Pop Culture Happy Hour - A wacky merchandise quiz

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

Everywhere you look, movies and TV shows are teaming up with all kinds of companies to make odd product tie-ins. Green Shrek ketchup. The Handmaid’s Tale wine. Grogu serving boards. Today on the show, we’re playing a game about some very strange brand collaborations.If you like want more episodes like this one, check out:We fantasy cast 'The Traitors'Our 15th Anniversary Time CapsuleA Cameo QuizConnect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport Pop Culture Happy Hour+See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Everywhere you look, movies and TV shows are teaming up with all kinds of companies to make product tie-ins. We're not talking about just action figures or board games. They're doing a little bit of everything, and we do mean everything. I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're playing a game about some very strange brand collaborations on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Joining me today are my fellow Pop Culture Happy Hour host, Glenn Weldon. Hello, Glenn. Hey, Linda. Stephen Thompson. Hello, Stephen. Hey, buddy.

And final contestant, Aisha Harris. Hello, Aisha. Hello, Linda. All right. So it's been a while since I subjected you all to a little quiz. This one is about some of the brands that have worked with movies and TV shows to create all kinds of things that you can buy. That may or may not capitalize on the warm feelings you have about whatever you just watched. They are all multiple choice questions.

Okay. You will each get three questions. and then we will see at the end if someone has won or if there's a tie and if there's a tie, we're going to break it. All right. Okay. Just a heads up, I intend to win this. Yeah.

This is amazing. We haven't done this for such a long time and I just feel so free. I've done no prep. I've done no homework. It's all you and the producers who did all the... Yeah, I got a shout out. Producers, Mike Katzif and Liz Metzger, especially very helpful in creating this quiz.

We're going to get right down to it. All right. Stephen, are you ready for the first question? Holmesie, I have never been more and less prepared in my life. All right, awesome. Perfect. Stephen, which of these is a real product tied to the release of the Hunger Games catching fire in 2013? All right. Is it A, District 12 peasant bread and apple walnut loaf from Pepperage Farm sold only at Costco?

Catnice cream donuts, which were just cinnamon apple. The Capitol Collection, Cover Girl makeup, based on the cartoonish appearance of the Super Rich. Oh, man. Or is it a Hunger Games shampoo called Don't Tangle with Me? Wow. I mean, I do remember some kind of strange tie-ins with these movies. And Catching Fire is the second book and the follow-up to a big hit movie.

So it feels like the kind of thing where they'd go pretty far afield with these things. I mean, I remember like Star Wars branded oranges. Sure. And Stephen, I'm not trying to help you, but just available only at Costco. That's a Linda Holmes brain detail. It's so good. That's not fair. It's tempting, but you choose you.

Yeah, Holmesie's good at dropping details that make it sound so specific. It must be real. My point. I'm far too advanced a thinker to fall for such a ruse. I am going to go with the makeup collection, which is definitely self-satirizing in a way, but at the same time, like, look like Jennifer Lawrence. Well, no. Wasn't it look like the rich people in the movies?

Oh, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Sorry, not to help you, but. Good point. You are helping me. You are helping me. The Capitol Collection. Gosh, that does sound like a Linda thing, too, though, doesn't it? I'm going to go with my first hunch and go with the makeup.

But, yeah, I'm probably wrong. All right. The correct answer is the Capitol Collection. Yes. That was going to be my guest, too. Cover girl makeup based on the cartoonish appearance of the super rich. Very good. Stephen, well done.

Available only at Costco. I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't know if Costco does that kind of thing, do they? Right. Costco doesn't necessarily do a ton of like Costco-specific brands. Sounded good. All right. All right. So I screwed it up.

Kirkland branded. I should have said available only at, I don't know, giant or something. Watergreens. Target. Fine. Fine. Aisha, you are up on the second question. Which of these lines of marketing copy was briefly used to promote the handmade's tail wine in 2018?

What? Was it A. It's useless to resist the wine's smooth and appealingly earthy profile, so you may as well give in. Okay. Was it B, they're out here crushing spirits. We're out here crushing the best grapes just for your palate. Was it C, she's had a lot of hard days and a lot of long nights. Think of Offred as the original wine mom.

Wow. All of these could be possible. Or was it D. Pleasure is forbidden in Gilead, but you'll have plenty when you invite this lively Cabernet Sauvignon into your home. Believe it or not, one of those four is a real, no, I believe. All of them are possible. I mean, none of these quite reach the heights of she came for the pasta and got lost in the sauce. Yeah, that's true.

