"Winnie-the-Screwed" is a 2022 online advertisement published by Ryan Reynolds to promote the telecommunications company Mint Mobile, which he partially owned. It is a parody of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne, and was created to commemorate the book entering the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2022, a day prior to the advertisement's release.
Content
The advertisement begins with Ryan Reynolds explaining that January 1 was Public Domain Day, and that Winnie-the-Pooh was one of the works that entered the public domain. He jokes that Mint Mobile would likely "be hearing from a certain mouse about this Pooh very, very soon"[1] before beginning to narrate a fictional book titled Winnie-the-Screwed, which uses repurposed illustrations by E. H. Shepard.[2] In the book, Winnie-the-Screwed (also called Edward Bear)[3] struggles with high bill prices from "big wireless", going so far as to bang his head against his table in frustration, unaware that Mint Mobile holds the solution to his problem. The narrator character then informs Christopher Robin that by switching to Mint Mobile, he could get three months of service for free. After finishing the narration, Reynolds jokes that he may have misinterpreted copyright law, and the final illustration shows Winnie-the-Screwed receiving a cease and desist order.[3] In a comment posted alongside the video on Twitter, Reynolds claimed that the advertisement "took some creative liberties", but stuck "pretty close to the source material".[1][4]
Reception
The advertisement was the subject of multiple news articles, as it was the first major parody of Winnie-the-Pooh after the book entered the public domain. Michael Cavna from The Washington Post called it "the first prominent spoof of Public Domain Pooh",[5] and Drew Weisholtz from Today described Reynolds' performance as "very soothing".[6] Russ Burlingame from Comicbook.com commented that as a parody, the advertisement would have likely been legally protected even if Winnie-the-Pooh was not in the public domain.[7]
