Products produced from The Simpsons
The long-running television animation The Simpsons has featured a number of fictional products, sometimes spoofs of real-life products, that have subsequently been recreated by real world companies attempting to exploit the popularity of The Simpsons. In 2007, as part of a "reverse product placement" marketing campaign for The Simpsons Movie, real life versions of a number of Simpsons products were sold in 7-Eleven stores. Real cans of Buzz Cola, boxes of Krusty-O's cereal, Squishees, and a special edition (#711) of the Radioactive Man Comic were all sold in stores alongside other The Simpsons merchandise.
Buzz Cola
Buzz Cola is a brand of
Sometimes Buzz Cola is used for making a statement of the advertising industry. In "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" (season 11, 1999) the Simpson family is at the movies watching the ads. Here they watch an Allied Forces soldier storm the Normandy beaches and charge a German. The German falls to the ground dead and the Allied soldier reaches for a can of Buzz Cola in his belt pocket. A voice over then says "Buzz Cola: The taste you kill for!" and then the German comes alive again to say "Available in ze lobby". Jonathan Grey writes in his book Watching With The Simpsons that "the cola ad, for instance, scorns the proclivity of ads to use any gimmick to grasp attention, regardless of ethics".[1]
Although a general
In July 2007,
Buzz Cola first appeared in the 1984 movie Surf II.[5]
Duff Beer
With its loud-mouthed corporate spokesperson
The chief competitor of Duff Beer is Fudd Beer, which is intentionally spelled with a parallel swapping of the consonants.[
Duff Beer was not sold at 7-Eleven because the promoters wanted to have "good, responsible fun."[3] However, a Duff Energy Drink was released in place of the Duff Beer.[7]
Krusty-O's
Krusty-O's is a brand of
Krusty-Brand Cereal is the catalyst for the episode "'Round Springfield", when Bart swallows a "jagged metal Krusty-O" included in the box as a premium and is sent to the hospital. Later in the episode when Krusty holds a press conference to show that swallowing the jagged metal Krusty-O is not dangerous, he immediately begins to gag before he is informed he swallowed a "regular" Krusty-O, which he claims must be "poison". At the end of the episode, another box of Krusty-O's is shown with the promotion: "Flesh-Eating Bacteria In Every Box!".[8]
The current cost of a box of frosty Krusty-O's is $6.66 according to the cash register in the opening credits of season 16.
Malibu Stacy
Malibu Stacy is a doll brand based on Barbie which is the main topic of the episode "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy".[9] The release of the 2023 film Barbie coincided with the 30th anniversary of the episode.[10]
Radioactive Man
Radioactive Man is within the show a long-running superhero comic book series featuring Radioactive Man and his sidekick,
Radioactive Man is one of the four 'premiere' series released by Bongo Comics in late 1993.[11] The series has been released in two volumes, an early run from 1993–1994,[12] and the current run that has been published since 2000. Smaller Radioactive Man stories have also been published in Simpsons Comics.[13] As a tie-in promotion of The Simpsons Movie a special "Radioactive Man Comic Book Edition #711" was sold at 7-Elevens as part of their Kwik-E-Mart promotion.[14]
Within the Bongo Comics, Radioactive Man is secretly Claude Kane III, a millionaire playboy whose personality was well-intentioned, but bumbling and not overly bright. In addition (which became a recurring storyline element), Claude's personality was permanently stuck in a conservative 1950s outlook on everything, no matter what the time era in question was. A running gag is that in order to preserve his secret identity, Claude is constantly wearing various types of hats, in order to conceal the lightning bolt-shaped shrapnel sticking out of his head.[15]
Issue #1 of the Bongo comic differs from Radioactive Man #1 as seen in The Simpsons episode "
Maintaining the satirical standards of the television show, these comics often parody genre comic books, and the reader can follow the evolution of Radioactive Man from a 1950s irradiated hero through the politically reactionary or radical years of the 1960s and 1970s, and the dark, troubled years of the 1980s and 1990s comic book hero. Indeed, one comic displays a startling similarity to Alan Moore's Watchmen, with Radioactive Man taking the part of state-supported hero Doctor Manhattan.[citation needed] The comics are published as if they were the actual Simpsons universe's Radioactive Man comics; a "1970s"-published comic features a letter written by a ten-year-old Marge Bouvier, for instance. The comic also takes the idea that the title has been running since the 1950s and each issue of the real series is a random issue from that run. So one issue might be issue #357, the next #432 and the next #34, etc.[13]