From you, me, and Tuscany. But it's up there. The brilliance of all of these is that any of them sound like they could be under the caption of an influencer who's trying to sell or, like, put on a T-shirt to wear while you're out having wine with other wine moms. And they all include wine buzzwords. I mean, she's done her homework. Yeah. She really has. Yeah, I think the crushing spirits one is drawing me in.

Honestly, I have no idea. These are really good. Whichever ones you wrote are good job, Linda. I'm going to go with B crushing spirits because that just feels like marketing. Gotcha. The correct answer is, it's useless to resist the line's smooth and appealingly earthy profile, so you may as well give in. They did not use that marketing copy for very long because...

You don't want to sell wine with despair. I would guess there was blowback. As you may imagine, there was internet backlash. The wines were pulled after one day. Yes, yes. Okay, fine. Foyled by the resistance. Well, listen, I mean, it shouldn't be real marketing copy.

It's just that it was. It really shouldn't. All right, Glenn, your first question. Tied to Star Trek, The Final Frontier, Craft Foods sold a special item that could hang from your belt. What was it? A, a peanut shooter. B, a marshmallow dispenser.

C, a mac and cheese tube. D. A ketchup syringe. Wow. Okay. So Star Trek 5 is the one where they go to the center of the galaxy looking for God. I want to say hang an onion from their belt because it was a style at the time. It was the style of the time.

But I don't think it's it. So what's the most futuristic? Tube is a very futuristic Star Trek-Ecky word. Jeffrey's tubes, for example. So mac and cheese tube means you'd have to have the pasta, the macaroni, which is a tube, inside a tube. That's a science fiction concept. It ends up being in Star Trek. So while there's trappings of phaser battles and things like that, it's not militaristic.

In fact, it's a we all should love each other kind of vibe. So I'm going to eliminate a, I'm going to eliminate the catch. dispenser. I'm going to go with a marshmallow thing. The marshmallow dispenser? The marshmallow dispenser. Correct answer is marshmallow dispenser. What? Because in my memory of reading about this, in the movie, Spock has a marshmallow dispenser that he uses to

I think take a marshmallow to roast. They're roasting marshmallows? They do. I was really afraid you were going to remember. I should have. I really should have. Got it right anyway. Got it right anyway. So that is one round down. We've got two rounds to go. All right. We're going to take a second and we'll be right back for six more questions.

All right. We are back. Stephen, it is back to you. The movie Despicable Me 3 led to a partnership with what unexpected brand. A, Miracle Grow, which created a special fertilizer called Miracle Gru. B, the Huffington Post, which ran a series of short articles called Minions. Okay, not this one, Steve.

Okay, yeah. Oh, no, Glenn, this has to be the real one. Linda would never laugh at her own. I feel like this is cheating, but it's fine. It's fine. Once we hear it, we're going to laugh too, but we need to hear it. Why don't you swap them and do that choice last? Yeah, I'll do that one last.

The History Channel, which ran a series of specials called Despicable, about famous dictators. Zumba, which created exclusive choreography for one of the songs in the film, or The Huffington Post, which ran a series of short articles called Minions Opinions. Okay. All banana-based, really. Minions Opinions in the Huffington Post. Miracle grew, which certainly could be Linda's brain. These are all plausible.

Would the History Channel play so fast and loosened glib about brutal dictatorships that they would invoke a children's movie. Yeah, I'm going to go with the Zumba dance. I'd tell you, I don't think you would have gone with Minion's opinions, even if I had not left at my own joke. Okay. The answer is Zumba. All right.

Yes. Which created exclusive choreography for one of the songs in the film. I do apologize for arguably giving away the game on one answer. Well, you only tipped your hand on one of the four. I had written such an absolutely ridiculous and terrible thing that it made me laugh, I will admit. All right. We're pulling it together. Ayesha, next question for you.

