I was going to lie and say that today’s entry was the result of someone daring me to write about glassware, but the truth is, I was drowsily searching one of our less-consulted kitchen cabinets on the hunt for a clean coffee cup, saw these and thought, “hellllooooo content.”
Beginning in the late ’70s and ending in the early ’80s, Burger King and C-3P0 teamed up to bring us three sets of absolutely pimped out Star Wars glasses — four for each film in the original trilogy. For promotional items, the glasses were really well made, and even after over twenty years of dishwashing and general use, they still look like glasses you could drink from without thinking twice.
The sets of glasses arrived whenever one of the three original Star Wars films debuted, but I only caught the Return of the Jedi set. I never actually owned them as a child, but my old buddies across the street did. No visit to their house was complete without drinking something from a Return of the Jedi glass.
We were little kids at the time, so my friends’ mother usually had the honor of pouring our drinks. I used to drop subtle hints in an attempt to get her to let me have one of the glasses, but she never bit the line. In retrospect, I couldn’t have been more than five or six years old, so I wonder just how “subtle” I was in these attempts. My kid-version of subtlety probably amounted to something like, “GEE I REALLY WISH SOMEONE WOULD GIVE ME THIS GLASS THAT I’M DRINKING FROM RIGHT NOW.”
I think my youthful shamelessness is understandable. The glasses were really great. Many years ago, I picked up the full set of 12 (4 from each movie, in case you didn’t catch that from the first seventeen times I said it) for a bargain price off eBay. Later, I broke my favorite from the set — the ROTJ “Emperor’s Throne Room” glass, featuring shots of Palpatine making perverted faces as Luke and Vader lunged giant, light-up Fla-Vor-Ices at each other. Still, the three remaining ROTJ glasses more than adequately convey how unbelievably boss this promotion was. And I don’t use the term “boss” loosely. Or ever, really.
My favorite is the Jabba glass, not just for its thankful inclusion of the Rebo Band, but for the random shot of a Gamorrean Guard molesting Princess Leia. Interestingly, even in mid-molest, both the Gamorrean Guard and Leia pose with their best Kodak “cheese” faces.
Another glass depicts the big battle scene near the Sarlaac pit, back before Lucas’s team gave it a big stupid CG plant mouth. Hate that plant mouth. The final glass features an Ewok Village scene, which is barely worth mentioning when compared to Sarlaac pits and pigs touching Leia.
Click here to download and watch Burger King’s original Star Wars glasses commercial from the ’70s. I’d tell you to play close attention to the disco spin on the classic theme, but you’ll be too busy staring with awe at the actress playing a Burger King staffer, who is so unbelievably excited about this glassware promotion that it’s a miracle no one was hurt.
Happy SNT. Hard to believe the Summer Megaparty is almost over. Oh wait, it isn’t. I’ve sort of maybe unofficially decided to extend it into August, for a few reasons. I don’t feel terribly winded yet, and to be honest, I wanted to actually cover some summer-specific stuff. Aside from cutting a watermelon up like a pumpkin — and that’s pretty borderline — I don’t believe I’ve actually done that, yet. Only catch will be that I cannot guarantee posts for every single day in August. I’ll try to hit most of them, though. Even if it’s just with doodles of the Retarded Penguin.
Posted by Matt. E-mail me!
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Perhaps I shall remedy this in the next 2 days, while I’m off.
Holy crap, 100 comments already?!
I was at a party all night…