Cars 3: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

It's that time of year again! With the June 16th release date of Cars 3 quickly approaching (less than four months; it'll be here before you know it), it's no surprise some merchandise is already starting to hit stores. Marketing is about to be in full swing! Like clockwork, early tie-in products for a new [June release] Pixar film almost always start trickling out around the January/February time frame—so things seem to be right on target.

I find it funny that the first product I got for Inside Out was the box of fruit snacks and the first for Finding Dory was Kellogg's cereal...I'm sensing a food trend.

These boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese are officially the first pieces of Cars 3 merch I've purchased, so the tradition continues! I stumbled upon them this morning at Walmart and was super excited; not so much for the mac, but because it means we're that much closer to the film. Plus it's cool we're starting to see the logo/characters out there on shelves. It's about to be a heck of a fun year for us Cars fans/collectors.

I picked up all three packaging designs they had there. One features Jackson Storm, one features Cruz Ramirez (both brand new characters) and one features everyone's favorite cocky race car Lightning McQueen. As far as the pasta itself goes, Lightning, Cruz and Jackson each have their own design, but they virtually all look the same (I honestly can't tell which one is which). On the back of each box you'll find a race track maze activity with all three characters. Pretty neat! The kids will like that.

Ultimately I purchased these (other than to show you all here on the blog) for my Pixar fan nephew Noah. He loves Cars and he loves mac and cheese, so I thought this would be a fun surprise for him today. I'm sure he'll invite me over for lunch one of these days and we can bond over the mac ;)

Here he is below...he was so excited! When I pulled them out of the bag he said "Oh. my. Gosh."

Kraft Mac & Cheese is often a given these days when it comes to early tie-in merch for a Pixar film. Other things you can expect to see real soon (if history repeats once again) are Cars 3 Band-Aids, breakfast cereal, fruit snacks, candy and yogurt (mostly food items). After that we'll start to see a ton of random stuff here and there like kids tees, swim gear, bed sheets, sun glasses, toothpaste, etc. Once May hits, the official toy lines, games and books will hit (which is the stuff I'm pumped for).

Are you excited for Cars 3 merchandise? What are you most looking forward to? Let me know in the comments below and look for more updates right here soon!