J.J. Abrams is known for connecting his projects with small Easter eggs, tributes and references. From Lost to Cloverfield and Star Trek to Fringe, there was an element that connected all of them in a most peculiar way: the Slusho drink. While its use eventually quieted down in recent years, Slusho appeared in a limited number of projects, which left other traces of an otherwise silly multiverse idea that could blow the viewer's mind.
Abrams found various ways to make references and place Easter eggs in his projects, but the Slusho drink definitely stood out as it started to be referenced every so often. One of the television shows in which Slusho was more outstanding was Heroes, the NBC hit series that suffered a premature end. Kristen Bell and several other actors were seen slurping the tasty treat on screen. Although Abrams was not attached to this project, his fellow Jesse Alexander was a producer, a role he shared with Abrams on both Alias and Lost. Plus, Heroes starred Greg Grunberg, the director's childhood friend that finds his way into most of Abrams' projects.
Slusho Had a Prominent Role in Cloverfield
It was during Alias that Slusho made its first appearance, right in Season 1, Episode 2, "So It Begins." The series, created by J.J. Abrams and with Grunberg in a secondary role, showed Slusho in the background, then called Slush-O. It eventually dropped the hyphen and developed a more modern logo. Heroes brought the drink to the internet debate, but it was in the movie Cloverfield that it really picked everyone's attention. Not that the drink itself appears in the movie, as it is only referenced in one of the character's t-shirts and on a television spot playing in a store, but because the movie had a major viral promotional campaign behind it.
The campaign implied that Rob, the protagonist, would move to Japan because of a job offer as vice president of the Slusho corporation in Japan, Tagruato. That backstory gave some outside relevance to what happened in the movie, suggesting that the deep sea drilling needed to get one of Slusho's flavor ingredients eventually woke up a monster that later invaded New York. Cloverfield never addresses this directly, but the found footage film begins with a text and a logo explaining its content. The logo, however, would look familiar to fans of another famous show.
How Slusho Binds J.J. Abrams' Projects Together
Lost is still one of Abrams' most popular TV projects, even if it struggled with some narrative issues. The show introduced the Dharma Initiative, a research project with a very recognizable logo that plays a significant part in the series. The logo appearing within the first few seconds of Cloverfield, identifying where the tape that followed came from, could connect both projects. However, it would seem far-fetched. Nevertheless, Abrams referenced the drink in yet another far-off film: Star Trek. When Uhura was offered a Slusho at a bar in the film, it raised more eyebrows. But the references did not stop there. When Kirk and the other cadets were leaving on their first mission to space, they flew through the skies of futuristic San Francisco, and one building bore the logo of the Tagruato corporation, the same as Cloverfield.
Connecting all these dots was Fringe. Abrams' famous TV show offered a conclusion to the Slusho mystery. Nowadays, audiences are already familiar with the concept of the multiverse and alternate realities, but Fringe got there really early. On the show, which featured many Slusho drink references, a team of scientists discovered ways to travel into alternate realities. If one stretches this theory far enough, one could argue that all these Abrams projects are part of the same multiverse, bound together by Slusho and its Tagruato corporation.