At the time, they were offering these awesome Double Effect sandwiches. It was two different sandwiches fused into one. Like this fish sandwich melded to a chicken sandwich.

It looked like these two sandwiches were making out.  GET A ROOM, GUYS!  Anyway, they also had sandwiches that melded burgers and fish and burgers and chicken. It was a spectacular idea that I’m sad to say never caught on here in the States.

Well, Quick is trying to do it again.  They currently have a promotion for the Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D release in a few weeks.  They have released three new burgers with a Star Wars theme.  Here are some ads via MovieLine.

In this ad on the left you see the Dark Burger accompanied by the awesome Darth Maul.  It looks like 2 burger patties, a special sauce, lettuce and maybe some spicy pepper cheese.  On the right you see the Jedi burger alongside the ever wise Yoda.  This burger also has two patties, maybe some regular cheese and what I believe are cheese curds (also used on awesome as f**k poutine).

In this second ad you see the Jedi Burger again.  No different than the last ad.  On the left, though, is the money shot.  The Dark Vador.  It looks similar to the regular Dark Burger, maybe just some red peppers have been added on top of the lettuce, but the buns ARE BLACK!  BLACK BUNS!  It makes the burger look burned.  Burned like Anakin Skywalker’s scarred visage at the end of Revenge of the Sith!  I love everything about this.  I’m willing to overlook the fact that this promotion would probably be more appropriate for the release of Revenge of the Sith 3D in 2014 as Darth Vader is only a child in The Phantom Menace.  But that’s neither here nor there because I want this burger in me RIGHT NOW.

I love when fast food joints think outside the box for fun and creative promotions like this.  It just sucks when I can’t try them.  ROAD TRIP!

We have a new episode of the Nerd Lunch podcast.  In this episode we discuss fast food mascots. And to help us with this discussion we welcome our special guest, Nick from DudeFoods.com.

DudeFoods.com is a pretty awesome food website where Nick explores and creates all kinds of awesome foods. Some of his best stuff is the stuff he creates like the deep fried Lean Pockets or the Poutine Burger made with the awesome gravy/cheese curd fries that are like a national dish in Canada.  Nick helps us have a very lively discussion about some of our favorite fast food mascots and ad campaigns. Download and listen to us on iTunes or Feedburner. Or, listen in your browser here at Nerd Lunch.

Also, I want to mention that today is my son’s 1st birthday.  I can’t believe it’s finally here and I know it’s going to be all downhill and time is just going to fly from here on out.  I can’t wait to watch him grow up, but I don’t want it to happen at the same time.

Happy Birthday, buddy.

I have each of these cups in my collection right now.

This is the Capt America The First Avenger Tri-Color Coolatta Cup.  My boy CT from Nerd Lunch discussed this back in July.  There are three sides/sections.  Each section holds the red (cherry), white (vanilla) and blue (raspberry) flavors of Dunkin Donuts Coolattas.  You can see the second side here and the third side is here.  The cup is sitting next to the stars and stripes donut that also promoted the Capt America movie.  They were both good, but I won’t lie, after consuming both for breakfast it felt like Cap and the Howling Commandos were fighting World War II in my colon.

This was the collector cup given out at movie theaters in 2000 to promote the first Singer X-Men movie. I like the tapered base of this cup so it fits in your cup holder. Many cups now don’t do that.  And check out the web address of the movie with all of those dashes.  www.x-men-the-movie.com.  Hello late ’90s.

Everyone remembers the Star Wars cup toppers from 1999 during the whole Episode I merchandising frenzy. There were 12 cups and figure toppers you could collect from KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Well, those toppers were based on an earlier promotion for the Star Wars Special Edition in 1996-97.  It was a set of 4 and featured C3PO, R2D2, Vader and a Stormtrooper.  There were two versions of this set.  Above left you can see the set that came from the Las Vegas FAO Schwartz store.  They had setup their own version of the Mos Eisley Cantina including themed ICEE drinks (like Jabba Juice).  I had visited Vegas in 1998 and was able to buy these at the store.  Click the image to see it bigger and to see the commemortive FAO Cantina cup.  The other version of this set on the right came from Pizza Hut and Taco Bell stores overseas (I don’t believe they were offered in the US).  The toppers were exactly the same but instead of the FAO cup it had a blue cup with a picture of the character on it (see the Stormtrooper above). You can see how these influenced the Episode I cup toppers. For obvious reasons, only the R2D2 was reused in the 1999 Episode I promotion.

