Hollywood tie-ins to soft drink and fast food merchandising began at Burger Chef in April 1976 with its King Kong collectible drinking glass promotion. This legendary commercial from 1977 further popularized the concept with Burger Chef's second movie tie-in: Star Wars! . It features R2-D2, C-3PO, Darth Vader, Stormtroopers and other classic Star Wars creatures all vying for free Star Wars posters at Burger Chef. The posters were given away with the purchase of a large Coca-Cola product.
Update: October 14, 2006; This commercial is now available on You Tube!, so there's no more need to download unless you really want to!
Thanks to Chris at Studio Toledo
I swear the girl employee is the same "GUM" girl from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
Posted by: Ryan | November 08, 2007 at 03:28 PM
This is a bit after the fact I know, but I'm only just discovering the site. I wanted to point out that this couldn't have been the first tie in promo. Burger Chef did a promo with the Dino de Laurentis produced remake of King Kong (they offered collectible glasses) which was released in 1976, a year prior to Star Wars.
Kudos on an excellent site! This really takes me back.
Posted by: D.S. | March 27, 2011 at 01:10 AM
Thanks D.S.~ You're right, the King Kong glass promotion occurred in April of 1976... a year prior to the Star Wars poster tie-in.
Posted by: R.T. | March 27, 2011 at 10:03 AM
A huckster-type comic book dealer I knew then made some shady deal with a local Burger Chef manager and bought basically the whole supply for one store in MI and resold them at comic conventions. Fans swarmed him, and this was 1977-ish, long before the movie became geek legend.
Posted by: Me | September 11, 2011 at 03:35 AM