Most remarkably cynical movie merchandise tie-in ever

You’re a studio exec and you have a little movie about Sherlock Holmes directed by Guy Ritchie (coming off the hat trick from hell ^[1] of RockNRolla, Swept Away, and Revolver), and suddenly it dawns on you, “This stars Robert Downey Jr.” You know, Iron Man! The guy who made blackface cool again in Tropic Thunder! Clearly this is something that can be exploited. So you give the flick a big Christmas release and then start exploring product tie-ins…which is tough because it’s set in Victorian England and the only logical pairing is with Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips ^[2] (plus possibly their partner, Pudgie’s Famous Chicken). But you just know there’s more money to be made, so you settle on…this ^[3].

Yes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal creation has endorsed 7-Eleven’s Go-Go Taquitos. At first this seems an odd pairing, since Holmes was a genius turn-of-the-century Brit cokehead and at no point in the canon did he express a yen for reasonably-priced Mexican takeout. Never fear though, for the ad execs working this account earned their salaries by brilliantly tying everything together with the Don-Draper-on-a-good-day tagline: “GET A CLUE.” Which is ingenious because Sherlock Holmes is a detective and these are 99 cent taquitos so…it just makes sense, people. And that’s why we can look forward to:

-Jay Gatsby Microwave Gnocchi

-Bigger Thomas Toaster Strudel

-Stephen Dedalus Deep Fried Hot-Dog-on-a-Stick

-Holly Golightly Waffle House Bacon Egg & Cheese Wrap Plate

and of course

-Humbert Humbert Panda Kitchen Express Orange Chicken

We’ll make some money off this “literature” yet.

Sean Cunningham’s column appears each week.