And just like that we are over halfway through my year of Thing-a-Day Things!
Today's Thing is a review of an accidentally defictionalized product! Or at least it's not officially related with the property in which I have seen it...
Here, watch the review to make some sense of my ramblings above:
From this video's youtube description:
Here is a review from the Ponder Couch of Seagram's Escapes Lime Melonade!
I have never seen real Melonade for sale before I found this in my local Marsh grocery store. The only place I'd ever seen Melonade was in Homestar Runner cartoons!
After a bit of research there are other Melonades on the market. Who knew?
This one is pretty tasty for a melon-lime malt beverage. Check it out!
And I agree. It is pretty tasty. You should check it out! And tell Seagram's I sent ya.
I just got back from a trip to Florida and Universal Studios!
To make up for all the days I missed I'm going to do 7 quick reviews of a variety of Defictionalized Products I sampled around the park!
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter:
1. Butter Beer!
It's really good! It reminds me of hot chocolate, but tastes like hot, frothed milk with butterscotch syrup and whip cream. Mmmmmm!
Above you can see me drinking my hot Butter Beer in front of Gringotts and its dragon. I ordered a hot Butter Beer, but I got to taste the frozen version. I prefer the hot version.
You could get a plastic mug/glass/cup thing, but I didn't feel a need to buy one.
2. Pumpkin Juice!
The Pumpkin Juice is on our left in the picture. I got a cup of it at the 3 Broomsticks (and got to try the Hogshead beer, it was ok). The Pumpkin Juice is really good on ice! It is one of the most pumpkin-y tasting drinks I've ever had. I also got a bottle of it. It was too strong for my taste in the bottle. The ice waters it down a bit, and I think it tastes better that way.
I bought a bottle of it so I could keep the bottle.
3. Gilly Water.
In the above picture you can see the label from a bottle of Gilly Water. I didn't actually try it, but my Mom and brother both say it's just bottled water with no other flavor.
The Harry Potter area had lots and lots and lots of other Defictionalized Products: such as wands, extendable ears, and soooo much candy. But I didn't have enough money to buy all of that, and I still wanted to buy more food at....
Springfield!
4. Duff Beer!!!!!!
This may be my favorite Defictionalized food Product, ever.
The ladies who sold it to me told me that even though you can buy a bottle of Duff Beer, they can not give the bottle itself to anyone who buys one. There is no glass allowed in the park, apparently. I understand why they would make this rule, but I think this is extremely stupid, and they both seemed to think so, too. They said I could take a picture of it, though.
I bought a plastic glass of it in Moe's Tavern first!
I love this beer! I thought it would be a cheap-tasting, watered-down crappy beer, but it was really good! I loved the flavor. It reminds me of Sam Adams Boston Lager, but it doesn't have the bitter end that SABL does.
I wish I could get this from my local grocery store. It might be another beer with different labels, but it didn't taste like anything beer I drink on a regular basis.
Since I couldn't keep the bottle, I did feel the need to buy the plastic beer glass.
I also bought...
5. Flaming Moe!
It's not alcoholic.
Princess Melawesome actually ordered it, but she let me taste it. It's good, fruity, but not alcoholic and there is not children's cough syrup in it.
It's not on fire, either. It looks like it's smoking because of dry ice (?) in the base of the glass.
I liked it, but the Duff Beer was much, MUCH better.
6. Krusty Burger!
This was awesome.
Almost as good as Duff Beer (also pictured).
If I could have a Krusty Burger and a Duff Beer at least once a week, life would be good.
7. Lard Lad Doughnut!
My brother Kyle bought a Lard Lad Doughnut. It was huge!
Luckily he shared some with me.
Lard Lad Doughnuts are also really, really good. No wonder Homer is so fat (as is pretty much all of Springfield).
Bonus Review!
8. "Bort" Keychain!
Remember this clip?
In the Kwik-E-Mart there were lots of fun Simpsons stuff for sale. Unfortunately they did not have licence plates with your name on them, but they did have Kwik-E-Mart nametags and this key chains with your name on them!
