Hershey Han

You know that scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Lord Vader freezes Han Solo in carbonite? Whenever I watch that scene I tell my poor suffering wife how they ought to sell a chocolate bar like that.

“They,” she says, using air quotes and voice-rolling her eyes at my word for other people assigned to fulfill my big ideas.

“It’s the craziest marketing scheme you’ve never heard of. The Han Solo Hershey Bar®.”

The concept reminds me that the chocolate industry* faces a class action lawsuit for false advertising.

Apparently, Hershey’s is being sued over their Peanut Butter Pumpkins by a Florida woman because the candies inside don’t match the candies shown on the outside.

“Where are the nose and mouth the wrapper promised me?” Florida Woman wanted to know.

“Let’s find out!” her lawyer promised.

I don’t care one way or another about the lawsuit. The woman may or may not deserve a big payout for her faceless chocolates. The Mars Boys may or may not deserve to pay for reckless endangerment of Halloween spirits. Either way, the lawyers will get rich for every other body’s petty scheming.

It’s frivolous lawsuits like this that I blame for the lack of Hershey Han in my life. Let’s imagine they made the best damn likeness of Captain Solo in a three-inch bed of chocolate. What would happen if his hands and face melted in the process of transportation? It isn’t like they could just load him aboard Slave One, the bounty hunter’s gunship, and zap him around the country in time for Valentine’s Day.

“I love you,” says the princess.
“I know,” replies the smuggler before he’s frozen like peas.

News for all the “Theys” out there! A carbonite choco Han is on sale at the A-Z company that shall not be named. Even better: a little outfit called Willy Pete’s will ship a few bars your way for more than the co$t of the bar it$elf.

I wonder if it will be delivered by Brown.

*Note that insiders working against child labor in the West African cocoa fields refer to reps of the chocolate industry as “the Mars boys,” a moniker they apparently enjoy.

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