Sam Raimi’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which is currently streaming on Dinsey+, included one of the director’s well-known trademarks: The presence of his own yellow 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88. This was previously covered in the virtual pages of /Film. The Oldsmobile has appeared in all but one of Raimi’s films, according to both Raimi and his longtime collaborator Bruce Campbell, who have confirmed this on several occasions in the media.
Raimi’s Oldsmobile, according to Bruce Campbell, was stripped down to its chassis and covered with a waggon in order to fit it into Raimi’s western “The Quick and the Dead,” which was shown in the Disney+ documentary “Assembled: The Making of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” According to Raimi, the movie “Oz the Great and Powerful” featured a portion of the car’s engine block and camshaft. Only Raimi’s baseball drama “For the Love of the Game” lacks Raimi’s automobile since some of its sequences were omitted.
The Olds can be seen briefly floating in midair, held aloft by dissolving physics, when the titular character of “Multiverse” travels to a foggy, foreboding, post-apocalyptic dimension devoid of normal gravity. It is hanging in the middle of the frame in the picture up top.
But Marvel CEO Kevin Feige notes out in “Assembled” that the Oldsmobile really makes a second, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in the shape of a monster truck toy. Feige, a supporter of Raimi, was happy to see the vintage Delta 88 included and knew the car would have to show up someplace.
The toy 88
To refresh the reader’s memory, the evil Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) is seeking out an other universe where she lives happily with her two young sons in a suburban setting in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” She frequently has nightmares about these two fictitious sons and believes that dreams are actually visits from other dimensions. In her dreams, she is a standard sitcom mother, and her children are typical sitcom children. She would give anything to live in a sitcom, replete with a luxury kitchen, a yard that is shaded by the sun, and a floor that is strewn with toys.
A monster truck toy that appears to be Raimi’s Delta 88 from Hot Wheels is lying on the floor of the Scarlet Witch’s coveted mansion. One wouldn’t notice it unless they were looking very closely or if a Disney+ documentary specifically pointed it out because it’s never the focal point of the frame.
It must be stated that such a toy was never made in real life, which would disappoint ambitious collectors. The Oldsmobile Delta 88 in monster truck shape is not available in Hot Wheels or Matchbox form, and especially not in the light yellow that Raimi prefers. Kodak once released a die-cast NASCAR tie-in toy of an Oldsmobile Delta 88, however you can still find them online. Perhaps a determined fan might locate the ideal paint colour and create their own custom Raimi toy.
Reading too much into it
Note: Take a close look at the screen capture from “Multiverse of Madness” above. The Delta 88 is visible on the ground.
Putting on my over-analytical hat: Was the model Oldsmobile a hint?
The TV show “WandaVision,” when the character utilised her reality-warping abilities to kidnap a small American town and make it live as it did in numerous of her favourite TV comedies, is where the Scarlet Witch’s suburban joy was first depicted in the MCU mythology. In that series, her children were the products of her powers, drawn from her id. In other words, her children weren’t genuine (the question of why she couldn’t just magically generate the same kids again is left unanswered in “Multiverse”).
The Delta 88 is a miniaturised replica of the real Delta 88 in this parallel reality. Raimi might have been referring to the existence of an actual, full-size Oldsmobile as the “true” world. The Oldsmobile is twisted, deformed, and not in its natural state in the “false” world where the two sons reside in the parallel realm. The planet is depicted in the incorrect way. It’s a fabrication. Raimi might have been implying that the Scarlet Witch does not belong in this reality, even if it exists as a parallel realm. She is the only person who offers permanently relocating to an other universe, and she is the antagonist of the narrative. As all the heroes say: One should prefer their native dimension over other ones.
However, I wouldn’t mind residing in a dimension that contained toys for Delta 88 monster trucks.
