Post-it® Notes have been enjoying some Hollywood spotlight time over the past two months surrounding the 25th anniversary of the release of cult classic comedy movie “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.”
The film’s protagonists, Romy and Michele -- played by Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow, respectively – are ditzy, unambitious besties. Constantly humiliated by their “A-Group” mean girl classmates during high school, they now face the prospect of more humiliation for their unimpressive lives at their upcoming class reunion. So, they hatch a plot to feign professional success at the event by donning business suits, borrowing a Jaguar from the dealership where Romy works as a service department cashier, and telling fellow alums they invented Post-it Notes.
Art Fry, Post-it Notes co-inventor and retired 3M product development specialist, played a consulting role for the movie by helping with the descriptive part about the adhesive formulation in the script – although this entailed pure creative license by stringing together technical jargon that sounds impressive but has nothing to do with the actual formulation.
Recently, entertainment media and social media went wild when Sorvino and Kudrow reunited on Feb. 28 as Screen Actors Guild awards co-presenters, dressed in colors matching their iconic pink and blue movie frocks -- and Sorvino held up handfuls of Post-it Notes to read off the award category nominees.
Released on April 25, 1997, the movie has also been receiving recent media coverage for its milestone anniversary, including a vogue.com article that gives a comprehensive history of the movie. The article includes interviews with Sorvino and Kudrow, the film’s producer, director, screen writer, studio executives, casting manager, stylists and other key production team members, plus notable cast co-stars such as Janeane Garofalo, Allan Cumming and Camryn Manheim.
Art was also interviewed for and quoted in the article, noting that people immediately ask him about Romy and Michele when they find out he was a Post-it Notes inventor. “It’s amazing how often the film comes up in my life,” he told Vogue. “I watched it again just the other day and it holds up quite well. But Lisa Kudrow’s speech about the glue is complete gobbledygook.”