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The Star Wars Midnight Madness Mega Event!

Wow, the last post on here turned out to be prophetic. I found out on Wednesday that the Toys 'R' Us in Times Square was hosting a special version of the Midnight Madness event -- the night where toy stores across the country open their doors at 12 AM to give Star Wars nuts first dibs on all the new Revenge of the Sith merchandise. I'm sure a few of you attended the event in your area, but at this particular TRU, it wasn't just about toys -- it was about costumed M&M's dressed as Star Wars characters, giant Darth Taters and enough "real" Stormtroopers to take down the city. Quite a night we had -- check out the four page report!

So yes, the Sith-craze has officially begun. The stuff is just everywhere. We've covered similar phenomena when Shrek 2 and The Hulk came out, but it's a little different this time, since I actually, you know, like Star Wars. I'll review as much of the crap as time allows, but let's start with a big one: tongue-coloring Star Wars Cheetos!

Yes, "Cheetos Twisted" snacks, all dolled up for Revenge of the Sith. Apparently, food companies at large were simultaneously handed research results proving that kids across the world are more inclined to eat things filled with dried food coloring...thus, the Cheetos turn one's tongue either "Yoda Green" or "Darth Vader Dark." Incredible. They've even got Chester wearing the black helmet and swinging a lightsaber on the package, along with a few other images the serve the church of sacreligion.

Illustrated above, moisture makes the cheesy twirls let go of their inner secret colors, staining everything they touch either green or black. What fun! Though I'm sure many will buy these for the novelty factor, I don't think every kid at school's gonna want a lunchtime snack that makes their mouth area look so dirty. As if Cheetos didn't leave enough messy residue already.

That's all for now -- if you participated in any of the midnight events or hit the stores over the weekend, let us know what you picked up! I plan on hitting TRU everyday till I land myself a red Royal Guard. Disgustingly, I'm pretty excited about doing that.

Posted by Matt on 04/03/2005. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 135 comments
1 2 3 … 6

Just Wow….

Chestnuts roasted by SuperRecoome @ 04/03/2005 7:58 PM

Ewww…

Chestnuts roasted by Mechageo @ 04/03/2005 8:13 PM

Did Knacks and Kuse make an appearance?

Chestnuts roasted by Carri @ 04/03/2005 8:55 PM

Is there a way of telling what cheeto is going to turn your tounge what? If not that’s just going to be a disaster in your mouth.

Chestnuts roasted by dohopoki @ 04/03/2005 9:02 PM

Matt, first off, as a long-time "Star Wars" fan myself, let me tell you…you are envied. MAJORLY envied. I’m 45 minutes from the nearest Toys R Us, but I’ll hopefully be making a mall pilgrimge within the next two weeks or so, so god willing, I’ll see all those great new toys. What I WON’T see are the guys dressed as everything from Bobba Fett to stormtroopers mingling with a New York crowd on a rainy spring night. That’s the kind of "happening" that only happens once every few years, if that.

And Darth Tater. My god, I MUST have Darth Tater. I’ve been wanting an excuse to replace my much-loved childhood Mr. Potato Head anyway, and here he is. And he even pulls off cute with one of the nastiest villians in film history. Gotta love it.

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 04/03/2005 9:06 PM

Here’s a couple of connections…

On Cheetos: X-E covered a http://www.x-entertainment.com/updates/entries/archives/00000418.html">Shrek version that used the same tongue-coloring gimmick.

On Star Wars @ TRU: It’s the same TRU that played host to the article where I met http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0684/">Skeletor and Mario Lopez.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 04/03/2005 9:42 PM

Star Wars Cheetos: it’s like there’s a party in my mouth, and everyone’s throwing up. What kind of funky focus group did they have?

Chestnuts roasted by Road Block @ 04/03/2005 9:58 PM

Isn’t Darth Tater just darling?

Chestnuts roasted by eight-bit @ 04/03/2005 10:44 PM

For those curious, here’s what I’ve picked up so far…

Figures: Padme, Palpatine, Dooku, Blue Senate Guard, Chewbacca, Vader, 3P0, R2, Anakin, General Grievous, and somehow, I ended up with two Mon Mothmas. I had the fever.

Exclusives: Holographic Yoda x3, plus I just ordered two of the Early Bird kits from Walmart’s website. Went to two of the stores on Saturday morning and the people working there had no idea what I was asking for. If you’re interested in that, I strongly suggest ordering from the site before it’s gone forever. Now I just need that Target Lava Vader. :)

Dolls: Ultimate Villain Anakin & Darth Sidious. Didn’t get the Clone Trooper, but he looked pretty rockin.

Other: Darth Tater, some new small Lego set based on Vader’s grand unveiling, and of course, the Darth Vader Voice Changer.

Plus a bunch of food-related items I plan to keep until 2045, at which time they will be eaten.

I’ll probably keep going with the Sith stuff since I’m off to such a strong start, and besides, the packaging is way nicer with these than on most of the figs that have come out in recent years.

I almost forgot how fun this was. Thank the Lord I work across the fucking street from a TRU…how absolutely perfect.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 04/03/2005 10:52 PM

Now this is the article I was waiting for!! I didn’t go to the midnight unveiling but I went to K-MART, TRU, TARGET, and WAL-MART yesterday. I only bought the new Darth Vader BUT Target bput some of their "older" stuff on clearance. I got a blue lightsaber for 1.74!!
Hands down, WALMART had the best display. It is no Times Square but at least my town has all of these shops (starwenn, you have my sympathies). They had couple of big displays and a cutout that let you could talk into a sound like Vader.
TRU had a nice display and Target had people taking pictures (XE fans??) and loading up shopping carts.
I guess I will have to nickel and dime the figures for the next 40 years…..

