The Buy More Really Needs to Update Its Inventory

Unfortunately, I’ve fallen behind in my ‘Chuck’ recaps, and I won’t have time to catch up this week either. However, I felt it worth a quick blog post to point out one bizarre easter egg gag in last night’s Halloween-themed episode (which guest starred Robert Englund as a mad scientist). It seems that the Buy More still carries Toshiba HD DVD players. Did anyone else catch this? [Updated with screen shots!]

Long story short, there’s a quick shot of Chuck crouching down in one of the store’s aisles right next to a stack of boxes clearly labeled “Toshiba HD DVD.”

Engadget found the screen shot below. Thanks to Eric for the tip on that. Thanks also to reader Vertigo for another screen shot that I’ve just plugged in as the banner image for this post.

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If this were any other series, I’d say that it was a simple error – that the show’s prop department must have had a bunch of old boxes sitting around and didn’t realize what they were. But the Buy More scenes in ‘Chuck’ are almost always littered with nerd-pandering product placement. Another scene in this week’s episode had Jeff and Lester playing with a Kinect (conveniently timed to promote that product’s launch next week).

Considering how much attention the show usually pays to the merchandise sold at Buy More, I have to believe that this was deliberate. Someone in the production design team must be a high definition nerd like us, and must have a sense of humor about the format war that’s been over for two years now.

Or, perhaps I’m reading entirely too much into this. It could go either way, I suppose.

7 comments

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      Thanks! That was bugging me. The box says “1080p,” but the photo doesn’t appear to be the HD-XA2, HD-A30 or HD-A35. I’d forgotten that the A20 also output 1080p.

      So, not only is it a discontinued format, it’s only a mediocre 2nd generation model (out of three)!

      Buy More really needs to get its act together. 🙂

  1. there was a scene a season or two ago where adam baldwin is stocking dvd shelves and each dvd he was putting up were movies he was in . like d.c. cab serenity. when i saw it i had to go back to see if i was nuts. well im nuts but it was there. it was a goood inside joke.

  2. Patrick A Crone

    A few episodes back they were having a midnight launch for the new game Spy Attack. I noticed that they had stacks of older Xbox 360s. True, it’s only been about six months since the 360 slim was released, but it seemed a little out of place. That’s me just being a geek I guess

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