Tongue Wars
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Jar jar Binks candy tongue. I kind of missed out on this edible treat since I saw THE PHANTOM MENACE on a friend’s pirated copy and pronounced it shit. So I had no interest in paying to see it projected big, and skipped the follow-ups also.
BUT — the idea of a Jar Jar Binks severed head which you squeeze in order to make his tongue extrude, a tongue which you then suck, in order to dissolve it into flavoursome candy… that is pretty twisted. A friend calls it “the worst thing that ever happened,” and I don’t think you need any profound emotional investment in the STAR WARS saga to agree. It tends to confirm my theory that the prequels in general were a Milgram-like psychological experiment by George Lucas to discover just how much raw effluent he could get his fans to ingest, while paying for the privilege. The answer being, apparently, “An unlimited quantity.” (At least until the animated movie lost him sixty million. REVENGE OF THE SCHADENFREUDE.)
It’s not just that Jar Jar was a racist caricature, an absurd tonal error, and an irritating comedy sidekick. Because, let’s face it, if he’d been as popular as Chewbacca, we still wouldn’t necessarily have been happy watching our children suck his tongue. Now, if Lucas had made a squeezable Princess Amidala with an extendable candy tongue, that might have been different. I did not, you’ll note, say better. I just said different.
So, while Shadowplay is happy to endorse Alain Delon’s fragrance and the posable Tippi Hedren, we have to draw the line somewhere, and we’re drawing it well before we get within a yard of Jar Jar’s candy frickin’ tongue.
February 22, 2011 at 9:36 am
Well, THIS is a blast from the past. I vividly remember these being sold in grocery store check-out lines all over the place in 1999. I think they probably had other characters for sale, too, but who could forget this monstrosity? Dear lord, there’s literally NOTHING good (or even “not atrocious”) about it.
This must’ve been a “Look on my works ye mighty and despair” moment for Lucas. When you can say, “My actions have led to the creation of the Jar Jar Binks Candy Tongue, where do you have left to go?
February 22, 2011 at 10:54 am
I believe you were present one night when I was gifted one of these things in the Phoenix bar.
It wound up in an ashtray.
February 22, 2011 at 2:49 pm
That DOES ring a horrible, discordant bell. I must have erased it from my memory along with the satanic abuse, because when Randy Cook mention the JJBCT I had no idea what he was talking about. It was like Lisa Simpson’s reaction to a marquee reading “Yahoo Serious Film Festival” — “I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense.”
February 22, 2011 at 2:49 pm
I’d prefer a Sylvia Pinal tongue.
February 22, 2011 at 3:06 pm
George Lucas effed up American film forever. There. I said it.
February 22, 2011 at 3:11 pm
One more reason why I’m glad 1999 is a dim, hazy memory. Working swing shift made sure I didn’t retain a lot.
February 22, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Of all the film personalities who could have sold their tongues in candied effigy form, Jar Jar may be the most unwelcome. I think an Ernest Borgnine candy tongue would be more welcome.
February 23, 2011 at 1:01 am
Or a Sterling Holloway candy tongue.
February 23, 2011 at 1:29 am
Hey I’ve got a pack of Alain Delon cigarettes.
February 23, 2011 at 1:39 am
Jar Jar is kind of like a Jamaican Sterling Holloway, only not as appealing as that sounds.
I’ve got an original James Coburn toothshade. It’s like sunglasses for your teeth, to prevent people being dazzled by your smile.
February 23, 2011 at 6:42 am
Now that’s an item! The other time I saw such teeth on another actor, it must have been the dentures Walter Huston wore as Mr. Scratch.
February 23, 2011 at 10:03 am
This is very off-topic, I know, but here’s an extended version of a great interview with 101 year old Luise Rainer broadcast earlier this morning on Radio 4′s Today programme.
news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9404000/9404695.stm
February 23, 2011 at 10:37 am
At the ripe old age of 101, has she ever got over being billed by MGM as “the Viennese Teardrop”? I think she’ll need another century to recover from that one!
February 23, 2011 at 12:50 pm
A grand lady. A shame her comeback for Fellini never happened, although it did inspire a character in Eight and a Half.
February 24, 2011 at 6:43 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by dcairns, Carley. Carley said: @Ch_eekyGirl Do you read Shadowplay? If not, THIS is what the flip you've been missing: http://tinyurl.com/4ogjhmu The JarJarBinks… tongue [...]