The Phantom Menace Produced The Single Most Offensive Star Wars Collectible
If you’re a Star Wars fan, chances are you don’t have a lot of love for Jar Jar Binks. Even if you are one of the rare Jar Jar stans out there, surely you wouldn’t want to make out with the dimwitted Gungun, right? Believe it or not, there was a time when Lucasfilm thought kids would love doing exactly that.
The Horrific Lollipop
Yes, at one point Star Wars put out a collectible so offensive it tops every list of worst Star Wars toys ever compiled. A lollipop that forced you to literally suck on Jar Jar Binks’s tongue. It’s just as hideous as it sounds, and pictures of the thing are the stuff of nightmares.
The Jar Jar Binks lollipop was released in 1999 to promote Star Wars: Episode I–The Phantom Menace. It consisted of a handle with a plunger on one end and a mold of Jar Jar’s head on the other. While that description alone is enough to earn a “Nope!” from most Star Wars fans, the collectible’s true horror isn’t revealed until the plunger is pushed in
A Gross Process
Upon pushing in the plunger, Jar Jar would open his disturbingly realistic mouth, exposing a delicious, sugary treat: his tongue. It’s already disturbing to think of a kid sucking on a candy tongue. When it’s long, bright red, and coming out of a Gungan’s mouth, it’s even worse, somehow.
We all know George was delusional about how popular Jar Jar was going to be. Did he really think people would love Binks so much they’d want to get to first base with him? Fans love Jabba, but you don’t see any Lucasfilm execs going, “I wonder if fans would love to taste Jabba?
Or at least we hope not. Who knows what Disney executives get into behind closed doors?
The Marketing Campaign
To be fair, the original marketing blitz for The Phantom Menace was insane. If you weren’t around for it it’s almost impossible to describe. Trust us when we say that there has never been more hype surrounding the release of a film than there was for Episode I.
Between all the fast food tie-ins and endless variety of toys the movie spawned, it’s conceivable that a bad idea or two slipped past the folks in charge at Lucasfilm.
At least, we really hope that that’s the story with the Jar Jar Binks lollipop. Because again, the only other option is that someone looked at the thing and thought, “Little kids will love playing tonsil hockey with this ugly alien creature!
This Wasn’t Cap Candy’s First Crime
Perhaps even more disturbing is that the Jar Jar Binks lollipop wasn’t a one-off. Cap Candy, the company behind the Jar Jar binks crime-against-humanity pop, had an earlier line of lollipops with the same gimmick.
Monster Mouth Candy Tongues, as they were called, allowed kids to lick a variety of monster tongues, including Frankenstein and The Mummy.
Because that’s what kids want. To put the tongue of a re-animated corpse in their mouth. Can we all agree that sucking on a lollipop shaped like a tongue is weird, no matter whose tongue it is?
Like the Jar Jar sucker has little bumps all over it and everything. Can you imagine running your tongue over Jar Jar Binks’s tastebuds? We can’t. Not without throwing up in our mouthes a bit.
You Can Still Find Them If You Want
You can still get these disgusting things on eBay, but it will cost you around $60 bucks. It’s almost worth it just for the chance to round up every one of these grotesqueries and dump them in a landfill somewhere ET Atari cartridge-style.
To put this all in words, Jar Jar Binks himself can understand: “Weesa no like deez bombad suckaroos.” Not one bit.
