Today I saw a report about Mike Huckabee complaining about Natalie Portman’s unwed pregnancy, and it reminded me about a marketing tie-in I saw years ago for one of her Star Wars movies. It was a can of Chef Boyardee (by the way, I find it funny that MS Word seems to have “Boyardee” in their dictionary. No spell check problem there. Are people writing dissertations on Chef Boyardee these days to the extent that Microsoft has heard about it?) Ravioli with a picture of Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan Kenobi (that’s also in the MS Word dictionary!) on it, and in the picture, he was cutting open a piece of Chef Boyardee Overstuffed Meat Ravioli (see the center can at the bottom left of the picture. Actually, it might be Qui-Gon Jinn... Sorry, Star Warriors! {<Is that what they're called? Like "Trekkers"? Sorry, but I'm not up on all the lingo.}) with his light saber. I couldn’t help but think of all the people Obi Wan had sliced up with his light saber. So that’s what happened to Darth Maul after they cut him in half! And what about that guy’s arm from the cantina scene from Star Wars IV: A New Hope? And Count Dooku? (<That’s not in the MS Word spell check! Do they have a grudge against the prequel trilogy like many comedians?) I don’t think it was their aim, but it did make me think that maybe the meat in the ravioli was from those guys, and so then it made me wonder about something else: wouldn’t the remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre have been a good tie-in? They could have had a picture on the can of Leatherface cutting open a piece of meat ravioli with a chain saw. And isn’t the theme of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre more in line with processed meat products? They actually did use their victim’s meat for food, especially in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, where they won an award for chili meat! And wouldn’t that association imply that the meat in the ravioli is just as tasty? I think they may have missed an opportunity there.
BTW, the image of this keeps disappearing, so to see what I'm talking about, go to this link (you may have to copy it and paste it into your browser, since there appears to be some kind of grudge against my showing this to you. Sorry it's dark gray too, but that's apparently part of the grudge.):
http://cgi.ebay.com/2004-Chef-Boyardee-ad-page-STAR-WARS-Cartoon-Network-/350443223481
And then click on "Enlarge".
