Take a typical scene in a movie: a character picks up the nearest newspaper, reading it while still continuing the conversation. What we don't notice is that the same exact black and white newspaper has been used in hundreds of other movies. From some angles, if you've got very good eyesight, you can see a discernible portrait of a girl with black long hair or a photo of a 1960s era man with a fedora. Blink and you’ll miss it. The same newspaper has reappeared time and time again throughout the years in various movies and TV series, such as
No Country for Old Men, Back to the Future, 10 Things I Hate About You, Casper, Desperate Housewives, Modern Family, and lots of others. The paper came from a small California prop company called The Earl Hays Press, one of the oldest newspaper prop manufacturers in the country. It was first printed in the 1960s, then offered as a “period paper,” which explains the photo of the man with a hat. The front is blank and can be customized, but the inside and back pages are always identical. Why use a prop newspaper? Unless the production house has a contract to use a newspaper of a certain publishing house, it’s safer to use one that doesn’t present any legal boundaries. Plus, you can get a stack of fake papers for about $15 each.
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| Terry Crews and Tyler James Williams of "Everybody Hates Chris" |
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| Various scenes of "That '70s Show" |
