NBCUniversal Casts 'Minions' as Junk Food Marketers

July 10, 2015

The Minions have been cast in a new role: junk-food peddlers.

Today the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest urged NBCUniversal not to use the mischievous, yellow Minions to sell candy and other low-nutrition foods to children. The popular characters, clad in their goggles and blue overalls, are being used to market candy such as Fruit Gushers and Fruit by the Foot, as well as Cheese Nips, Pez, Tic Tacs, Jello, and McDonald’s Happy Meals. (One McDonald’s Minion toy also stands accused of using salty language.)

“Ensuring that your characters only are used to promote healthier products would be heralded by parents and the public health community,” wrote CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson and CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan in a letter to Stephen B. Burke, chief executive officer of NBCUniversal, parent company of Universal Pictures, the studio behind the Minions movie.

In 2012, CSPI praised NBCUniversal when it used the animated film The Lorax to promote a healthier product, SunMaid raisins. CSPI urged NBCUniversal to join an industry-wide self-regulatory effort, the Council of Better Business Bureaus’ Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, if it wished to develop nutrition standards or set other policies regarding the marketing of food to children.

The Minions movie opens nationwide today.