Impulse Buy – Eggo Star Trek Waffles

I suppose when Gene Roddenberry dreamed up “Star Trek” in 1736 (I might have the date wrong, but it feels pretty long ago), he was hoping for a sweet ride of fingertip-rubbing merchandising potential. Toys, games, apparel. All the bases were covered by his popular space show.

Cut to 2009 and “Star Trek” is back in the public consciousness, thank to J.J. Abrams’s masterful reworking of the franchise. After years of absence, the shelves are filled again with “Trek” toys, DVDs are everywhere, and, if you look hard enough, there’s now a chance to ingest a little “Trek.” Because ultimately that’s what Trekkers want: a chance to have “Star Trek” inside them.

Eggo introduced “Star Trek” waffles this year to coincide with the release of the blockbuster update, bringing the adventures of the Enterprise to your breakfast table. Criminally, there’s a lack of special gimmick concoctions to choose from, such as “Klingon Karmel Kar-plah” or “Spock’s Illogical Fruit-n-Sausage.” Only the traditional Eggo offering of waffles are included, each frozen disc packing only a faint hint of flavor. So what separates a boring old waffle from a “Trek” treat? Illustrations!

I think we all would’ve preferred vivid photos to accompany the waffle experience, but Eggo hasn’t reached that level of breakfast food wizardry just yet. Instead, they’ve brought in a courtroom artist to contribute some faint caricatures of the film’s main players, along with a surreal assortment of ships, sayings, and ranks. The drawings turn the waffles into a comic book of sorts, colorfully enhancing the rugged features of the actors in bold, primary colors. The transformation makes Simon Pegg resemble a 1930’s matinee idol and turns Anton Yelchin into a young Elvis.

Sadly, outside of a vague scribble of John Cho as Sulu, the package I bought was crammed with lame waffle designs, including a portrait of the U.S.S. Kelvin. You know, the ship that horrifically marches to its doom in the opening ten minutes of the movie? Yeah, you try to pour syrup over that without breaking into tears. Nothing aids digestion quite like recalling the most emotionally shattering moment of the 2009 film year.