Spider-Man called me this morning

From x-entertainment, "We didn't go see the new Ninja Turtles movie last night as planned. Wish I had a good reason for that, but it really just boiled down to becoming obsessed with reading about various Mortal Kombat characters on Wikipedia. For real. I'm also now faced with really, really wanting to see The Hills Have Eyes 2 whenever I step foot inside a movie theater, so I'm going to pretend that I'll actually go through with seeing two movies in succession on some nearby Saturday afternoon, when the reality is that I probably won't see either movie until they're packaged with exclusive mini-posters as Best Buy DVD exclusives seven months from now.

More importantly, Spider-Man called me this morning.
What an awesome promotion. Today marks the in-store debut of Spider-Man 3 toys, and Hasbro has just been totally godlike in their promotional brilliance. For one, each of the major chains has their own "exclusives." I think Wal-Mart bests TRU and Target — they've got some really cool black-costumed ultra-articulated Spider-Man figure that looks like the kind of thing that needs to be gracing the top of every geek's computer monitor by the end of the weekend. It's a safe bet that thousands of collectors zipped to all three stores this morning just to grab the exclusives, and I'm having trouble deciding if I'm happy or sad that I missed all of the hubbub. At the very least, I hope to own a "Spider Spud" Mr. Potato Head by the next time I shave.

Among the many clever ways that Hasbro has instilled a sense of urgency in the toy-buying public is something that I think people will remember for years and years and years. If you were smart enough to enter your phone number on a special promo site, you are one of the blessed souls who received a phone call from Spider-Man early this afternoon. I, of course, couldn't resist.

My phone rang at about 12:20, and I was subsequently treated to a 45 second prerecorded Spidey message reminding me that his new toys are now on sale! Yes! Sure, it's just blog fodder for me, but think about all the kids who got that call today. It's something they'll be writing about on their own nostalgia sites twenty years from now. Some would argue that we shouldn't dilute the heroism of Spider-Man by making him personally shill action figures and playsets, but who better to inspire people to buy Spider-Man dolls than Spider-Man himself? Aside from the obvious consumer awareness aspect, Spider-Man just has the perfect salesy voice. I'd pay a sawbuck for dog shit if he told me to."