This was the LARGE cup AMC used to promote Tron Legacy back in Fall 2010. It’s HUGE.  It barely fits in my kitchen cabinet.  I used it for drinking water after my long Saturday runs when I was training for my marathon.

Here is a cup promoting the Green Lantern movie. These were from Subway. However good the movie was or wasn’t, these cups are pretty nice.

This is another AMC theater cup. This time promoting Cowboys & Aliens. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I don’t hear just wonderful things about it. Mostly I hear “missed opportunities”.

Taco Bell had a set of 4 Batman cups for the release of Burton’s 1989 movie.  They had no images from the movie, the pictures on the cups look like paintings or cartoons.  But they were still pretty cool.  The cups included Batman, Batwing, Batmobile and Gotham City.  See the commercial which did use footage from the movie here.

These are hands down some of my favorite collector cups. I was a huge NBA fan in the 80s and 90s. So I was a freak for the 1992 Dream Team and, consequently, I spent months eating at McDonald’s every chance I got to collect the entire set of these cups.  The picture above only shows 10, but there were 12 cups.  The final two players, Clyde Drexler and Christian Laettner, were added to the team late, so their cups were added very late and they became extremely hard to track down.

I’ll tell you what we do.  We go to KFC and dine like victorious gladiators on Double Downs.  Tonight, we dine IN HELL!!! (or a ghetto KFC; 6 of one, half a dozen of another)

You should know, right before this trip, I found out KFC has started offering a 64 ounce (one half gallon) Mega Jug of soda.  So, being the bad ass that I am, I decided I needed to drink one.  And since I was going to be at KFC anyway I needed to order a Double Down in order to have something the 64 ounces of soda could wash down into my gullet.  So Carlin and I swagger into KFC like gunfighters prepared to place our manly orders in very loud voices so everyone would know that some sh*t was about to go down.  Maybe they might want to evacuate the women and children.

I cooly glance up at the menu for dramatic effect, and I don’t see either the Double Down or the Mega Jug.  What?  No Double Down?  Holy balls.  I am going to have to burn this joint TO THE GROUND.  Que Wolverine Berzerker Rage.  Right before I start tossing tables and bustin’ skulls, Carlin suggests I just ask if they have it.  I struggle to comprehend what Carlin means by his crazy talk.  Why would that work?  So I ask the lady if they still have the Double Down and Mega Jug soda fully expecting to punch her in the face when she denies me.

She says yes, narrowly escaping the Five Fingers of Doom, heads into the back for like 5 minutes and when she comes back she hands me the biggest cup I’ve ever seen in my life.  I pay for my goods and try to put soda into what can only be described as a bucket.

Check this out. The Mega Jug takes up THREE SPOTS on the soda fountain.  That would make getting a suicide easier.  So, I sit there for about 10 minutes while I fill the bucket up with Diet Pepsi.  Then I become concerned because I’m not entirely sure a human bladder is designed to house 64ozs of Diet Pepsi.

Here I am trying to drink the Mega Jug.  It was like trying to drink out of a bird bath.

So our order finally showed up. Carlin got a Double Down. I got a Double Down. Along with the Double Down I also ordered a Doublicious sandwich (because I’m a man).  And the aforementioned sh*t is no longer going down, it’s GONE.

So, how was it? The Double Down is pretty awesome as a sandwich. Greasy as all hell, but good. I love the idea that there is no bun on this, however, after eating one, I wish there was a bun on it. It’s really hard to eat with no bun. Plus, the paper wrapping gets all wet and soggy from the grease and sometimes, if you aren’t careful, you’ll chewing a wad of paper wondering why this bite tastes like a school notebook.

I also ate a Doublicious sandwich.  The Doublicious is essentially the same as the Double Down, but take away 1 chicken patty and add a bun.  I enjoyed eating the Doublicious more than the Double Down because of the bun, but the experience of eating a Double Down was more exciting than the Doublicious.  And the Mega Jug?  It’s a lot of goddam soda.  A LOT.  I finished it, but not without going to the bathroom every 15 minutes for like 3 hours.

So, overall, this KFC trip was a grand success.  I had good food, great company, great conversation.  Carlin and I talked about Star Wars, Star Trek, movies, comics, being married, having kids…you name it, we covered it.  It was a blast.  I’m really glad I made the trip out to West Florida to meet him.

So that’s it for my trip out to Tallahassee.  As you can see, we made the most of the day.  Hopefully I can make it back out there someday.  Maybe this time Carlin can bring his wife and kids and we can all hang out together.  Or he and his family can come to Jacksonville and hang out with the Holleys there.

