The Stein Squad

The marketing world has a long and fabled history of using ethnic and racial stereotypes to sell products, and Utica Club was as good at it as anyone.  Needing a gimmick to hock their sub-regional beer, they rolled out the successful Schultz and Dooley collection of beer stein characters.  A stern German?  Check.  A drunk Irishman?  Check.  A short slanty-eyed stein named U Cee that promoted their rice-based light beer.  Check.  We haven’t gotten to the actual pitch yet, by the way- this has just been a little history to get everyone up to speed (seriously, look it up- it’s all true).  Any whoodles, welcome to the opening salvo of the Stein Squad cinematic universe.  Might as well kick it off with a bang, and start with the U Cee origin story.  Born a poor beer stein in China, young U Cee struggled to find his purpose.  Especially since in this stereotype-based universe no one in China even knew what beer was. But that all changed when young U Cee found an ancient treasure map hidden in an old Shaolin temple.   A magnificent Kung-Fu packed adventure takes U Cee around the globe, where he ultimately finds the secret recipe for a delicious rice-based light beer.  A mid-credits scene introduces him to an anxious and very Irish Dooley, who warns U Cee that others are after the recipe, and he knows of people who can protect them.  This OANN-produced pandering cash-grab will leave you thirsty and wondering “if it already existed and I’m watching it ironically, does that make it ok?”