I could—and probably should—repeat the details of my previous strong recommendation of the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy, which I discussed in an earlier Backstage entry and have probably watched 10 times since then. But instead, I’m going to leave a couple of photos here for your consideration, along with a few thoughts on what’s shown in them.
As previously noted, Fox did almost everything possible to destroy this movie’s chances of being seen by large audiences. It released the film in something like six theaters, some of which didn’t even have the title on their marquees.
Then the DVD release took place with hardly any publicity, save for that generated by people such as me, who searched it out on the strength of Mike Judge’s earlier movie Office Space and found it so amusing and prescient that we had to write about it. As with Office Space, Idiocracy developed a cult following. And then something insane happened. Brawndo, the Gatorade-styled “thirst mutilator” beverage that starred in the movie, has just become a reality: an energy drink company in California licensed the rights from Fox, and now sells it in 24 packs.
When I heard the news a few weeks ago, I decided I wasn’t going to buy any, lest this licensing deal actually make money for the people at Fox, who deserve nothing after what they did to kill the film. So I was shocked when the UPS truck rolled up today to deliver a case that a friend bought me as a Christmas present (thanks, Christian!), and I’m hoping that Mike Judge might be getting a cut of the merchandising rights for the purchase. Anyway, here’s what it looks like. It tastes like liquid lime-flavored Jell-O.