Products produced from The Simpsons

{{Short description|Recreations of Products from The Simpsons}} {{Use American English|date=May 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2024}} [[File:BuzzCan.jpg|200px|thumb|right|A promotional can of Buzz Cola for ''The Simpsons Movie'']]

The long-running television animation ''[[The Simpsons]]'' has featured a number of products, sometimes spoofs of real-life products, that have subsequently been recreated by real world companies attempting to exploit the popularity of ''The Simpsons''. In 2007, as part of a "reverse [[product placement]]" marketing campaign for ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'', real life versions of a number of Simpsons products were sold in [[7-Eleven]] stores. Real cans of Buzz Cola, boxes of Krusty-O's cereal, Squishees, and a special edition (#711) of the [[#Radioactive Man|Radioactive Man Comic]] were all sold in stores alongside other ''The Simpsons'' merchandise.

==Buzz Cola== '''Buzz Cola''' is a brand of [[cola]], and an officially licensed product of [[20th Century Studios]]. Its [[slogan]] is "twice the sugar, twice the [[caffeine]]". The slogan is a parody of the former [[Jolt Cola]] slogan "all the sugar and twice the caffeine". A prior slogan used was "There's a little boogie in every bottle (can)".

Sometimes Buzz Cola is used for making a statement of the advertising industry. In "[[E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)]]" ([[The Simpsons season 11|season 11]], 1999) the Simpson family is at the movies watching the ads. Here they watch an [[Allies of World War II|Allied Forces]] soldier storm the [[Normandy]] beaches and charge a German. The German falls to the ground dead and the Allied soldier reaches for a can of Buzz Cola in his belt pocket. A voice over then says "Buzz Cola: The taste you kill for!" and then the German comes alive again to say "Available in ze lobby". Jonathan Grey writes in his book ''Watching With The Simpsons'' that "the cola ad, for instance, scorns the proclivity of ads to use any gimmick to grasp attention, regardless of ethics".<ref>Gray, pp. 1-2</ref>

Although a general [[parody]] of popular cola drinks, parallels can be observed between Buzz Cola and [[Pepsi]]. For example, many of the mock [[television commercials]] that appear for Buzz Cola on ''The Simpsons'' follow the same youth-oriented approach of real Pepsi commercials. In another example, [[Homer Simpson|Homer]] gets his arm stuck in a [[vending machine]] selling "Crystal Buzz Cola", a parody of [[Crystal Pepsi]].<ref>{{cite video | people=Kirkland, Mark|date=2004|title=The Simpsons The Complete Fifth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Marge on the Lam"| medium=DVD|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref> In the episode "[[Dude, Where's My Ranch?]]," [[Maggie Simpson]] dances in her crib with her midriff exposed while a [[Britney Spears]] tune plays in the background and produces a can of Buzz Cola at the end of her small dance, parodying the Pepsi advertising done by Spears in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There is also a "Buzz Cola with Lemon" version of the product, with the slogan "damn, that's a lemony cola". In addition, in a [[The Color Yellow|later episode]], there was an old ad for Buzz Cola, stating that it has the "rejuvenating power of cocaine" in it. In the video game ''[[The Simpsons: Hit & Run]]'', aliens [[Kang and Kodos]] use a "[[New Coke|new and improved]]" Buzz Cola formula to brainwash the citizens of Springfield into performing stupid stunts for their reality TV show, ''Foolish Earthlings''. They also dump it into the town's water supply, which reanimates the dead and creates [[zombies]].

In July 2007, [[7-Eleven]] rebranded some stores to look like [[Kwik-E-Mart]]s in select cities to promote ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]''. Real cans of Buzz Cola were available at those locations, as well as most other 7-Elevens throughout the United States and Canada.<ref name=FOX>{{cite news |url=https://www.foxnews.com/story/7-eleven-becomes-kwik-e-mart-for-simpsons-movie-promotion |title=7-Eleven Becomes Kwik-E-Mart for 'Simpsons Movie' Promotion |agency=Associated Press|date=2007-07-01 |access-date=2007-07-03 |work=Fox News}}</ref> The soda in these cans was produced by the [[Cott]] Corporation, which also makes [[RC Cola]] outside the United States.<ref name=COTT>{{cite news |url=http://www.cott.com/investors/news/newsRelease/?reqid=1027902 |title=Cott Reports Q2 Results |publisher=[[Cott Corporation]]|date=2007-07-19 |access-date=2008-03-23 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080119194252/http://www.cott.com/investors/news/newsRelease/?reqid=1027902  |archive-date = 2008-01-19}}</ref>

Buzz Cola first appeared in the 1984 movie ''[[Surf II]]''.<ref>{{IMDb title|qid=Q7645863|id=tt0088207|title=Surf II}}</ref>

==Duff Beer== [[File:Duff beer.jpg|100px|thumb|left|Duff Beer]] {{main|Duff Beer}}

With its loud-mouthed corporate spokesperson [[Duffman]], ''Duff Beer'' is a parody of stereotypical [[American beer]]: cheap, mass-produced, poor-quality and heavily advertised. It is [[Homer Simpson|Homer]]'s favorite beer and sold in all the bars of [[Springfield (The Simpsons)|Springfield]]. Its slogan is "Can't get enough of that wonderful Duff".

