league and can’t be used without permission (same with NFL footage being owned by the NFL). The CFL may not make them pay but I doubt the NFL would let their footage be used for free. And there would likely be issues too with NFL players agreeing to let their images be used for free even if they aren’t easily identifiable.

It isn’t, but there are MANY Canadians in California working in the business, and with so many productions in Canada the connections are a natural.

Saw new episode of Two and a half men and when Jake and Allen were watching tv it showed Hamilton @ Toronto !

I didn't see the episode, but the TiCats and the Argos were on Modern Family recently as well.

On the Argos twitter feed, they said something about it before that episode of the Mentalist was aired, so there must have been some communication between the show and the league beforehand.

This is old news..... I read the details somewhere before.... It costs over 100K to use NFL footage and only 500 dollars to use CFL footage... The most famous one was the "Stalions" episode of Columbo where the Stalions was actually Saskatchewan.
This was all before the Baltimore Stalions... So I guess Columbo knew something the CFL didnt.

For those who watch Person of Interest. (if you don't you should btw)

Last weeks episode had an Argo vs Ticat game on the TV. Not enough to see what game, just noticed by the colours

Thanks for the tip, I think I’ll check it out.