Squishee
Squishee (sometimes spelled Squishy or Squishie) is a frozen
The fictional version of Squishees are reputed for being dangerous to health — Squishee flavorings have, if ingested in sufficient quantities, hallucinogenic properties. According to the Simpsons comic, Squishees allegedly contain no natural ingredients (not even pure water), create dangerous cases of brain freeze, and are even described as "a thick, gloopy, tooth-rotting mixture of crushed ice and syrup". Flavors include: blue, red,
In 2007 as part of the Kwik-E-Mart promotion for The Simpsons Movie, Slurpees at 7-Elevens were renamed "Squishees" and sold in special collector cups.[3]
Tomacco
Tomacco was originally a fictional plant that was a hybrid between tomatoes and tobacco, from a 1999 episode of The Simpsons titled "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)". The method used to create the tomacco in the episode is fictional. In the episode, the tomacco was accidentally created by Homer when he planted and fertilized his tomato and tobacco fields with plutonium. The result is a tomato that apparently has a dried, brown tobacco center, and, although being described as tasting terrible by many characters, is also immediately and powerfully addictive. The creation is promptly labeled "tomacco" by Homer and sold in large quantities to unsuspecting passersby. A cigarette company, Laramie Tobacco Co., seeing the opportunity to legally sell their products to children, offers to buy the rights to market tomacco, but Homer demands one thousand times as much money as they wish to pay him, and the company withdraws. Eventually, all of the tomacco plants are eaten by farm animals — except for the one remaining plant, which later goes down in an explosive helicopter crash with the cigarette company's lawyers.
The process of making tomacco was first revealed in a 1959 Scientific American article, which stated that nicotine could be found in the tomato plant after grafting. Due to the academic and industrial importance of this breakthrough process, this article was reprinted in a 1968 Scientific American compilation.[18]
A Simpsons fan, Rob Baur of
The 2004 convention of the American Dialect Society named tomacco as the new word "least likely to succeed."[22] Tomacco was a wordspy.com "Word of the Day".[23]
Notes
- ^ Gray, pp. 1-2
- ^ Kirkland, Mark (2004). The Simpsons The Complete Fifth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Marge on the Lam" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
- ^ a b c d "7-Eleven Becomes Kwik-E-Mart for 'Simpsons Movie' Promotion". Fox News. Associated Press. 2007-07-01. Retrieved 2007-07-03.
- Cott Corporation. 2007-07-19. Archived from the originalon 2008-01-19. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
- IMDb
- ^ Idato, Michael (1999-01-03). "Sip Homer's brew". The Daily Telegraph. p. 036.
- ^ "Duff Energy Drink". xoxide.com. Retrieved 2007-07-31.
- ^ "'Round Springfield". The Simpsons. Season 6. Episode 22. 1995-04-30. Fox.
- ^ "Malibu Stacy: The Untold Story of 'The Simpsons' vs. Barbie". Vanity Fair. 2023-07-19. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
- ^ Starkey, Adam (2023-07-20). "'Barbie' is "modern answer" to Malibu Stacy episode, say 'The Simpsons' writers". NME. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
- About.com. Retrieved 2008-08-05.
- ^ Shutt, Craig. "Sundays with the Simpsons". MSNBC. Archived from the original on 2007-07-08. Retrieved 2007-07-08.
- ^ a b "Radioactive Man". UGO Networks. Archived from the original on 2008-09-21. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
- ^ "Kwik-E-Mart Comes to Life". ABC News. 2007-07-03. Archived from the original on 2007-09-17. Retrieved 2007-10-30.
- ^ a b "Radioactive Man at International Superheroes". International Superheroes. Retrieved 2008-08-06.
- ^ "The Sweetest Apu". The Simpsons. Season 13. Episode 9. 2002-05-05. Fox.
- Boy-Scoutz N the Hood". The Simpsons. Season 5. Episode 11. 1993-11-18. Fox.
- ISBN 0-7167-0974-0
- )
- ^ a b "Homer Simpson inspires man to grow 'tomacco'". CTV.ca. Nov 13, 2003. Archived from the original on 21 November 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2010.
- ^ Baur, Rob (2006). The Simpsons The Complete Eleventh Season DVD commentary for the episode "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Summary of "Among the New Words", American Speech, Volume 79, Number 2, Summer 2004.
- ^ Word Spy – tomacco
References
- Grey, Jonathan (2006). Watching with the Simpsons. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-36202-4.
External links
- Media related to Products produced from The Simpsons at Wikimedia Commons