The ubiquitous prop that’s appeared in over 10,000 productions
Nobody really questions what happens to a prop once it’s served its purpose in a film and television production because, for the typical viewer, it doesn’t amount to anything more than window dressing.
It’s simply something that’s there to aid in the immersion, so it’s understandable that what comes after the fact goes unmentioned. Some sets are reused for other movies and TV shows, and the materials can often be repurposed for a completely different picture or series, but what about the innocuous background stuff?
Wondering what befalls fake food, artificial shrubbery, single-use fictional furniture, and the entirety of the wardrobe department’s hard work is a rabbit hole that’s waiting to be fallen down if anybody even wants those answers in the first place, which remains up for debate when the subtle minutiae of the moving image hardly generate interest to the same level as stunning cinematography, a staggering performance, or eye-popping visual effects.
However, what can’t be argued without the majority of audiences even realising is that they’ve almost definitely seen the most-used prop in the industry’s history on at least a handful of occasions without even noticing, and there’s even a company that specialises in supplying it.
The list of movies and TV shows to feature somebody reading a newspaper is vast to undersell it dramatically. On the other hand, the list of movies and TV shows to feature somebody reading a broadsheet that isn’t The Recurring Newspaper is a lot smaller, after it became the go-to paper for virtually everything.
Manufactured by The Earl Hays Press, it’s an entirely fictitious and largely nonsensical selection of images and paragraphs that looks like the real deal but can be edited in such a way that it only takes a couple of minor alterations to seamlessly integrate it into whatever story is being told onscreen, if there even is one.
The company has been making fake newspapers since the 1920s, but it wasn’t until the ’60s that The Recurring Newspaper became ubiquitous. The pages contain nondescript headlines and more often than not a picture of a man in a trenchoat, who happens to be Earl Hayes.
Instead of wading through the red tape to get the OK from a genuine paper, Hollywood simply orders copies of The Recurring Newspaper, and everyone remains none the wiser. It’s become one of the most popular inside jokes in the business, and it’s even set a world record for appearing in more productions than any other prop after notching more than 10,000 screen outings.
The Recurring Newspaper has been glimpsed in The Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, No Country for Old Men, Modern Family, That ’70s Show, Desperate Housewives, Scrubs, Married with Children, Modern Family, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, The Goonies, and that doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Basically, it’s the Wilhelm scream of the prop world, except nowhere near as easily identifiable.
