Set Your HandiHalers to Wheeze!

I SAW perhaps the strangest of all summer movie tie-ins the other day during “The Price Is Right.”

It’s a commercial for some sort of medicine, and while they never come out and say it, it’s obviously a subtle promotion for the new summer blockbuster “Star Trek: Into Whosis” or whatever the hell it’s called, because it’s a sixty-second homage to one of the original series’ most famous episodes.

Anyway, in the spot [industry term], a man from far in the future is banished along with a vicious elephant from a war-like alien race, for reasons never made clear, to the desolate desert planet Spiriva.

There he is pitted against the space elephant in a fight to the death. Sound familiar yet?  Mm-hmm.

The elephant tries to crush him by sitting on his chest. (Luckily he escapes.)

Then the enormous creature chases him around a lot.  Kind of slowly.

Oh my God!  He’s right behind you!

Apparently the gravity on Spiriva is much stronger than that of earth, or the atmosphere is thinner or something, because they’re really just walking around. Strolling, almost.

Look out!  He’s gaining on you! (I…think.)

Here they’ve forged a momentary truce  so everyone can just catch their breath. Phew!

But the chase – and the fight – continues.

Just when things seem their worse, and the elephant has cornered his victim and is ready to pounce…

…the man – using the planet’s natural resources of diamonds, a hollow, bamboo-like plant, and tiotropium bromide powder – manages to construct a weapon known as a bronchodilator…

…and defeats his pachyderm alien adversary.

Thank goodness there’s very few blogs that feature both “Star Trek” and prescription medication hilarity, or I’d get no traffic at all.

Posted by Ted on May 18, 2013, 11:15 AM.