Eggos Wilt During Stranger Things Moment In The Sun
Every so often, a widespread, wistful reaction is invoked in our collective public consciousness. In it we share a longing for joys of yesteryear; we are given a reminder of what came along during our younger days, and now only exists in the rearview mirror. Sometimes, attempts to capture this can come from an unnecessary, not-so-creative place—how many shitty TV reboots do we need?—but Netflix, this summer, got the formula just right. Not only did it successfully capture our collective nostalgia, it also created opportunities for products to get a reboot, and benefit as well.
The streaming giant’s summer megahit Stranger Things hit every one of those notes. It combined the youthful exuberance of Spielberg-ian 80’s films with the thrilling scaries of Stephen King’s pandemic thriller The Stand, and wrapped it up with a bow of an undeniably charming cast of young actors. The result was, well, a winning recipe.
And one ingredient in that recipe was the presence of Eggo waffles. Throughout Stranger Things‘s eight hour-long episodes, the thin waffles are a constant, and as the characters obsess over them, so eventually does their audience.
So, this should be a rebirth moment for Eggos. Eggos should be on every single breakfast table right now. Office drones should be snacking on them, school kids chowing down on them. There should be no stopping this Eggo train.
But, much like a fellow behemoth of fast eating a year ago, there’s some bad press surrounding those sweet golden disks. Throughout 25 states, around 10,000 cases of the Nutri-Grain variety have been recalled, believed to contain a bacteria called Listeria, which causes serious and possibly even deadly infections.
At last week’s Emmys, Jimmy Kimmel brought the show’s child actors out to help feed the hungry crowd of celebrities; while an obvious option would’ve included the kids handing out delicious, toasted Eggos, they instead doled out peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches that were allegedly not even good!
How could this happen? This was supposed to be your moment, Eggos! This was it!
But, for the moment, the Eggo star is fading fast. Meantime, you could try another brand at the supermarket? Maybe? Also, there are tons of other Eggo options that are not the Nutri-Grain variety. There are Captain America Eggos. There are Finding Dory Eggos. And, if Eggo could have realized its marketing opportunity, there also could have been an Eleven Eggo (Just an idea, folks.) But Maybe, then, the Eggo train would be going just as strongly as we all know it could, nay, should be. But for right now, that train is sadly a bit derailed.