During the development and the release of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, fans crafted all manner of theories about how the films connected to other corners of the galaxy far, far away, while also speculating about how clues in the films could hint at what was to come for the saga. With today being Star Wars Day, fans around the world are sharing their love of the sci-fi series, with comedian and vocal supporter of Star Wars Josh Gad taking to social media to introduce an all-new theory: that OREO cookies were hidden throughout the franchise as a way for the filmmakers to pay respects to the beloved snack.
In the video below, you can see Gad hilariously point out all the ways in which OREO has influenced the saga, and while some of his theories come across as almost believable, Gad descends into absurdity by claiming R2-D2 even had compartments specifically designed to carry the confectionary.
In honor of Star Wars Day and his new OREO theory, ComicBook.com caught up with Gad to talk his love of Star Wars, OREO cookies, and his real feelings about Baby Yoda.
ComicBook.com: I think you can get a sense that I’m not one to mess around, I’m not one to pull my punches, so we are going to start off on something controversial and I need to hold you accountable and figure out: are you a regular OREO fan or are you a Double Stuf OREO fan?
Josh Gad: You know what? I’m going to have to go with regular. Look, I was born in the ’80s. It’s what I grew up with. It’s what I know. It may be traditional, but look at me. I’m traditional. I’m a traditionalist.
They each have their merits and I do appreciate you coming clean and owning up to a hot-button issue that has been out there for quite a few years. Along those lines, when it comes to beverages and OREOs, are you a dunker or are you more of a drinker?
I’m a dunker. There’s something about — and it’s actually very interesting, the only time I will ever voluntarily consume milk on its own is with an OREO cookie. I have a “no milk” policy. There’s something about drinking milk that just makes me feel like I’m six years old and about to be screamed at by a teacher, and so I do it covertly, but I will pour a cold glass of milk and dip my OREO in it and consume it. I like the texture as it’s dunked and inserted into my mouth.
That actually is my very next question, so I appreciate you setting me up. When we’re talking milk, are we doing dairy milk, are we doing almond milk, or are we doing blue milk?
If I had access to authentic blue milk, I would choose blue milk. Sadly, Whole Foods doesn’t yet carry intergalactic milk products, so I’m stuck with more of a whole milk situation. I think that that’s not to say it wouldn’t work in almond milk, I’ve never tried it. I’ve also never tried it in goat’s milk or soy milk. There’s various opportunities to see different flavor profiles that I feel it could be like the new version of wine pairing. That could be exciting. I just haven’t done those yet. I just pour a glass of regular old-fashioned milk from a cow’s udder, and I dip my cookie made in a processing plant into my mouth.
It’s hard to argue with the classics. They don’t go out of style. However, when it comes to new innovations in cookie technology, especially how OREO has been pushing things to new heights and introducing lots of different varietals, outside of the traditional OREO cookie, do you have a favorite varietal? Or do you even have an idea for a varietal that doesn’t exist yet?
My friend Adam Shapiro, Shappy, as I call him, has been bringing the flavor variations of OREO to my attention for quite some time now, and so I’ve dabbled in quite a few of them.
I would love to see a savory OREO. I don’t know if that exists. I haven’t tried one, but I’d love to see what would happen if we had — think of a pretzel-infused OREO situation. It may not work, it could even be catastrophic, but again, we won’t know until we’ve at least experimented.
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
That’s right.
Plus, even if there has been a savory flavor, I feel like these varietals are on the shelf for a week before it’s replaced with whatever the new innovation is.
Do you know what I’ve never tried that I really want to try? A fried OREO. That’s something that I’d really like to try at some point. My doctor does not want me to try that. I think it would be really delicious, though.
Listen, as a temporary representative of OREO, I don’t think you’re necessarily endorsing that people go out and do this, but you can say, as a human being with wants and needs, let’s get you some deep-fried OREOs.
I think so. I think I’ve earned them.
Well, we’ve chatted at least a fair bit about OREO–
I don’t think we’ve chatted enough about OREO, actually.
Let’s hear about this partnership, you’ve collaborated with OREO in honor of Star Wars. How did this OREO theory that fans will be learning about, how did this whole opportunity come about?