And yes, both had Bort versions! So I bought one.
I love it. It is on my new backpack I bought to use as a carry-on. It looks like the TARDIS.
Hopefully starting tomorrow I'll be updating on schedule again.
A few weeks ago Bryan Trusty told me that Pizza Hut was going to have 4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles promotional pizzas with turtle-specific toppings. I haven't been a fan of Pizza Hut for many years, but Bryan asked me to do a review. So I tried. Princess Melawesome and I went out that weekend to order the Michelangelo (my favorite TMNT). But the Pizza Hut we went to didn't seem to know what we were talking about. So we just got a pepperoni stuffed crust.
I didn't see any TMNT decorations or ads or anything in the building. The website had them listed, but only the turtle names and the pictures of the pizzas. No pictures of the turtles. I do know they had a commercial:
(there should be a video above, as long as it's on youtube)
But that was it. Nothing in Pizza Hut, not much of anything on their website.
We waited a week.
Then in Target I saw this:
So we searched around for another Pizza Hut to try. They weren't quite sure whether or not the pizzas were official available yet. But they made us the Michelangelo anyway:
As described on the Pizza Hut site:
Michelangelo's Favorite Pizza
Known as the jokester, this one gets a little crazy with seasoned pepperoni, smoked ham, sweet pineapple and spicy jalapenos.
It was really good! I was a bit surprised because I don't usually care for pineapple on pizza, but I'd order it again! I also recommend that you check it out, especially if you're a TMNT fan.
Our waitress said that the pizzas would be available and promoted more when the movie comes out. I hope it is and that there are things like Ninja Turtle carry out boxes and the like. I would love to get another Mikey pizza, or maybe one of each, in a special box.
I don't know what to make of the new movie. I plan to go see it, even if it gets terrible reviews. I'll reserve judgement until I've actually seen it. Even if it's terrible (worse than "The Next Mutation" or the "Coming Out of Their Shells Tour", even) I'm glad it's coming out because of promotional goodies like this.
So I did "Ponder and Enlightening" for over 7 years and in that time I made up Waffle Taco Hut and based it on Taco Bell. I was surprised to learn a year or three ago that they were testing a breakfast waffle taco at some Taco Bell locations. I was even more surprised to learn that they were selling waffle tacos nation-wide!
It's like somebody at Taco Bell read my silly little comic and thought it was a good idea!
The flavor of the waffle taco is different than I imagined. In my comic a Waffle Taco was like a regular taco with a round waffle instead of the shell/tortilla. Taco Bell's Waffle Taco is a rectangular waffle with sausage or bacon, egg, and cheese. It tasted better than I though it would.
Well, in that list I mentioned 3 items from Back to the Future part 2 that I would like defictionalized so I could buy them and make them a part of my life and daily routines. And 2015 is just around the corner so I used all my connections to find out.
I wrote an e-mail each to Mattel's, Pepsi's, and Nike's customer service internet thing to see if this was a possibility.
Each e-mail was basically the same format for each company. "2015 is just around the corner... people want Back to the Future stuff... will __________ be available?"
Each company responded! Here are there responses:
1.
Instead of reposting pictures stolen from google I decided to make quick, poorly-made MS Paint pictures of each item from BTTF2 I hope to see defictionalized.
First (and most importantly) I contacted Mattel. They answered:
This was the nicest/least formal response I got.
The gist: they dunno, but it would be pretty cool!
2.
Next (and next-most important) was Pepsi. They answered:
This was more formal with the usual "we will pass your suggestions along, thank you for the feedback... etc" kind of thing.
The gist: they dunno.
3.
Finally (the final important one) I contacted Nike about the Power Lace shoes. The answered:
Let me quote a part of this for emphasis (since I know you read each of these responses thoroughly).
" It has been rumored that Nike is said to have a paten for power laces,
but we do not have any information as to if there is truth behind this."
The gist: There's a rumor that Nike has power laces, but they dunno!
Great! That's a bit of hope, right? There's a rumor! Nike's customer service admits that theres a rumor! That counts for something, right?!
