Reinventing the Looney Tunes

Remember the Looney Tunes? If you’re old enough to remember when MTV aired music videos longer than six hours a day, sodas called Surge and Citra, and ABC actually programming a Saturday morning lineup rather than plucking repeats from their parent company’s established cable networks, then you might remember their original incarnations. You know, the crazy, borderline insane comedic characters from Warner Bros. before they got transformed into babies, sentai warriors, and, as Bugs Bunny himself said in the rarely seen ’90s short Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, “pale stereotypes” of their former selves. becoming essentially Disney-fied pitchmen selling everything from frozen food and candies to theme parks and phone services. Though to be fair, in the past, they sold everything from useless pieces of plastic, cereals, vitamins, candies,  and fried chicken (I’m still trying to wrap my mind over the fact that Foghorn Leghorn was once a pitchman for Kentucky Fried Chicken), but they were still essentially Looney Tunes characters, and they were still on television. read more

The Weird Merchandise from the Watchmen

I had the pleasure of getting to see The Watchmen this week. Having never read the graphic novel, the film was somewhat of a surprise to me. Although the super hero film genre has been exhausted lately, I still found the movie a fun escape. As Spider-man, Batman, and the X-men have proven, each successful super hero franchise comes with a load of merchandise. Here are a few of my favorites:

Rorschach Ski Mask
This ink blot mask  is perfect to protect your identity while you’re robbing a bank…I mean fighting bad guys.

Night Owl Dark Roast
Super heroes have to stay up late. Of course they need an all organic coffee.

Dr. Manhattan Lunchbox
Send your kid to school with a lunchbox that features a glowing naked man on it. read more

Avon Derma-Full: Rejuvenates Face, Kills Us All

Either the failing economy has caused Avon to desperately reach out to the notoriously image-savvy gamer market, or they’re trying their hand at bio-engineering unstable chemical weapons. A commercial for Avon’s new skin care mask caught the eye of a few Resident Evil fans recently; as Avon’s new Derma-Full X3 facial serum bears a striking resemblance to the T-Virus, a product with side-effects of disorientation, respiratory failure, and zombie apocalypse.

With Resident Evil 5 coming out this week, this almost seems like an odd sort of viral marketing campaign. read more