Merch madness: 17 of the most bizarre movie tie-in products ever

This one is for the die-hard Rocky Balboa enthusiast. Or possibly the world’s most voracious meat lover. It’s a plastic replica of the hanging slab of beef that our favorite underdog boxer from the 1976 Oscar-winning Best Picture Rocky tenderized with his fists. To prove that professionalism and a sense of pride didn’t escape the creators of this gift from the movie gods, notice that the jacket has little red “blood” stains on it. This rare (pun so intended) collectible from Jakks Pacific varies in price from eBay sellers and online toy collectors, but some run as high as $69.99. In these rocky financial times, if you have 70 bucks to blow on this, we envy you.

Star Wars is obviously no stranger to oversaturating the consumer market with products but this aquarium based on everyone’s favorite astromech droid is one of the strangest tie-ins from that galaxy far, far away. According to the good folks at retailer Hammacher-Schlemmer, the item includes a “1 3/4-gallon aquarium tank in his central compartment, ideal for a small freshwater family of goldfish, gouramis, or tetras.” It’s also ideal for scaring away potential boyfriends or girlfriends. But, if you insist, it can be yours for $80. Although the product was discontinued in 2008, there are still some floating around for sale on Amazon and eBay.

From Pepsi cans to action figures, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace had a Force chokehold on consumer products in early summer of 1999. One of the most questionable (and grossest) items to come out of the movie’s marketing push were these watermelon-flavored, radioactive-green sugar treats from Farley’s. A Fruit By the Foot knockoff, it’s fitting that one of the worst movie tie-in foods had one of the least-liked Star Wars characters as its spokes-Gungan: Jar-Jar Binks. More recently, Disney teamed with the intergalactic chefs at Betty Crocker for a more updated version of a Star Wars-themed fruit snack. While they have, let’s face it, no nutritional value, they also have no gluten, the evil structural protein that has terrorized and bedeviled humankind since everyone suddenly became allergic to it.

The range of merchandise under the Star Wars umbrella is as broad and vast as the galaxy in which Star Wars takes place. Lamps, guitars, and the aforementioned Jar-Jar fruit snacks are among the collection, which is full of hits and misses—with the latter represented by the questionable C-3PO tape dispenser. The protocol droid looks more shocked here than he did when he was blasted into pieces on Cloud City, as he appears to “ride” a tape dispenser seated in a very, ahem, compromising position. This head-scratching item is a much coveted collectible for fans, as it was produced by Sigma only for Japan. The good news is the item seems to successfully dispense tape, much to the quasi-sexual thrill of everyone’s favorite protocol droid.

The “Dark Vader” burger from Quick, a French/Belgian fast food chain, is an infamous entry in the Star Wars merch canon. This novelty sandwich contains two minced beef patties topped with one slice of melted pepper Cheddar cheese, pepper sauce, endives and red pepper nestled between a black-colored bun sprinkled with black pepper and poppy seeds. Sold in support of Star Wars: Episode I 3D’s release in France, this bizarre burger leaves us with many questions: Was it grilled in the fires of Mustafar? Will it forge a path to the Dark Side ... of indigestion?

If the black bun—which is just dyed bread—looks a little weird, may we suggest two other burgers that were released at the same time by Quick: the Dark Burger and the Jedi Burger. Either way, when you order one of these bad (for you) boys, remember to say, “may the fries be with you” and possibly bring a smile to the face of a humorless French person.

From the alchemists at Sanyo foods, may we present Red chili noodle Iron Man 3 instant soup. The red chili combo was chosen due to its resemblance to Iron Man with onion and garlic flavors added to keep this concoction from coming back up moments after you choke it down. At the time, Sanyo was quoted as saying this food-adjacent product is “geared toward males in their 20s–40s,” however, they didn’t specify what species of males in their 20s–40s this is marketed towards, so we humans may be off the hook. Either way, you gotta give a repulsor-gloved high five to whomever got this out of the pitch stage and onto store shelves.

From the “leave-no-stone-unturned” files of Disney’s pursuit of merchandising opportunities, this box of 44 chopped and molded fish whatevers also comes with free tattoos! Ah, yes, the perfect combo. If these microwavable nuggets—from American Pride—were in canon, Ariel would be considered a cannibal for eating them. Maybe next they’ll sell Pinocchio firewood, Mickey Mouse mousetraps, or Bambi venison burgers. Don’t be leaving money on the table, Disney!

What better way to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ than hanging this Star Trek II ornament commemorating the death of Spock on your Christmas tree. This thankfully one-of-a-kind item was unveiled at Comic-Con 2015 and was manufactured by the normally saner folks at Hallmark. The ornament also features music and sound from the most emotionally devastating scene of the entire Star Trek film series. And you may cry too when you unwrap this joyous Christmas present reminding you of the peeling skin, fried internal organs and agonizing death from radiation poisoning of our favorite Vulcan. This keepsake is officially called The Needs of the Many. Fans remember that the end of that phrase was, “outweigh the needs of the few,” which quantifies the amount of people who’ll actually buy this with a straight face.

What better way to celebrate a movie about humans struggling to survive in a post-nuclear wasteland under the constant threat of murderous A.I. than with a nice, cold Apocalyptic Ice! Terminator: Salvation, director McG’s less-than-memorable 2009 Terminator sequel, was a summer movie launched with all the summer movie merch fixings. Action figures? Sure. T-shirts? Yup. But a Slurpee? Only because there’s a scene in the movie involving a 7-Eleven, which represents the reciprocal end of this arrangement between a movie studio and the convenience store where you buy energy drinks and mini-donuts. Even a T-800 would find that hard to swallow.

