Tru:Blood, the Beverage
Moichendising!
Yogurt said it best. The key to success is merchandising. T-Shirts, toys, posters, games. Whatever sort of crap you can toss at rabid fans. If I’ve learned anything from George Lucas it’s that even if your movie sucks (Episode I), you can still make a killing off merchandising.
One of my favorite shows on television is HBO’s True Blood. It’s rare that I find a show that interests both my wife and me, but this one hit the jackpot. Now, I must first mention that I find 99% of vampire stories to be…well…for lack of a better term: gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) But seriously, just take Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire. Those two were one take away from full-on penetration and their abysmal spin on Anne Rice’s novel made me walk out of the theater questioning my sexuality. And don’t get me started on Twilight. I haven’t even seen the movies, but the trailers alone give me an uncomfortable tingling feeling in my anus.
But I digress.
Suffice it to say that True Blood kicks ass. Every episode contains buckets of blood, oodles of boobs, and a few laughs mixed in for good measure. Each week, my wife and I sit down to watch the crazy story of a small Louisiana town as the citizens cope with vampires, shape-shifters, and all sorts of other crazy beings.
For the uninitiated, the premise of the show is when Japanese scientists create a synthetic blood capable of replacing real, human blood, the vampires who have been living hidden among us for centuries “come out”, so to speak. They make their presence known, now that they don’t have to hunt humans as prey. True Blood becomes a bottled beverage, sold in different varieties (Type O Positive, Type A Negative, etc.), and vampire bars pop up all over the country. Of course, some vampires still seek the thrill of the hunt, but that’s a different story. We’re here to talk about the beverage based on the TV show.
As I mentioned, my wife is a huge fan of the HBO series. So with that in mind, I bought her a four-pack of the drink for her birthday, sort of as a gag gift. In addition, she’s currently pregnant, so I figured it would be something for her to drink during our Halloween party while the rest of us got gassed. Now, if you’ve seen the show, the drink they use seems to resemble blood pretty closely, looking a lot like thick tomato juice. Tru Blood, however, (I’m not sure what’s with the spelling change) is more of a soda, carbonated and sweet. It is, in fact, blood orange flavored and tastes a bit like your standard bottle of Orange Crush. Which is to say: fucking delicious. Indeed, if you’re looking to spice it up a bit and maybe get a little crazy like your True Blood friends at Merlot’s, this shit goes beautifully with a smooth rum or vodka.
The only concern here is that of price. You can order bottles here, and it runs $16 for a four-pack or $96 for a case of twenty-four. Yeah, it’s a bit absurd. Nevertheless, if you know someone who’s a massive fan like my wife is, it may make a funny gift. I know she dug it.
True Blood (the show) is currently on hiatus, but you can check out Season One on DVD, and Season Two is being released shortly. Also, the books on which the show is based are also available through that same link.
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Tags: hbo, merchandising, tru blood, true blood, vampires
November 17th, 2009 at 2:13 am
for some strange reason I love this show, I would love to try some of this
November 17th, 2009 at 10:03 am
The books are surprisingly good. I haven’t seen the show, but it’s in the netflix queue.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:52 am
I like to sit and watch true blood with my girlfriend then I bitch over how stupid Sookie is for a bit. Boobs.
November 18th, 2009 at 7:36 am
As you might expect, the books are better than the show.
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Actually, I’m going to take the controversial stance that the show is better than the books. I haven’t read the very latest, but the books are at best pulp and at worst trash. I’m not saying that the show is flawless or that it always caters to the highest common denominator, but I find the books to be poorly written even if rich on good ideas. The show takes some of those ideas and coalesces them. I very much enjoy watching the show with my wife, and look forward to the next season of the HBO series much more than I look forward to the next Harris book.
That all being said, I read all the books after I watched season one … so maybe I’m just full of it. You can read them each in two or three hours, so they go down quickly. Who doesn’t like a little trash in their literary diet, neh?
Anyway … if you think Paquin’s Sookie is an airhead, just wait until you meet Harris’.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
“at best pulp and at worst trash”. They are! But they’re engaging and enjoyable.
When I say “surprisingly good”, I don’t mean “great work of literature”. But you wouldn’t expect a southern vampire romance mystery series to be any good at all, and it turns out that they’re quite readable.