Feel free to laugh at whichever one you'd like, Linda. I will. Just so I have a leg up here. Absolutely. The 2025 sequel, Wicked for Good, had a very robust collection of collaborations with brands, including something with the marketing phrase, wonderfulest woods and beautiful blossom. What was wonderfulest woods and

beautiful blossom? A. A. A fragrance used in laundry scent boosters made by gain. B, a print used on sheets sold at Target. C. A green shade and a pink shade used together in special bags of M&Ms or D, a pair of squirrels featured on Wicked Sox. For the purposes of fairness, you can assume I laughed at the Wicked Sox. I just don't understand the squirrels part because I don't recall squirrels being a prominent

part of Wicked. They may not have been. Perhaps you should assume that they weren't. Yeah, no, I'm going to assume that they weren't. Hmm. Wonderfulest and beautifulest. Wonderfulest woods and beautiful little blossom. I mean, there was an era when M&Ms were quote unquote sexy and it was very weird.

I forget the green Eminemm. is sexualized in a very strange way. This was actually briefly a culture war issue. Yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact. Someone was mad that Eminem's weren't sexy anymore. Yes, I remember that. I'm not trying to help you, Aisha, but the whole thing about Wicked was pink and green,

and wonderfulest woods is green, and beautifulest blossoms is pink. I know. I know. Yeah. Glenn, what are you doing, man? This is a competition. I know. I'm just, I just.

I was already leading that way anyway, because like I said, Emmonds were sexy and maybe this was the way they pulled back and got less woke. And they were like, we're just going to say beautifulist and wonderfulist as opposed to like, hubba, hubba. Yeah, I'm going to go with the Eminem's. Like, that just makes whatever. I'm already down one. If I'm down to it is what it is. Let's go with the Eminem's.

The correct answer is a fragrance used in laundry scent boosters made by gain. Well. Well, what can I tell you, your laundry can smell. like wonderfulest woods and beautiful blossom. I have a migraine just thinking about. I know, right? There were actually, I think, a number of fragranced products that used

these two phrases. So, if that appeals to you, perhaps you can still find them on eBay or something like that. All right, Glenn, we're going over to you. Van Lewin Ice Cream made what actual movie tie-in ice cream flavor? Was it? A. Glass Onion

ice cream, which tasted like onions. Nosferatu ice cream, which tasted like garlic. Lickorish pizza ice cream, which tasted like licorish and pizza, or chicken run ice cream, which tasted like chicken. For the purposes of round balance, you can assume I laughed at the licorish pizza ice cream. Lickrish pizza ice cream. I'm eliminating glass onion, not because of the fact that there couldn't be onion-flavored ice cream, I know for a fact there is, but the word glass, you don't want the word glass anywhere

in your ice cream. So I'm eliminating that. Smart. I know that if you go to the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, you will get some garlic ice cream. But I don't know if Nosferatu is the kind of film that would do lighthearted tie-ins. Eggers seems a little too self-serious for that, the director. I'm going to go. And again, I don't think, I don't think Liquish Pizza is the kind of film.

It has kind of indie cred, and I don't think it would want to be tied into anything as cheesy as ice cream flavor, but, you know, studios are studios and studios are going to studio. So I'm going to go with licorice pizza. The correct answer is glass onion ice cream, which tasted like onions. Great Matt Singer, who does a lot of tasting of Hawaiian foods, especially at places like Denny's and IHop, tasted this and said he could only taste the onions. Only taste the broken glass. The flavor palette was bourbon onion jam. Oh my God, that sounds disgusting.

Along with some glazed pineapple infused honeycomb. Yeah. But according to Matt, it just tasted like onions. Yeah, because onions overpowers every other flavor that you mentioned there. You would think. You would think. All righty. So, we're going back to full pallets of answers because I'm not going to laugh.

And Stephen, you're getting no help. No help from me. No help from anyone. You're on your own. Our lips are sealed. Yeah. All right. Stephen, Godzilla versus Kong had its share of marketing.

muscle, which of the following was part of it. A. Stompin Sneakers, a new balance offering that could spice up your run with the spirit of Godzilla. B, Godzilla and Kong electric salt and pepper grinders from Williams Sonoma. C. A weigh protein powder from Megaplex that promised to harness the two Titans strength, energy, and raw power. Or D. Zilla Vanilla of frozen yogurt with banana chips.

Oh my gosh. Okay, so all of these feel fairly plausible. You're able to plause them all. I mean, stupid but plausible. I feel like the kind of nutritional powder, that feels like the most plausible to me because like harness the power of guts. I mean, there definitely are like,

you know, the like Hulk smashing fists that make sounds, but would you do that with sneakers? I am going to go with whatever the like nutrition. powder harness the power of two titans. That one feels the rightest to me. The correct answer is away protein powder from Megaplex that promise to harness the two Titans, strength, energy, and raw power. Three for three.

