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Pizza Hut’s Pie Tops II sneakers can order a pizza and pause your TV

Pizza Hut’s Pie Tops II sneakers can order a pizza and pause your TV

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The polar opposite of running shoes

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Photo: Pizza Hut

Smart shoes that can track your workouts aren’t a new thing. Pizza Hut, however, has created smart shoes that are the polar opposite of fitness. The Pie Tops II, a sequel to last year’s Pie Tops sneaker, are here as part of an ad campaign for March Madness (via AdWeek).

Despite existing primarily as a marketing tool, the Pie Tops II are real shoes. Like the original Pie Tops, the Pie Tops II can order pizza — from Pizza Hut, naturally — through a button built into the tongue of one of the sneakers, which connects to your phone via Bluetooth. The Pie Tops II add an additional feature to the left shoe: a second button that can pause your TV (in theory so that you can get off your couch and get your pizza). Pizza Hut hasn’t elaborated how the Pie Tops II will actually work, but according to Fortune, the shoes are compatible with receivers from Spectrum, DirecTV, Xfinity, Dish, and Fios. I do have a theory, though: when looking closely at the Pie Tops II, the left shoe appears to have some kind of clear plastic cover underneath the button that looks an awful lot like an IR blaster, which is probably pre-programed with “pause” buttons for most cable receivers.

The pizza theme carries through to the, shall we say, garish, design of the shoes, which feature a cheese grater-esque mesh, “extreme marinara splash” highlights, and, for an extra dose of complete lack of subtlety, the word “PIZZA” emblazoned on the sides of the shoe. The shoes come in either red or a somehow-even-worse “wheat” tan.

The Pie Tops II shoes are going to be a limited run, similar to their predecessor. Each shoe is custom-made by the Shoe Surgeon. Fifty pairs will be available to purchase through HBX for an unspecified price sometime during the week of March 19th, and additional shoes will be given away via social media.