This morning, ThinkGeek listed a Tauntaun sleeping bag for only $39.99. For those of you not up on your Star Wars history, Tauntauns were the two-legged creatures Han Solo and Luke Skywalker rode on the ice planet of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. When Han found Luke freezing to death, he cut his Tauntaun open using Luke’s lightsaber and slid Luke inside. “I thought these things smelled bad … on the inside,” he said, after slicing the creature’s belly open. From the website:
“In the sub-zero wasteland of the planet Hoth, only the strong survive… and of course those lucky Jedi protected by the thick skin of a Tauntaun. Now ThinkGeek Labs has recreated the warm fur of a Tauntaun in a more convenient format. This high-quality sleeping bag looks just like a Tauntaun, complete with saddle, internal intestines and LED Luke Skywalker Lightsaber zipper pull. Use the lightsaber zipper pull on the Tauntaun sleeping bag to illustrate to your wee-ones how Han Solo saved Luke Skywalker from certain death in the freezing climate of Hoth by slitting open the Tauntaun belly!”
Only $39.99? Well heck yeah — I quickly click the “buy in now” link in hopes of buying two (three, if they came in adult sizes) only to find that I had been had, once again. I should have known, what with their links to Squeez Bacon and a USB Pet Rock as well, that today was April Fool’s Day.
(There is, however, hope; a year or two ago, one of ThinkGeek’s April Fool’s items was the 8-Bit tie. Ultimately there was so much demand for the thing that they went ahead and ended up making them. I own a red one.)
These days, what with the web being so fluid and all, everybody gets in on the fun. Youtube is showing videos upside down, Expedia is offering trips to Mars, and The Pirate Bay, the world’s biggest peer-to-peer sharing site, claims to have been bought by Warner Brothers.
The one April Fools “prank” that had everybody on edge, the Conficker Worm, seems to have fizzled. Bad for them, good for us … this round.
They’ve since added this message:
“ATTN Tauntaun Fanatics! Due to an overwhelming tsunami of requests from YOU THE PEOPLE, we have decided to TRY and bring this to life. We have no clue if the suits at Lucasfilms will grant little ThinkGeek a license, nor do we know how much it would ultimately retail for. But if you are interested in ever owning one of these, click the link below and we’ll try!”
Hang in there. Maybe they’ll have ’em for your camping pleasure by the next time there’s significant snowfall on the ground in OKC.