The summer of 1989 is often credited for a huge uptick in movie merchandising, thanks in large part to Tim Burton’s Batman, which minted money by slapping a Bat symbol on everything that would fit on a store shelf. Ghostbusters II, released a week before Batman, wasn’t going to leave those summer dollars on the table, so Columbia Pictures launched an extensive-ish marketing tie-in campaign of their own.

One of its most questionable products is this all-but-forgotten Ghost Blasters keychain from Hardees. Armed with a sound chip that plays distinct sounds from the movie, the Ghost Blasters keychain is seemingly aimed at helping friends and/or colleagues warn of “ghosts” with the press of a button. In reality, the keychain just annoyed the hell out of folks with its lame sound effects. But at least there’s Slimer art on the front that’s cool.

Before SqueezeIts disappeared from the market—mourned by no one— their death rattle ironically capitalized on a sequel to a movie about a resurrected extinct species. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was one of the biggest hits of summer 1997, and this piece of merch—blood-colored juice labeled Chucklin’ Cherry—was one of that summer’s biggest misfires. The dino-shaped bottles were kid-friendly, but given the bloodletting in the movie, the product was especially tone deaf.

We understand the wisdom of this tie-in; the Harry Potter series is kid-friendly, pancakes are kid-friendly, so what could go wrong? The molds are made of silicone and, once filled with the Harry Potter pancake mix, they sit on a preheated griddle until your kids try and remove one of them too early and burn their fingers. Of course any pancake mix will do, so if you’re curious what the culinary advantage is of using Harry Potter pancake mix, there is none. Williams-Sonoma, admittedly the seller of some awfully cool kitchen gadgets, also created pancake mold tie-ins for Star Wars, the Grinch and Snoopy. So if you love movies and pancake molds, Williams-Sonoma, for some reason, has you covered.

Kids sure do grow up fast nowadays so maybe we should reevaluate the product that implores boys who are at least three years old to, “Lather up and have fun with your Transformers shave set.” That’s actual wording on the back of the box of the Transformers Play Shave set containing an electric shaver (non-working, thank God), body soap, lather brush, lip-balm, after shave, and a comb. It’s hard to imagine a product containing so many items that a 5-year-old would have no interest in, other than to eat it, drink it, or break it. It’s also hard to imagine a product containing so many items that a Transformer would have no use for, unless Optimus Prime has been secretly manscaping for the benefit of his long-running Hollywood career.

The word “dumbbell” not only describes the worst piece of merch created to promote 2011’s Thor, but also the person who came up with this cockamamie idea. Yes, it’s the Thor dumbbell with alarm clock function (two AAA batteries not included). The first question that comes to mind is why a dumbbell would need an alarm clock built into it: to do arm curls in your sleep until the alarm clock wakes you up? The product was pegged to an in-theater contest, where one lucky winner would add this piece of Marvel history to their workout and sleep routine. It’s possible one could use it as an actual piece of workout equipment, although if Thor really used this thing he wouldn’t be able to lift a can of Molson let alone the mighty Mjölnir.

Despite being Paramount’s crown jewel franchise, Star Trek’s marketing tie-in presence has been historically low key when compared to other blockbuster big-screen properties. Perhaps the Final Frontier’s merch imprint is less than stellar because the studio is still getting over the shame of rolling out this Silly Putty knockoff with the release of 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. There’s nothing very Star Trek about this item, other than the packaging. It’s just blue putty that doesn’t appear in the movie or remotely in the vicinity of it. It does include a packet of “Magic Putty Transfer Fluid” which sounds dirty but probably isn’t. While it presumably performs exactly like the dimethyl siloxane, silica, Thixatrol ST, polydimethylsiloxane, decamethyl cyclopentasiloxane, glycerine, and titanium dioxide used to create the original Silly Putty, this product’s inclusion in TMP’s consumer products push is still worthy of a Spock-like arched eyebrow.

When we think of a delicious balanced breakfast for kids, who doesn’t think of cereal, orange juice and toast made using a toaster that recalls a child murderer burned alive by the parents of his young victims. Hence the Nightmare On Elm Street toaster. The marketing copy for this item is so bad it’s good: “He terrorized your dreams while you slept … and now Freddy Krueger haunts your breakfast when you wake up.” That said, each slice of toast has burn marks in the shape of Freddy and his deadly claws which, okay we’ll admit it, is kinda cool.

Paramount and Nintendo should have taken a page from Regina George’s book and stopped trying to promote a movie about catty high school cliques in the least appropriate way possible: a video game. Turns out, though, the Mean Girls Nintendo DS game never really happened, a pretty fabulous story recounted in great detail here. The broad strokes: it was scheduled to be released in Europe in 2009 and in the U.S. in 2010 until both releases were canceled. Its existence became the stuff of legend, mostly for people whose definition of “legend” is quite loose. Eventually, a ROM of the game surfaced to the satisfaction of cultural archeologists and Lindsay Lohan fans everywhere. The good news is that the initial cancellation of the game proved that in this era of shameless marketing, someone was brave enough to say, “you know what, this tie-in is too awful, even for us.” And we can all raise a glass of Jurassic Park SqueezeIt Juice to that.