The chief competitor of Duff Beer is '''Fudd Beer''', which is intentionally spelled with a parallel swapping of the consonants. {{Citation needed|date=June 2019}} Homer became aware of Fudd Beer while patronizing a "[[Redneck (stereotype)|redneck]] bar" in nearby Spittle County. It was later revealed to be considered very popular in [[Springfield (The Simpsons)|Springfield's]] rival town of [[Springfield (The Simpsons)#Shelbyville|Shelbyville]]. [[Moe Szyslak|Moe]] said he thought it had been banned "after all those hillbillies went blind", suggesting [[methanol poisoning]].

[[Lion Nathan]], an Australian brewery, started to brew their own ‘Duff’ in the mid-1990s. [[20th Century Fox]] sued, and only a few cans were produced. In the process, the beer became a collector's item, with one case selling for [[United States dollar|US$]]13,000.<ref name=sip>{{cite news|title=Sip Homer's brew |date=1999-01-03|page=036|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)|The Daily Telegraph]]|author=Idato, Michael}}</ref> Since the 2000s, several Duff brands exist worldwide.

Duff Beer was not sold at 7-Eleven because the promoters wanted to have "good, responsible fun."<ref name=FOX/> However, a Duff Energy Drink was released in place of the Duff Beer.<ref name=duff>{{cite news |url=http://www.xoxide.com/simpsons-duff-energy-drink.html |title=Duff Energy Drink |publisher=xoxide.com |access-date=2007-07-31 }}</ref>

==Krusty-O's==  '''Krusty-O's''' is a brand of [[breakfast cereal]] endorsed by [[Krusty the Clown]] which prominently features his likeness on the box. The real KrustyO's, sold by [[7-Eleven]], were produced by the [[Malt-O-Meal]] corporation.<ref name=FOX/>

Krusty-Brand Cereal is the catalyst for the episode {{"-}}[['Round Springfield]]", when [[Bart Simpson|Bart]] swallows a "jagged metal Krusty-O" included in the box as a [[wiktionary:premium|premium]] and is sent to the hospital. Later in the episode when Krusty holds a press conference to show that swallowing the jagged metal Krusty-O is not dangerous, he immediately begins to gag before he is informed he swallowed a "regular" Krusty-O, which he claims must be "poison". At the end of the episode, another box of Krusty-O's is shown with the promotion: "[[Necrotizing fasciitis|Flesh-Eating Bacteria]] In Every Box!".<ref>{{cite episode |title=[['Round Springfield]] |series=The Simpsons |network=[[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] |airdate= 1995-04-30 |season=6 |number=22 }}</ref>

According to the cash register in the opening credits of season 16, the current cost of a box of frosty Krusty-O's is $6.66.

