Denny’s restaurants will soon be sporting a new menu for the upcoming movie version of The Hobbit. Oin and Gloin sirloin? Gandwaffles?
No, of course not. Nothing that silly. In truth, we’re talking about Shire Sausage Skillet and Hobbit Hole Breakfast and, yes, Gandalf’s Gobble Melt. It’s all part of a commercial tie-in with Peter Jackson‘s new movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, based on the J.R.R. Tolkien book.
The book is actually called The Hobbit: or There and Back Again. The different title for the Jackson movie is because he is splitting the book into a series of 49 movies, each lasting just over 6 hours. Not really. It’s 3 movies, and they’ll each be longer than two hours, I betcha.
Or perhaps Jackson and company made the Denny’s deal before they decided to change the movie’s title. You can see where Denny’s wouldn’t be too excited about a marketing campaign for a new menu associated with the phrase “there and back again.”
Here’s the story of the ad deal, from Ad Age, and here’s a report from the Los Angeles Times about billboards popping up with the text written in Dwarvish.
Here’s the teaser commercial from Denny’s, in which we learn about their new menu and about how dumb and embarrassing old people can be:
And here’s a good write-up of one man’s advance screening of the new Hobbit-styled menu.
Good luck, Bilbo!
Sorry, Frodo.
