Hot Thing Summer: Fantastic Four milk

 

I vaguely recall seeing a blue Star Wars milk tie-in a while ago. I don't remember specific thoughts about it, just an overriding emotion that I would not want to drink it and that, perhaps, it should not exist on this world. Well, sometime around June of last year, I found myself on the hunt for what I expect was the exact same product with a different label on the front, and I'm here to say that I did both buy and consume TruMoo's Fantastic Four: First Steps promotional milk-like substance.

I knew that these products were coming sometime in the summer, so I kept an eye out every time I went to the grocery store, but I only discovered them when I saw a half gallon in someone else's cart. I'm only slightly ashamed to say that I talked to a stranger in my local Giant to find out just where they found their container, and it turns out that I missed it because it wasn't shelved with the other milk, but the milk-adjacent liquids like creamer and Quik. All four Fantastic Four characters got their own label, and I of course picked the Thing.

This was not just dyed regular milk, but flavored; the label listed it as "Fantastic Berry." I was hesitant to try it, but, I mean, it says it's fantastic, so why not. Well, the reason why not is because it was kind of syrupy, and rather than fruity, it almost tasted like it was...I want to say perfumed? It was an interesting experience. I did it for the Thing.

Wouldn't you know it, TruMoo's Fantastic Berry milk wasn't the only FF milk product out there this summer. Lehigh Valley is a local dairy brand that I suspect is actually owned by a really big corporation (I mean, I'd guess they probably own TruMoo as well) that puts regional labels on their cartons in different locations. Their take on Fantastic Four milk was a lot more straightforward, as theirs was just a gallon of milk with a character on the label.

As with the Fantastic Berry drink, each FF character got featured on a label, but these were specific to whole, 2%, 1% and skim. The Thing got plastered onto the whole milk gallon jugs, so that's what I got.

I, of course, immediately thought of what my life would be coming to if I kept empty plastic milk jugs, like, on a shelf or something, so I took the slightly less crazy (but still crazy) pathway and I cut the labels off of these to keep.

Around this same time, TruMoo ran a promotion where they gave away color-change Fantastic Four-themed glassware to people who sent in a proof of purchase and filled out an online form. Each week for a month, you could send away for that week's glass. These were apparently very limited, but I still somehow landed both the Thing and Reed. The back of the glass has logos for both the movie and TruMoo.

By "color change", I mean that these reveal their colors when you pour a cold drink into them, or just put them in the fridge for the purposes of taking pictures for your blog. As with much of the promotional materials, these glasses used the standard marketing images. Still, I think that this is one of the more unique pieces of merchandise for the movie, and I'm happy to get this one. Some folks are attempting to add a new wing to their houses by selling theirs on eBay.

Let's look at one more First Steps glass. This one was available at Alamo Drafthouses across the country and is at least a little bit different than just the standard promotional item.

You could order these glasses at the physical Alamo locations, and they have similar ones for many of the movies they show there. I have to believe that there's one guy who collects them all and just has a house full of movie-themed glassware. I guess there are stranger things. You could collect milk jugs.