==Radioactive Man== {{main|List of recurring The Simpsons characters#Radioactive Man|}} [[File:Radioactivemancomic.jpg|right|thumb|140px|''Radioactive Man'' #1]] ''Radioactive Man'' is within the show a long-running superhero comic book series featuring Radioactive Man and his sidekick, [[Fallout Boy (The Simpsons)|Fallout Boy]]. According to one episode, there are 1,000 issues of the comic book. In the real world, [[Bongo Comics]] has produced a smaller number of issues of ''Radioactive Man''. '''''Radioactive Man''''' is one of the four 'premiere' series released by Bongo Comics in late 1993.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://animatedtv.about.com/od/comics/p/profsimpcomics.htm|title=The Simpsons comic books|access-date=2008-08-05|publisher=[[About.com]]}}</ref> The series has been released in two volumes, an early run from 1993–1994,<ref name="msnbc">{{cite web|url=http://cagle.msnbc.com/hogan/features/simpsons_sundays/simpsons_on_sundays.asp |title=Sundays with the Simpsons|access-date=2007-07-08|author=Shutt, Craig|publisher=[[MSNBC]] |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070708094751/http://cagle.msnbc.com/hogan/features/simpsons_sundays/simpsons_on_sundays.asp |archive-date = 2007-07-08}}</ref> and the current run that has been published since 2000. Smaller ''Radioactive Man'' stories have also been published in ''Simpsons Comics''.<ref name="ugo">{{cite web|url=http://simpsons.ugo.com/?cur=radioactive-man-comic&gallery=true|title=Radioactive Man|access-date=2008-08-03|publisher=[[UGO Networks]]|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080921081311/http://simpsons.ugo.com/?cur=radioactive-man-comic&gallery=true|archive-date=2008-09-21}}</ref> As a tie-in promotion of ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'' a special "Radioactive Man Comic Book Edition #711" was sold at [[7-Eleven]]s as part of their Kwik-E-Mart promotion.<ref name="ABC">{{cite news|url=http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/FunMoney/story?id=3340667&page=1|title=Kwik-E-Mart Comes to Life|access-date=2007-10-30|date=2007-07-03|publisher=[[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070917032230/http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/FunMoney/story?id=3340667&page=1|archive-date=2007-09-17|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Within the Bongo Comics, Radioactive Man is secretly Claude Kane III, a millionaire playboy whose personality was well-intentioned, but bumbling and not overly bright. In addition (which became a recurring storyline element), Claude's personality was permanently stuck in a conservative 1950s outlook on everything, no matter what the time era in question was. A running gag is that in order to preserve his secret identity, Claude is constantly wearing various types of hats, in order to conceal the lightning bolt-shaped shrapnel sticking out of his head.<ref name="radioactiveman">{{cite web|url=http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/r/radioman.htm|title=Radioactive Man at International Superheroes|access-date=2008-08-06|publisher=International Superheroes}}</ref>

Issue #1 of the Bongo comic differs from ''Radioactive Man #1'' as seen in ''The Simpsons'' episode "[[Three Men and a Comic Book]]". While featuring a similar scenario and accident (Claude getting his trousers caught on barbed wire just before a mega-bomb explodes is a parody of [[Bruce Banner]] getting caught by the Gamma Bomb in the ''[[The Incredible Hulk (comic book)|Incredible Hulk #1]]''), the Bongo series' Claude was not wearing tattered clothes. In the comic book, Claude's survival is due in part to a large thunderbolt-shaped shard of metal embedded in his head by the explosion. Claude would attempt to remove the bolt throughout the book series, but each attempt has nasty consequences which results in it being put back in his scalp again. Additionally, the bolt's presence would save his life numerous times in increasingly bizarre ways.<ref name="radioactiveman"/>

Maintaining the satirical standards of the television show, these comics often parody genre comic books, and the reader can follow the evolution of Radioactive Man from a 1950s irradiated hero through the politically reactionary or radical years of the 1960s and 1970s, and the dark, troubled years of the 1980s and 1990s comic book hero. Indeed, one comic displays a startling similarity to Alan Moore's ''[[Watchmen]]'', with Radioactive Man taking the part of state-supported hero Doctor Manhattan.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} The comics are published as if they were the actual ''Simpsons'' universe's Radioactive Man comics; a "1970s"-published comic features a letter written by a ten-year-old [[Marge Simpson|Marge Bouvier]], for instance. The comic also takes the idea that the title has been running since the 1950s and each issue of the real series is a random issue from that run. So one issue might be issue #357, the next #432 and the next #34, etc.<ref name="ugo"/>

==Squishee== '''Squishee''' (sometimes spelled Squishy or Squishie) is a frozen [[Slush (beverage)|slushie]] from ''[[The Simpsons]]'' TV series, usually purchased at the fictional [[Kwik-E-Mart]] which is managed by [[Apu Nahasapeemapetilon|Apu]]. It is an apparent reference to [[7-Eleven]]'s [[Slurpee]]. In the thirteenth-season episode "[[The Sweetest Apu]]", Apu has the Squishee machine replaced with one of a similar drink called the "Smooshie," whose flavors reportedly include "shopping bag" and "dog fur".

The fictional version of Squishees are reputed for being dangerous to health—Squishee flavorings have, if ingested in sufficient quantities, hallucinogenic properties. According to the Simpsons comic, Squishees allegedly contain no natural ingredients (not even pure water), create dangerous cases of brain freeze, and are even described as "a thick, gloopy, tooth-rotting mixture of crushed ice and syrup". Flavors include: blue, red, [[lime green]], [[Chutney]], [[Wheatgrass]], Champagne, cherry, and the Twenty-One Syrup Salute.<ref>{{cite episode |title=[[The Sweetest Apu]] |series=The Simpsons |network=[[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] |airdate= 2002-05-05 |season=13 |number=9 }}</ref> Bart and Milhouse on one occasion went on a "Squishee [[Binge drinking|bender]]" after drinking a squishee that was made entirely from syrup.<ref>{{cite episode |title=[[Boy-Scoutz N the Hood]] |series=The Simpsons |network=[[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] |airdate= 1993-11-18 |season=5 |number=11 }}</ref> Many other random flavors appear in the comics, including [[Chinese New Year]], [[Plum]], [[Raita]] and the black-colored "Squish of Death" (which causes spontaneous vomiting), which actually turned out to be just a mixture of the red and blue flavors.