Oh my gosh. Glenn and Aisha are going to lose. Have to answer their quiz questions just like under a cloud of defeat. No, no. What else is new? Well, how gracious of you. Thanks for rubbing it in. All right, Ayesha, when Heinz decided to make easy squirt ketchup in unexpected colors, what character did they call upon to help promote one of the shades?

A, Barney the Dinosaur on bottles of purple ketchup. B, Smurfette on bottles of blue ketchup. C. Pekachu on bottles of yellow ketchup. D. Shrek on bottles of green ketchup. Okay. I feel like this was something that occurred during my childhood. and I vaguely remember these ads. I would never eat ketchup because that's gross.

But like, Barney seems not right. Shrek sounds far more plausible. Pikachu, you said? I don't think it's Pikachu, because then it looks like, then I would look like mustard and it'd be confusing. Dumber things have happened. So I don't know. I think the entire theme of this quiz is

Dumber Things Have Happened. I feel like it's down to. to Barney or Shrek? Okay. Why am I? It doesn't even matter at this point. It really doesn't. Embrace the futility.

Yeah. I'm going to go with Shrek knowing it'll probably be Pikachu and whatever. The correct answer is Shrek. Oh, yay. I got one right. Super appetizing. Yeah, yeah. All right.

Glenn, which is the most expensive of the following kitchen items available in the Disney store. Is it A, the Grogu serving board? Is it B, the monorail corn cob holders? Is it C, the Yoda grill scraper with bottle opener? Or is it D, the Mickey Mouse slow cooker? Okay. I shocked you didn't give this question to me.

Yeah, this is a Disney kid question. I mean, a slow cooker is an appliance. Corn Cub holders are utensils. So if the Mickey Mouse slow cooker exists, it is the most expensive thing. Does it exist? They all exist. They all exist. They all exist.

Well, then I'm going to go with slow cooker because it's a thing you plug in. That's true. But the answer is the Grogoo serving board. Yeah. Serving boards are pricing. As of the time that I wrote these questions was 43, 34 on sale. Believe it or not, the slow cooker is only 24-9. They've got some of those cheapy kitchen appliances down to a pretty low price now.

I don't even remember them selling kitchen appliances at the Disney store. Yeah, you can get, a lot of them are Star Wars. There's a lot of like waffle irons and stuff like that. So I believe the answer is Stephen has won the quiz. Pandly. I have won the quiz. What was the tiebreaker, though? Oh, the tiebreaker was what is the price of the Devil Wears Prada 2?

handbag popcorn bucket without going over. Price is right rules. I don't buy these things. Have you guys ever bought one of these popcorn holder things? I don't know what a going rate is. No. I would say, okay, my guess for that would be,

so this isn't just the holder itself or like assuming you're buying the popcorn too. I assume it comes with popcorn in it. Okay. So the last time I bought popcorn, which was like at the time of this taping a couple of weeks ago, it was like, even for a small, it was like 1099, which is ridiculous. So I'm going to guess that this is a medium to large size.

It's probably going to be around $15.99 just for the popcorn. Add another like $15.99. So I'd say like 30, let's say 33, including taxes and stuff. 33. All right. Glenn, what's your guess? $1. I haven't gone yet, bud. I know, I know, but I'm just going to say. Stephen.

I'm going to say $1.50. Well, you all messed yourself up because Aisha wins because it's $39.99. Wow. Yeah. $40. This is on the website. You can buy it. Wow.

And yeah, it's basically $40. So you both played yourself. Still cheaper than a coach handbag. Only just. Extrited plastic. Well, I'm just glad to have gotten something wrong just so the audience knows that I'm human. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Let me throw the wine that I had to resist. Exactly. Crush his spirit. Crush his spirit like the grapes. So yes, Stephen got three. Aisha and Glenn got one each. He got it this time. I'm sure we'll gather here and do this again sometime.

Let's do it again. Yeah. That brings us to the end of our show. Aisha Harris, Glenn Weldon, Stephen Thompson. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, buddy. Yeah. Thank you.

Millions opinion. I'm so sorry. This episode is produced heroically by Liz Metzger and Mike Katzif, and it was edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In, provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next time.