I love the Talkboy! Even though it doesn't work very well (see the video review above).
This Talkboy is not the one I got all those years ago. That one stopped working and I threw it away. This one I got off of ebay last year. It doesn't work very well and is missing the door for the batter compartment.
It looks a lot like the Talkboy in "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York", but not exactly like it. The things that stand out the most to me are that it is not the same shape.
Here it is in the package.
Here it is in the movie. (as usual, any photos I didn't take myself I got from a google image search).
Here is my Talkboy.
They look a little different.
I also noticed that the battery compartment of Kevin's Talkboy is on the bottom.
Whereas mine is on the back.
I can't find any stills of it, but Kevin's Talkboy has a green light and a red light by the speed controls. Mine does not.
In my video review you can see my Bozo Bop Bag clown toy Weeble thing. It's pretty cool.
But it's not exactly like Kevin's Bozo in the movie. His had arms.
Here's the video of the shower scene with Bozo. (until it gets taken down).
I also had the Monster Sap soap/gel that Kevin got from the toy store.
I had the purple one. It was just foam soap. I couldn't get it to shoot out like in the movie.
There were many other products in Home Alone 2, some of which were probably made into defictionalized products as well, but for my money the Talkboy is, and probably always will be, the best defictionalized product ever.
I love Defictionalized Products (Reverse Product Placement)! And even thought this blog is all about "Doing Stuff About Things We Like" today's post is about something I don't like. Even though I love Defictionalized Products, I do not like the choices made by the people who designed the packaging.
I like Defictionalized Products because they help me pretend, if only for a moment, that I am in the universe of a show, book, etc. that I love. When the product has something on it (say one of the characters or the show's logo) that would not be on it in the fictional universe, it breaks the illusion. It makes it less of a prop and more of a commercial for the show, book, etc. only. I know that they are commercials, but when they hide they take the time to hide that fact at least a little bit, I appreciate it and can suspend disbelief for my moment of "I am in the Simpson universe. It exists and I am part of it, eating my KrustyO's".
Let's go through most of my Defictionalized Product collection and I'll tell you what is wrong with each object, even thouogh I love each one.
When I buy a Defictionalized product. Such as Tru Blood
I want it to look like a bottle of Tru Blood, but I'd prefer that it did not have the HBO logo on it or a link to the show's website. (Here's a link to my review of Tru Blood!)
Or if I buy spinach like Popeye eats
I would like the can to look like a can of spinach from a Popeye cartoon. I do not want it to have a picture of Popeye on it. (Popeye Spinach Review!)
While Stay Puft marshmallows are very tastey and have a great front the back...
Should not have the Ghostbusters logo on it. It should not have the word "Ghostbusters" on it anywhere. (Stay Puft review!)
All of the Harry Potter merch is like this.
The bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans is pretty cool, but the tag says Harry Potter on it. In the wizarding world it would not say "Harry Potter" on it. (No Harry Potter candy review, yet...)
And these fictional drink cans from various cartoons...
They are pretty cool, but Peter Griffin and Barney Gumble. They should be drinking the drinks and not on the can. Whereas Slurms McKenzie would be on the can but Philip J. Fry
Would not be... on the can. (No Slurm review. I want to review the Slurm energy drink, but can not find any.)
And finally we come to the Talkboy!
I have no complaints about the Talkboy. It is my favorite Defictionalized product. It is wonderful and so close to perfect.
The box had Kevin McCallister and the words "Home Alone" on it, if I remember correctly, but this doesn't bother me because you never see the Talkboy Box in Home Alone 2. The Talkboy itself only has the words "Twentieth Centry Fox Films" on it in fine print. Which is better than it could be.
The Talkboy looks almost exactly like the movie version. I plan on reviewing it soon. I was going to review it during the Christmas season, but... it didn't happen.
The Christmas Season is over. At least, everybody considers Christmas Day the last day of the Christmas Season, even though it is supposed to be the first day. But...
So Christmas is over, but I love the Talkboy so some time in the next few weeks I will review it more thoroughly.