In 2007, as part of the Kwik-E-Mart promotion for ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'', [[Slurpee]]s at [[7-Eleven]]s were renamed "Squishees" and sold in special collector cups.<ref name=FOX/>

==Tomacco== '''Tomacco''' was originally a fictional plant that was a hybrid between [[tomato]]es and [[tobacco]], from a 1999 episode of The Simpsons titled "[[E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)]]". The method used to create the tomacco in the episode is fictional. In the episode, the tomacco was accidentally created by Homer when he planted his fields with a mixture of tomato seeds and tobacco seeds, fertilized with [[plutonium]]. The result is a tomato that has a dried, brown tobacco center, and, although being described as tasting terrible by many characters, is also immediately and powerfully [[Substance dependence|addictive]]. The creation is promptly labeled "tomacco" by Homer and sold in large quantities to unsuspecting passersby. A cigarette company, Laramie Tobacco Co., seeing the opportunity to legally sell their products to children, offers to buy the rights to market tomacco, but Homer demands one thousand times as much money as they wish to pay him, and the company withdraws. Eventually, all of the tomacco plants are eaten by farm animals{{snd}}except for the one remaining plant, which later goes down in an explosive helicopter crash with the cigarette company's lawyers.

The process of making tomacco was first revealed in a 1959 ''[[Scientific American]]'' article, which stated that [[nicotine]] could be found in the tomato plant after [[grafting]]. Due to the academic and industrial importance of this breakthrough process, this article was reprinted in a 1968 ''Scientific American'' compilation.<ref>''Bio-Organic Chemistry'', on page 170. {{ISBN|0-7167-0974-0}}</ref>

A ''Simpsons'' fan, Rob Baur of [[Lake Oswego, Oregon]], was inspired by the episode. Remembering the article in a textbook, Baur cultivated a tomacco in 2003 by grafting together tobacco and tomato plants. The plant produced fruit that looked like a normal tomato, but Baur suspected that it contained a lethal amount of nicotine and thus would be inedible. Testing later proved that the leaves of the plant contained some nicotine, though a sample from the fruit was unable to be examined by the same laboratory.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/11/61091 |title=Simpsons Plant Seeds of Invention |access-date=2008-10-22 |work=Health |first=Kristen |last=Philipkoski |publisher=[[Wired News|Wired]] |date=2003-11-07 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071019225246/http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/11/61091 |archive-date=October 19, 2007 }}</ref> Both plants are members of the same family, [[Solanaceae]] or nightshade.<ref name="tomacco">{{cite news|url=http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20031113/tomacco031113/|title=Homer Simpson inspires man to grow 'tomacco'|date=Nov 13, 2003|publisher=CTV.ca|access-date=10 October 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111121061013/http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20031113/tomacco031113/|archive-date=21 November 2011}}</ref> The tomacco plant bore tomaccoes until it died after 18 months, spending one winter indoors.<ref name="tomacco"/> Baur was featured on the "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" audio commentary in the [[The Simpsons season 11#DVD release|''Simpsons'' Season 11 DVD box set]] discussing the plant and resulting fame.<ref>{{cite video|people=Baur, Rob|date=2006|title=The Simpsons The Complete Eleventh Season DVD commentary for the episode "[[E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)]]" |medium=DVD|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref>

The 2004 convention of the [[American Dialect Society]] named ''tomacco'' as the [[Neologism|new word]] "least likely to succeed."<ref>[http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/american_speech/v079/79.2glowka.html Summary of "Among the New Words"], ''American Speech'', Volume 79, Number 2, Summer 2004.</ref> Tomacco was a wordspy.com "Word of the Day".<ref>[http://www.wordspy.com/words/tomacco.asp Word Spy – tomacco]</ref>

==Notes== {{reflist|30em}}

==References== *{{cite book |title=Watching with the Simpsons |last=Grey |first=Jonathan |year=2006 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=0-415-36202-4}}

==External links== *{{Commons category-inline|Products produced from The Simpsons}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Products Produced From The Simpsons}} [[Category:The Simpsons lists]]