Regardless, I hope you guys have enjoyed reading about our exploits. Carlin and I have discussed doing more projects together. I’ll let you guys know when our plans are more finalized.

In the meantime, check out Nerd Lunch for some more pictures from our trip.

Have a great weekend.

Or, you can just have me do it for you.  Here are some of the “hidden menu” items you can still find at some of our favorite fast food places.

In ‘n Out Burger has the most well known of the “secret menus”. It’s most well known because they actually posted it on their website (thereby negating the “secret” part). You can get a grilled cheese, “Animal Style” burgers (mustard grilled burgers, cheese, grilled onions) as well as “Animal Style” fries (same toppings as the burgers) and burgers labeled like they were lumber; 3×3 (3 patties and 3 cheese slices) and 4×4 (4 patties and 4 slices of cheese).  They even go all the way up to a 100 x 100 burger which you need two friends to help you carry out of the restaurant.  And in a great reference to a Blues Brothers song (Rubber Biscuit) In-n-Out has a secret sandwich called a “Wish Burger”.  As the song says, a “Wish Burger [sandwich]” is the kind of a sandwich, “where you have two slices of bread and you, hehehehehe, WISH you had some meat!  Bow, Bow, Bow!”  The buns are piled high with lettuce, onions, double tomatoes and sauce.

If you go to Starbucks there are a plethora of options for you to choose from that aren’t specifically on the menu. Tired of feeling hemmed in by the size choices and paying $5 for a small? Order the original small size (before Starbucks supersized their choices) — it’s called Short (currently the kid’s size).  How about a Cap’n Crunch Berry Frappuccino which involves a Strawberries & Cream Frappucino with a pump of hazelnut flavoring?  It supposedly tastes just like the cereal. For you caffeine cowboys out there order up The Red Eye which is a normal drip coffee with an extra shot of espresso. Want two shots of espresso? It’s a Black Eye. Don’t feel like sleeping the next two days? Try a Green Eye (3 shots of espresso).  FYI, if you want an extra shot of espresso at Dunkin’ Donuts it’s called a Turbo Hot Coffee.

According to the McDonald’s employee group at Live Journal, there are tons of creations you can order “off the menu”. How about a Neopolitan milkshake? It’s a mixture of the strawberry, vanilla and chocolate shakes.  Or the awesomely named McGangbang, which is a McChicken sandwich in the middle of a double cheeseburger.  If you think your arteries are getting a bit loose, try the Monster Mac which is a Big Mac with 8 burger patties.  That’ll harden up those loose arteries in no time.  Also try the Chicken & Waffles; it’s a McGriddle sandwich with chicken instead of sausage.  Or, if you want a sampling of everything, try the Land, Sea & Air Burger which consists of a hamburger patty, a Filet-O-Fish and a chicken patty stacked on top of each other, separated with cheese and between two buns.  See all the fun you can get into at Mickey D’s?

Wendy’s has two big sandwiches you can order off the “secret menu”.  First is the Grand Slam which has a total of four meat patties.  The other sandwich is the Barnyard which is a spicy chicken sandwich with ham, bacon and beef all separated by a slice of cheese.  I think I may have to try that second sandwich at one point in my life.

At Fat Burger you can order a burger that is awesomely called, and this is my favorite so far, The Hypocrite. It’s a veggie burger topped with bacon.  BOO-YA, bitches!

Burger King has a few delightful choices you can order “on the down low”.  The Suicide Burger contains 4 meat patties, 4 slices of cheese and 4 slices of bacon.  Sound familiar?  It’s the ingredients that were also used in the BK Quad Stacker.  The Rodeo Burger is a Whopper with a grilled onion ring and covered in BBQ sauce.  The BK Club is a chicken sandwich with bacon, tomato and cheese.

Dude, I LOVE Jamba Juice.  And actually, I don’t know that love is a strong enough word.  I love my wife.  I love my kitty.  But I LOVE Jamba Juice.  When I was in LA, I’d literally have two smoothies a day from them.  One for breakfast and one after lunch.  It was insane.  Two Jambas opened up about 30 minutes from my house here in Jax but one of them definitely closed.  According to the website, the second one is also closed.  Anyway, Jamba is another place that has a ton of “off the menu” flavors you can order.  Try the PB&J, or Gummy Bear, or Fruity Pebbles or any of a number of candy flavored smoothies like Starbust, Skittles and Now and Laters.

Now, with the help of the Cavalcade of Awesome, you are one of the precious few who are “in the know”.  You’ll be able to walk into any of these fast food establishments and order like a pro.  Use the knowledge wisely, Daniel-san.

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