We’re all familiar with such celebrity-branded products as the George Foreman Grill, Dr. Dre’s "Beats" headphones, Kanye West’s clothing line and pretty much everything Paul Newman ever ate. It’s not a new thing, nor is it necessarily a bad or good thing. Big George’s grill works pretty darn well and Kanye’s shirts are the epitome of conspicuous consumption, as intended. There are a lot of celebrities out there, though—ranging from the ultra-famous to the Z-list—and, corporate partnerships always need someone to capture the public eye. I intend to explore some of the lesser-known, celebrity-affiliated products out there, so let’s get started.
Notable for absolutely profane stand-up, kid-friendly Disney voice acting (and, being the host of the USA Network’s "Up All Night" program), Gilbert Gottfried has a very distinct voice that sounds like someone doing an impression of a Jewish grandma, while getting fucked in the ass with a cactus. He lent his prodigious vocal range to a children’s toy, which lets kids record things they say and have it play them back in ol’ Gilbert’s voice. It was pulled off the market after only a single Christmas of sales, citing numerous complaints from parents who "just couldn’t take it anymore."
Popular, but ultimately disposable, actress Jennifer Lawrence has lent her name to this line of unspectacular—but, certainly not awful—pickles. They retail for about $8 a jar and are available at Whole Foods or similar boutique-style specialty grocers.
Sold at both housewares and garden supply outlets for some reason, do-anything actor and Coppola family phenomena Nic Cage lent his name and likeness to a line of hygiene products, which featured his mostly nude body on the front of the bottle, with key areas obscured by soap suds. It sold poorly—for unknown reasons—and, has become relegated to the shelves of dollar stores everywhere.
Attempting to cash in on his name yet again, the fat Doctor Dre, known mostly for hosting Yo! MTV Raps with Ed Lover and being in that movie Who’s The Man, has teamed up with Nabisco to produce a competing product to Oscar Meyer’s Lunchables. They’re salty, disassembled meals for lunchtime, which the user puts together. They claim a superior quality to that of their competitor and prominently feature 1990s hip-hop art and references, which appeal to a Millennial demographic, that is both saturated in nostalgia and unable to feed itself.
Hot on the heels of the book and subsequent movie about secret codes in Renaissance artwork, this bathroom scale shows the user’s weight in a secret code, which must be decrypted by referencing a fictitious, but entertaining, account of secret religious societies in medieval Europe (sold separately).
Tough-guy actor and surprisingly whiny public personality Ron Perlman has teamed up with Perdue Farms to produce a line of frozen chicken nuggets, which are molded to resemble his face and are bundled with a series of bold-seeming (but rather bland) dipping sauces.
Notable Friend and buffoonish actor David Schwimmer has partnered with Speedo International, to develop swimwear which, unlike Speedo’s traditionally skimpy offerings, cover most of the body and some of the head. They also feature an embroidered picture of David’s face on the groin and nipples, which signify the brand.
Working with the famous Guy Laroche Company to create what he calls a "friendly, sociable, yet somehow mysteriously erotic" fragrance for men, Danny DeVito is attempting to re-define not only the nature of what kind of man wears perfume, but what they smell like when they do. The tagline is "the sweat of forever."
A series of carefully branded tools for yard care, which appeal to the market of those who want to tend to their gardens, but also wish to be able to murder folks with them, if the need arises. The selling point is that everything holds a wickedly keen edge...even the rake and snow shovel. The flagship product is, of course, the machete.
Despite never actually having played a genie in the movie Shazam—which itself doesn’t exist and is basically a hallucination of the collective consciousness*—actor and comedian, Sinbad, has nevertheless chosen to market a line of socks, which feature him as a genie and have a pointed toe which curls up. They are available at Walmart for a humble $4.99 and come in a variety of bright, genie-like colors.
There’s my top ten picks of lesser-known celebrity-branded products. Notable runners-up included Henry Winkler’s "Sit On It" series of playground toys, the Ray Romano Playstation game, Let’s Make Omelettes and the six gorillion perfumes from every woman who has ever picked up a microphone in the last 30 years. Do I want to smell like Mariah Carey? Does anyone? Should anyone? I don’t have answers to questions like that, but I certainly don’t think anyone would want to smell like Sarah Jessica Parker and even she has a perfume! I’ll leave you to reflect on that for a minute, before you flip to the next page.
If any of you get the opportunity to be part of a product branding, I say take it!
*You might remember this movie. People swear up and down that they do. But, it does not exist, unless you want to believe that at some point, two universes in the multiverse, which exist simultaneously but separately (you have to believe in that, too) underwent some kind of conjunction in the mid-to-late ’90s, causing a rift in which some things which existed prior ceased to—but, our memories of them did not. See "Berenstein vs. Berenstain" for a similar curiosity, also known as "The Mandela Effect."
