All those Game of Thrones season 8 food tie-ins turn my stomach
Commentary: I don't have an iron stomach and Oreo, Bud Light, Mountain Dew and Shake Shack are testing my ability to keep my lunch down.
Some TV shows make me hungry, like The Great British Baking Show and Letterkenny (OK, that one just makes me thirsty for Puppers). Some series make me want to fast. I put Game of Thrones right up there with Deadwood on the list of shows I don't want to watch while eating.
HBO has never been shy about marketing partnerships when it comes to Game of Thrones, but the tie-ins seem particularly intense as we approach the debut of the eighth and final season on April 14. Oreo cookies, Bud Light beer, Mountain Dew sodas and Shake Shack snacks are all on board.
4.12.19 pic.twitter.com/bAvtwWUQns
— SHAKE SHACK (@shakeshack) April 8, 2019
Long before we got an official Game of Thrones season 8 trailer, we witnessed the fever dream of a Bud Light Super Bowl commercial where the Bud Light Knight dies a gruesome death at the hands of The Mountain. Don't worry, the knight got a Jon Snow-style resurrection later.
Though The Mountain's thumbs penetrated the knight's eyeballs off camera (the Super Bowl is a family event), the sickening crunch is a reminder of why Game of Thrones food and beverage tie-ins aren't settling well with my sensitive stomach.
I heaved a little when Daenerys Targaryen nibbled on a horse heart. I looked away when Joffrey spewed during the Purple Wedding. I covered my ears when Ramsay Bolton's dogs turned on their hideous owner.
I just can't see myself watching season 8 and slurping a Dragonglass shake and munching a Dracarys Burger while downing some Night King Oreos, sipping on a Bud Light and chasing it with a Mountain Dew from a color-changing can emblazoned with Arya's to-kill list.
Perhaps some of this has to do with my eating habits. Bud Light, Oreos, Mountain Dew and beef burgers aren't on my personal menu. But I still couldn't manage to chow on lentil soup and a grilled-cheese sandwich while enduring the Red Wedding.
Game of Thrones isn't the only fiction franchise that's embraced food companies out in the real world, of course. I forever associate Reese's Pieces with E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. Burger King boarded the Iron Man 2 hype train with a villainous Whiplash Whopper, and McDonald's will reportedly have Avengers: Endgame toys in its Happy Meals. I just don't recall any beheadings in those stories.
I don't blame any company for hitching its wagon to the Game of Thrones juggernaut. I was impressed as hell with Oreo's cookie-filled re-creation of the intro sequence. I was still thrilled to see a dragon swooping through the sky in Bud Light's Super Bowl ad. I just can't eat any of that and watch throats getting ripped out and heads chopped off at the same time.
I cede dominion over a Song of Food and Drinks to fans with stronger stomachs than mine. Please enjoy dipping your Oreos in Bud Light while watching the final-season carnage unfold.
I'll just be over here by myself sipping some House Stark Dalwhinnie Winter's Frost single-malt scotch whisky to gird my loins.
