Do not skip the fake ads on WandaVision.
Marvel / Disney Plus
WandaVision, Marvel’s new DisneyPlus show, begins in black and white, with canned laughter in the background and looking like a comedy of old acquaintances along the lines of I Love Lucy. Therefore, it is appropriate for each episode to include a retro commercial. And these fake ads are not just funny, they play on the Marvel story.
Possible WandaVision spoilers ahead.
In the first episode, the commercial airs just 10 minutes ago and starts with burnt toast smoking in a retro toaster. It unfolds as an ad for the “new and improved ToastMate 2000”, which is supposed to toast even meatloaf and pie. While the toaster is actively working, it beeps alarmingly like a bomb, with its red light being the only touch of color in the black and white ad. It turns out that the toaster is a product of the Iron Man family company Tony Stark, Stark Industries, and features the sinister slogan “Forget the past, this is your future”.
But a Stark device honking like a bomb has a scary connection to Wanda. In Avengers: Age of Ultron 2015, Wanda and her twin brother, Pietro, reveal that they were only 10 when they lost their parents in a bombing and sat terrified for two days looking at the word “Stark” in an unexploded bomb that fell nearby.
“We waited two days for Tony Stark to kill us,” says Wanda in the film. It seems clear that a toaster ad made by Stark that beeps like a bomb is no coincidence. While most of the episode is light and clumsy and reminiscent of a cute sitcom, the commercial arrives with a reminder: There is a darker past here, and the show could explore it.
In the second episode, the commercial arrives around 6:40 am and appears to feature the same two actors from the first mock ad. (The CNET critic has some speculation about who man and woman can be.)
The second ad shows an elegant couple going out for a night and touts the men’s Strücker watch. Not familiar with Strücker? Baron Wolfgang von Strücker is the Marvel villain who controls the evil Hydra organization in Avengers; Age of Ulton, and it was he who experimented with Wanda and his twin brother. So it’s especially scary that the watch says “Hydra” right on the face and has a menacing slogan – “Strücker: He’ll make time for you”.
Wanda and Vision may be trying to live a perfect suburban life with a sitcom, but the ads are a reminder that things can get serious before the full nine episodes are over. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige even acknowledges that commercials are important.
“How (are) other truths from the show starting to leak?” Feige said, according to SlashFilm. “It’s just a weird version of the ’50s or’ 60s commercial … you’ll have to keep watching the series and understand. If you’ve been watching all the movies, you can start connecting what those things mean to the past.”
The ads aren’t the only Easter eggs that reward Marvel fans for watching closely. Check out our summary of other noteworthy moments, including Vision gum, and that unnerving beekeeper.
A new episode of WandaVision – and probably a new commercial – will debut on Disney Plus on January 22.
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