While fans of the dearly departed series Breaking Bad may think of a certain pair of tighty whities as a coveted piece of memorabilia, Saxx saw the infamous men’s drawers purely as a marketing opportunity.
Saxx—a premium brand that leans heavily into product construction and male anatomy jokes in its consumer messaging—bought Walter White’s underpants at a prop auction recently for a whopping $32,500.
What came next involves an apparel-related kidnapping, a remote desert location and a Pontiac Aztek packed with explosives. The hostage did not survive.
“In the interest of men’s balls everywhere, we took it upon ourselves to rid the world of these primitive briefs,” Taylor McKinnon, Saxx brand manager, said in a statement. “So after much deliberation, we decided to do it in the most Breaking Bad-way possible—by blowing them to smithereens.”
A short film, dubbed Breaking Bad Underwear Habits, captures the Easter egg-filled stunt. Quality Meats, the independent agency behind the work, threw a few bones to hardcore Breaking Bad fans who might be less than pleased about the destroyed prop. There’s the Aztek, similar to the one driven by the drama’s anti-hero, along with a cameo of a wheelchair-bound man and his deadly bell.
The brand claimed that it would “stop at nothing” to keep the briefs out of circulation, hence the big bucks and the big boom. But there had been some debate about the method of destruction, according to Gordy Sang, the agency’s co-founder and co-CCO.
The partners considered “dropping them in a barrel of acid,” Sang told Adweek, but ultimately didn’t want to dispose of all the evidence. It nearly happened anyway, Sang said, when the car “burned down to the studs.”
“As a brand devoted to properly caring for men’s balls everywhere, we just couldn’t sit by idly knowing such a vile, antiquated undergarment could potentially touch another man’s nether regions,” said Shawna Olsten, vice president of brand marketing.
Brand spankin’ new
Whether anyone had planned to wear the briefs, even if they had outbid Saxx, is an open question. But the show’s Emmy-winning star, Bryan Cranston, recently said on a late-night talk show that he never wore them. They were simply an unused prop, even though they appeared tattered and stretched.
