Story Archive

Paint the Town Red

The tiny Colorado ski town of Crested Butte (population 1,500) was turned into “Whatever U.S.A.” for a Bud Light commercial shoot. The beer company paid the town $500,000 to re-dress downtown for the weekend-long commercial shoot, mostly by painting everything blue. A cast and crew of 200 — including 9-year-old reality TV actress Honey Boo Boo — and 1,000 extras all promised free beer, were flown in for filming. That didn’t sit well with locals. “We’re not an amusement park with a citizenry to be divided into classes to suit Bud Light’s marketing goals while OUR government is bought off,” complained a resident. “We’re a REAL town.” Voters want the town council members who approved the deal to be recalled, especially after they couldn’t get into the downtown area due to a shortage of wristbands that allowed access. Once filming was completed, the thousand-strong cast found it hard to leave via the nearby town of Gunnison (population 5,000). “It takes time to get through a smaller airport,” a Bud Light spokesman said. “There’s literally 1,000 young drunk/hungover kids in this Gunnison, Colo. airport that’s the size of a gas station,” an extra complained on Twitter. (RC/Denver Post) ...Whatever.