Movies can make a lot of money from merchandising rights -- we're talking crazy, unattainable, not-eating-Hot-Pockets-anymore kind of money. So it's not surprising that there are some less-than-ideal pairings out there. One need look no further than our Reservoir Dogs earmuffs for that kind of thing. But then there are some next level mismatches, the kind whose very existence seems to spit on their films and everything good about them. Like ...
#6. The Spider-Man Operation Game That Finally Lets You Butcher Your Hero
Columbia Pictures
Hey kids, have you ever wanted to tear apart Spider-Man and pluck out his insides?
R-really? Holy shit, what's wrong with you?
Well, we guess it's better than "playing" with the neighborhood cats, so uh ... here you go, children.
Milton Bradley
Spider-Man, Spider-Man, needs a better insurance plan!
The game plays exactly the same as classic Operation, but features our beloved plucky hero on the operating table. All the surgery-related puns are still there, but instead of "water on the knee," Spider-Man needs you to remove his "webbed feet" and "a-rack-nid ribs." And that's to say nothing of the curiously testicle-shaped piece you're invited to remove from his crotch.
Oh, but don't think we're reading too much into a cute little kids game. This game seriously is all about torturing and dismembering Spider-Man. Just look at the box art, which features a beaten and drugged webslinger about to be experimented on by Doctor Octopus.
Milton Bradley
Whose medical credentials are suspect, at best.
Either the artist has never read a Marvel comic and assumes Doc Ock is an actual medical doctor with his Hippocratic oath intact, or the premise of the game is that you take the role of Spidey's arch-nemesis and your goal is to remove the webslinger's organs one by one. Or maybe we're looking at this wrong. Maybe the whole game is one big honey trap meant to flush out young supervillains in the making.
Parents: If your child frequently monologues to their playmates before defeating them, if they refer to their pillow fort as a "lair," or if they've already grown and begun twirling a sinister mustache, maybe slip a box of Spider-Man Operation under the Christmas tree and fully confirm your suspicions before you ship them off to Arkham Daycare Facilities.
Dorling Kindersley/Dorling Kindersley RF/Getty Images
At the very least, throw their Johns Hopkins application into the trash.
#5. The Little Mermaid Betrays Her Kingdom for Your Crappy Dinner
Walt Disney
Even though The Little Mermaid came out all the way back in 1989, Disney spent decades exploiting it for marketing opportunities. It's totally understandable -- that's what one does with a cash cow, after all. If you carefully milk the franchise forever, revenues will never run dry. Well, it's either that or slaughter it and devour all of those delicious cash burgers. Surprisingly, Disney opted for the latter when they partnered with American Pride Seafoods in 2006 to give the world Little Mermaid brand ... fish nuggets.
American Pride Foods/Disney
"In the shape of your favorite characters, except with X's on the eyes!"
If you don't see the problem, imagine tucking into a juicy venison steak with Bambi printed on the cover. Ariel and her fishy friends even appear on the box itself as a reminder to kids that their meal comes at the expense of their favorite cartoon characters' very lives. There's even a "Family Pack" available, although the box doesn't make it clear whether the family in question is yours or the corpses of Sebastian's wife and children.
American Pride Foods/Disney
Under the sea, please spare me
Dipped in the batter, my kids taste better, take it from me
I swear to sing for you all day, and I will look the other away
Sure it's revoltin', but I'm still floatin', under the sea
Look at Ariel and King Triton smiling and dancing around that plate of their loyal subjects, whose corpses are carved up and breaded for your eager consumption. It's like their entire business model is luring the sea's inhabitants to Atlantica, only to sell them as food to the humans of the world above. And what the hell are you so happy about in this picture, Flounder? You aquatic Uncle Tom.
#4. The Who Framed Roger Rabbit Game That Supports Genocide
Touchstone Pictures
Remember that scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when Judge Doom demonstrated his plan to exterminate the cartoon characters by slowly lowering a sobbing anthropomorphic shoe into a vat of acidic "Dip?" Do you remember the look of terror on its face as it died? Ah, who are we kidding? Of course you remember! It's the moment your innocence died, too. But in case you've successfully repressed it, here you go:
Touchstone Pictures
DON'T LOOK AWAY. WITNESS IT.
How can you market something as awful and scarring as that scene? Easy! By releasing an action board game called Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Dip Flip! The game where you play as the villain and try to murder as many beloved cartoon characters as you can.
Milton Bradley
Like genocidal tiddlywinks.
One player takes control of a "flipper" shaped like Doom, and hurls the protagonists of the film to their grisly deaths. The other takes control of an Eddie Valiant flipper, and desperately tries -- and fails -- to save his friends. Then the players switch, so everybody gets a turn as the murderous madman! All of this mirth is summed up perfectly by the tagline "The action is fast -- just aim and flip ... get all the toons into the Dip!"
That's making pretty light of mass murder, Disney. Universal didn't make a Schindler's List board game with the tagline "Use all of your might, use all of your power ... get all the Jews into the sho-"
Milton Bradley
This title card brought to you by last-minute restraint.
0 comments:
Post a Comment