One of the best in-jokes in the new Muppets movie is when the evil Texas oil baron Tex Richman learns that Kermit et al. may thwart his plan to raze their theater to drill for oil -- by reading The Economist.
The weekly "newspaper" gets a huge plug on the screen, and adults get to chuckle twice: first at the notion that The Economist is in a Muppets movie, and second at the idea that The Economist would actually feature the fate of the Muppets' theater on its front page.
The actual prop used in the movie, (full-size image below), carried a fake headline: "Muppets reunite for possible benefit concert." In the film, the Muppets attempt to save their theater from the wrecking ball by raising a $10 million buy-back fee.
The cover is only slightly altered from The Economist's real-life Oct. 16, 2010, edition. The headline deleted in favor of The Muppets was "Rethinking Stalin and Hitler." Wocka-wocka!
"My phone started ringing off the hook Thanksgiving weekend," when the movie opened, said Dayna DeSimone, brand communications director for the newsweekly. The Economist actually does a lot of product placement in film and TV. "The Muppets came into my inbox and you almost had a double take to make sure you were reading it correctly," she said.
Part of DeSimone's job is to ensure the magazine and its logo are used realistically, and not too insultingly. "We just make sure the character is not burning the magazine," she said.
That doesn't happen in The Muppets, but the brand is closely associated with the movie's top villain. Fox News felt the oil business was portrayed so poorly in the movie that the Muppets must be communists.
DeSimone didn't see it that way when asked for the prop back in 2010. "We didn't think too far into that to be perfectly honest. It was more that if The Economist was covering the Muppets getting back together, that would be fine in and of itself."
Here's the Muppets' version of The Economist:
And here's the original:
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