Well, as anyone who knows me can attest, two of my favorite things — outside of my children — are OREOs and Star Wars, and both of them I actually share with my children. Occasionally, I will hold back on OREOs sometimes, but I love both of those things.
It came to my attention that there’s more crossover between both of these incredible, fan favorites than one may have noticed until now. When you look deeply enough, you start finding OREOs popping up in all sorts of places in the Star Wars universe. From architecture to face masks to, dare I say, even lightsaber blades. I think that if you look hard enough, you will see that there’s no way that the Star Wars films could have been made without OREO cookies.
And that’s not meant to be a controversial statement, it’s just meant to be a statement of fact. That’s just something that is, what’s the word? Indisputable. It’s very hard to look at the Millennium Falcon and not think to yourself, “That’s a flying OREO cookie.” It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely that wasn’t what the filmmakers were attempting.
I remember specifically ahead of the sequel trilogy coming out and things about Snoke and his origins before we learned his true origins in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but as a Star Wars fan, are you one to dive deep into Reddit theories about “does this actually mean this?” and who really was Darth Plagueis? Or are you more just thinking, “You know what, I’m going to let these filmmakers just tell me what’s what,”?
If you’ve ever seen my videos interrogating Daisy Ridley, you’ll know that I am not one to settle for just what is readily available. I like to go deep. I’m curious to hear your theory on Darth Plagueis. I think we both think Palpatine killed him, but do we have a motive? Do we have DNA?
I heard that Palpatine killed him. It was actually a dispute that Plagueis was attempting to use bantha milk to dunk some OREOs in, and Palpatine refused to allow such a thing to happen.
Well, I know that Doku was lactose intolerant, so I knew that that was very difficult for him, but I didn’t know about this theory. That’s interesting.
Because I guess since there’s always two, according to the Sith “Rule of Two,” it was that Palpatine had heard from Plagueis’ doctor that his Midichlorian counts were really out of whack.
Well, you’ve got to do a physical once a year. You have to check your Midichlorian counts.
I apologize, by the way. I said “Doku” and I meant “Dooku,” and now the entire Star Wars fan base is going to come after me with OREO lightsabers and I don’t want that. I don’t want that headache. I don’t need that headache. I want to apologize. Switching that vowel was below me, and I’m very sorry.
I’m glad because I was about to mention that Plagueis’ Doctor was actually Dr. Evazan, and then I thought, “Wait, actually, the timeline might not line up.”
It might not line up.
Evazan might’ve been pre-med, so I’m glad that you made such a blunder to prevent me from implicating myself. When it comes to Star Wars Day, how do you and your kids and your family celebrate it? Is it just every day is Star Wars Day in your house?
May the 4th is the one day that’s … It’s every other day for me that is Star Wars Day, and that becomes my Sabbath. My day of rest.
No, every year is different. Sometimes there will be a lightsaber battle in my home, other times there will not. So it’s really those two variations that play out the most. I’m very excited about May the 4th.
Again, it’s the rule of two. It’s either there are lightsaber battles, or there are not lightsaber battles.
Or there’s not, yeah. There’s not much else, I wish I could tell you that my family and I use the Force on each other. We don’t. We don’t have that genetic attribute.
You love Star Wars, and you’ve even gotten to contribute to a variety of Star Wars projects over the years, and with the franchise growing, a lot of people are getting opportunities to enter the franchise in ways previously unavailable. For you, if there was the opportunity of, “Josh, we really want you to play a main character in a Star Wars thing,” and therefore it would ruin the mystery of Star Wars as a fan, do you think you’d jump at the opportunity to become an official part of the franchise?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. If they were to offer me Donnie the Hutt, like Jabba’s nephew or something like that, I would do it in a second.
I will tell you that I have actually been on the flip side of this where I have been invited to numerous Star Wars sets, and have learned things way before the movies came out that I was actually very sad that I knew. I saw Baby Yoda about a year before anybody knew about Baby Yoda, so that was both cool, but also slightly disappointing because then I couldn’t be surprised.
And also realizing, “Oh, this is just a puppet on set,” as opposed to an actual character.
Yeah, but it was a very cool puppet. I got to play with it.
Stay tuned for updates on the Star Wars franchise.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.
