We didn't go see the new Ninja Turtles movie last night as planned. Wish I had a good reason for that, but it really just boiled down to becoming obsessed with reading about various Mortal Kombat characters on Wikipedia. For real. I'm also now faced with really, really wanting to see The Hills Have Eyes 2 whenever I step foot inside a movie theater, so I'm going to pretend that I'll actually go through with seeing two movies in succession on some nearby Saturday afternoon, when the reality is that I probably won't see either movie until they're packaged with exclusive mini-posters as Best Buy DVD exclusives seven months from now.

More importantly, Spider-Man called me this morning.

What an awesome promotion. Today marks the in-store debut of Spider-Man 3 toys, and Hasbro has just been totally godlike in their promotional brilliance. For one, each of the major chains has their own "exclusives." I think Wal-Mart bests TRU and Target -- they've got some really cool black-costumed ultra-articulated Spider-Man figure that looks like the kind of thing that needs to be gracing the top of every geek's computer monitor by the end of the weekend. It's a safe bet that thousands of collectors zipped to all three stores this morning just to grab the exclusives, and I'm having trouble deciding if I'm happy or sad that I missed all of the hubbub. At the very least, I hope to own a "Spider Spud" Mr. Potato Head by the next time I shave.

Among the many clever ways that Hasbro has instilled a sense of urgency in the toy-buying public is something that I think people will remember for years and years and years. If you were smart enough to enter your phone number on a special promo site, you are one of the blessed souls who received a phone call from Spider-Man early this afternoon. I, of course, couldn't resist.

My phone rang at about 12:20, and I was subsequently treated to a 45 second prerecorded Spidey message reminding me that his new toys are now on sale! Yes! Sure, it's just blog fodder for me, but think about all the kids who got that call today. It's something they'll be writing about on their own nostalgia sites twenty years from now. Some would argue that we shouldn't dilute the heroism of Spider-Man by making him personally shill action figures and playsets, but who better to inspire people to buy Spider-Man dolls than Spider-Man himself? Aside from the obvious consumer awareness aspect, Spider-Man just has the perfect salesy voice. I'd pay a sawbuck for dog shit if he told me to.

In another great albeit totally unrelated promotion, the folks at Frito-Lay are letting us choose between two new Doritos flavors. After tallying up our votes online, one of the currently limited edition flavors will become a permanent fixture...and the other...will DIE. The new flavors include "Wild White Nacho" and "Smokin' Cheddar BBQ," and the former beats the latter in every category from taste to packaging design to personal bias. I will be extremely surprised and suicidal if the BBQ chips win the election, because it's not just that Wild White Nacho Doritos are better...the other ones just flat out suck. If there is an invisible line in the sand marking the point at which something tastes way too much like concentrated barbecue sauce powder, Smokin' Cheddar BBQ Doritos doesn't just cross it -- it crosses it, turns around, pisses liquid chipotle all over it and performs an annoying touchdown dance. Do the future of junk food a favor -- vote for Wild White Nacho Doritos.

In other news, an article of mine is in this month's ToyFare Magazine (#117), titled "Best of the Beast." It's a three-page look back at Battle Beasts, one of my very favorite toylines ever. There ain't a heck of a lot of new information in the piece if you're already a big fan of the toys, but I did get to make a decent joke about one of the figures looking like the company logo of a bad fried chicken restaurant.

Let's call this one an early start to the Saturday Night Thread.

Oh, I booked a cruise for later this year. We're on the Norwegian Spirit. Anyone have any experience with Norwegian cruises? Discuss in the comments, please. I know they're not the greatest line, but they're way cheaper than most of the others, and I'm pretty sure I'd be satisfied vacationing on a floating dumpster so long as it got me away from real life for a week.

Posted by Matt on 03/24/2007. E-mail me!