Starring Roll Greyhound ready for latest movie close-up

In Patch Adams, it carries a weary Robin Williams home before he checks himself into a psychiatric ward.<br><br>In Pleasantville, Reese Witherspoon says goodbye to her brother and then climbs aboard it

Monday, April 3rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

In Patch Adams, it carries a weary Robin Williams home before he checks himself into a psychiatric ward.

In Pleasantville, Reese Witherspoon says goodbye to her brother and then climbs aboard it on her way to college. In Bowfinger, Heather Graham rides one to Hollywood, hoping to land a big break in Tinseltown.

Who says image is everything and sex sells? The newest star of the silver screen is turning out to be none other than a Greyhound bus.

Greyhound Lines Inc., a symbol of cheap, no-frills public transportation, is landing an increasing number of movie appearances for its buses and depots.

Buses are slated to appear in eight upcoming films, including MacArthur Park, Auggie Rose, Big Momma's House and a starring role in Shiver, which re-enacts the heroic deeds of a Greyhound bus driver who saved many lives during a freak snowstorm in Canada.

Already, Greyhound buses have been featured in a number of movies, including Here on Earth, The Insider, Ed TV, Inventing the Abbotts, My Dog Skip, October Sky, He Got Game, Dance with Me, My Giant, The Rainmaker, Get Carter, Mars Attacks! and Sleepers.

The buses have also made their way into several prime-time television shows such as Touched by an Angel, The X-Files, Angel, The Sopranos, Party of Five and Beverly Hills 90210. One episode of MTV's Senseless Acts of Video even features a professional motorcross racer jumping over a Greyhound bus and bus depot.

"During the last year or two, we have accepted more movies than usual," says Terry Austin, Greyhound's manager of media marketing support. "We're putting our name and logo out for the public to see."

Greyhound's burgeoning film career comes as the company defies the normal parameters of what it takes to succeed in the Hollywood product placement world.

After all, these buses lack the hip image and curvaceous appeal of the new BMW Z8 featured in last fall's James Bond thriller The World Is Not Enough.

Nor are they status symbols on the scale of sport-utility vehicles such as the Mercedes Benz M-Class, which made its debut in Steven Spielberg's The Lost World in 1997.

And given its fleet of 2,600, the company's buses are about as common as a highway rest stop.

That doesn't bother Dallas-based Greyhound, the nation's largest bus company. Greyhound simply wants exposure to mass audiences of moviegoers, says Mr. Austin.

"We are not trying to create an image," he says. "We are really living up to an image that's already there."

Certainly, the company isn't the only business using product placement as a marketing tool even when its products lack the flash of new luxury sports cars or the eye-catching appeal of gadgets such as Apple Computer's iMac.

GE Appliances, Freightliner, Norelco, Maidenform, Converse and Maxwell House Coffee are among the brands that have hired agents to try to land appearances in movies and television shows, according to the Entertainment Resources & Marketing Association, a trade group for the product placement industry.

"Product placement is a low-cost way to get a high return of viewers," says Stacy Jones, director of production resources at Creative Entertainment Services, a product placement firm in Burbank, Calif., that represents such clients as Lexus, Toyota, Intel and Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Greyhound doesn't have to bother with negotiating high salaries and star perks. UPP Entertainment and Marketing, its Hollywood agent, receives an undisclosed annual fee to put its buses into movies and television shows.

Based in Burbank, Calif., UPP is most famous for giving Ray-Ban sunglasses a marketing boost in such movies as Risky Business, The Blues Brothers and Men In Black.

Greyhound provides the bus in exchange for an appearance in a scene, however minor. Greyhound doesn't make any money from the arrangement.

"If it [a scene] is scripted for a bus, usually it's not too difficult to get a Greyhound bus in it," says John Choplin, a production coordinator at UPP who works with Greyhound.

Many films, such as Pleasantville and The Hi-Lo Country, take advantage of Greyhound's fleet of historic buses dating to 1914, when the company got its start transporting miners in Minnesota for 15 cents per round trip.

And Greyhound Lines gets exposure in a few that don't use buses at all.

In the opening scene of the new drama Erin Brockovich, a frustrated Julia Roberts discovers a parking ticket on her car, which is parked near a Greyhound ticket counter.

Like any Hollywood star, Greyhound doesn't accept just any role or any script.

The company avoids movies or TV shows where people carry or use drugs on board a bus or threaten other passengers verbally or with guns or knives. Ditto for bus accidents and bus vandalism. Greyhound even goes so far as to get producers to change scenes featuring a seedy-looking bus terminal to one that's pleasant and clean.

Greyhound recently turned down an appearance in a series called GvsE because a bus terminal gets blown up in one scene.

Other movies rejected because of their content: Very Mean Men, Road Trip , Pay It Forward, Knock Around Guys and Where the Heart Is .

Greyhound has little to worry about if its Hollywood career hits the skids. Like Madonna, the bus has a thriving career awaiting it in music.

It is cited in Garth Brooks' Nobody Gets Off in This Town; Reba McEntire's He's in Dallas; The Allman Brothers' Ramblin' Man; B.B. King's I Go Simple, I Go Easy; and Roy Clark's Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone.

And country music superstar Randy Travis sings: "Some people like to fly around first class. But a Greyhound bus goes pretty danged fast" in his new song No Reason to Change.