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 04/03/2005 10:56 PM

Oh yeah, I got a TON of food items too and mailed off for some of the KELLOGG’s premiums. I have some of the boxes in the classroom already (!).

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 04/03/2005 10:57 PM

Shit, no TRU within 100 miles. I really would have loved to go to this. I attending the Episode I Midnight Madness in California, and while I was broke and couldn’t buy anything, I had a blast. I can’t believe the Episode II MM passed me by.

Matt, you live in, what, an apartment? With another person? You sleep outside or something?

Chestnuts roasted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 04/03/2005 11:13 PM

Hey, the target Darth Vader is available on their website now. Hurry, supplies are limited! I’d paste the address to it here but it would totally screw up your formatting, and I wouldn’t want to do that to you. http://www.target.com there is a link right on the front. Plus, what is with you lack of Jedi?? That’s all I bought. Jedi are sweet.

Chestnuts roasted by Mike @ 04/04/2005 12:02 PM

The cheese doodles scare me.

Chestnuts roasted by Modern Day Pirate @ 04/04/2005 12:13 PM

Everyone needs to check out that link at the bottom of the article, since Ted Leo is pretty much the best thing ever. And the Ditty Bops are freaking adorable.

That article made my night as it was, but Ted Leo covering Kelly Clarkson? Solid gold.

Chestnuts roasted by Jeffster @ 04/04/2005 12:16 PM

WHOA. Great coverage, you really captured the mood. Darth Tater is the coolest, but that Obi-Wan M is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

I just saw the ad for the http://www.lego.com/eng/starwars/videogame/default.asp">LEGO® Star Wars™ video game today, and it got me a little giddy. I’ve been anticipating Sin Cith and Hitchhiker’s a lot, but haven’t really gotten excited over Star Wars until now. I’ll probably end up going on opening night, but I don’t think I’d be willing to wait as long as I had to for the last two movies.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 04/04/2005 12:45 PM

It was a sad night in the end.
I dragged my poor girlfriend to the local Toys R Us store. One store which in fact I had fond memories of as a kid. In comparison to the May ’99 unveiling (which there were like 500 people on line) there were about 50 or so this time. I watched as greedy hands and desperate collectors tore apart the store to fufill their sick, dirty, habit. I looked on, only merely to see some of the neat stuff I do not need nor can I afford. In the end I left with nothing. I knew this was a benchmark moment. I had spent too much time when I was younger collecting hunks (of beautiful well sculpted plastic) of plastic that would collect dust in storage. This was the beginning of the end of my youth. It was fun to live thrrough the younger kids buying crap with bright eyes and reckless abandon. I knew it was time to move on. I felt kinda empty by the time I had hit the car. At 26, the saga had ended.

Chestnuts roasted by Jerry Horror @ 04/04/2005 1:06 AM

I also must express my affections for The Ditty Bops. I work at Barnes and Noble and their CD has been one of our plays for a couple monnths. First time I heard it, I said to all my coworkers that I’m marrying those gals.
About Star Wars, I don’t have much to say. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, they say. As for me, ignorance is bliss. On the other hand, I have a Darth Tater and I love the little fella.
Matt, I must give acclaim to your Leia’s-failure-to-rescue-Han reference. It’s a moment not much discussed, but always revered, and always relevant.
By the by, I read the last three pages of the novelization–the twist ending is that Anakin rejects the darkside creating a timespace paradox in which IV, V, and VI never happen and dissappear from store shelves across the country and from our minds.

Chestnuts roasted by inkmage @ 04/04/2005 1:33 AM

When I was a kid the Jawa figure was the hardest to come by. We used to wait at K-Mart until they put new ones out.

Chestnuts roasted by Joe in OH @ 04/04/2005 1:43 AM

I am currently eating the "Darth Mix" peanut dark chocolate M & M’s. I can feel my brain dissolving.

Chestnuts roasted by phunqsauce @ 04/04/2005 2:01 AM

That was a fantastic read! Darth Tater needs to be one of an entire line of potato Star Wars toys. I’d kill to see a potato Han riding a non-potato Tauntaun.

P.S. I think these are two typos, and normally you appreciate those being caught:

"One to keep, one to open and one to sell one of you poor freaks for three hundred dollars."

"… along with a few other images the serve the church of sacreligion."

Chestnuts roasted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 04/04/2005 4:58 AM

There’s something special about seeing a box containing Darth Vader with a message on the packaging saying: "WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD".

Chestnuts roasted by Photoboy @ 04/04/2005 6:47 AM

Eddie — thanks!

"Sacreligion" is a gag word that sounds better than it reads.

The other one is jumbled a bit, yes, I’ll fix that later, yes.

Photoboy: Hell yes.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 04/04/2005 9:11 AM

I always thought that a good Star Wars food tie-in the Lucas people overlooked was the Han Solo frozen in carbonite chocolate bar. Maybe some kinda white chocolate Han inside the dark chocolate carbonite. Then I could eat him. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Now I know why they backed off from it.

Chestnuts roasted by Dags @ 04/04/2005 9:18 AM

Ah, you didn’t manage to buy Aayla Secura, which I tore apart the local TRU on Sunday looking for. If you’d found one, I’d have to kill you. Oddly enough, they had plenty of Luminaras, which was the figure I kept looking for for episode II and never managed to find.(Granted, the ep III sculpt of Luminara stinks compared to the ep II one. The entire reason I wanted her was because of the dynamic pose.)

Anyway, regardless of the movie, Episode 3 has already provided a few positives. It has made dark chocolate M&Ms commonly available.

Also, Twi’lek boobies.

Chestnuts roasted by Regault @ 04/04/2005 9:26 AM

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