Fact Check

Did 'The Grinch' Pistachio Ad Make a Crude Reference?

A cross promotion between the new movie "The Grinch" and "Wonderful Pistachios" is genuine, but the character never stated that pistachios are "green and salty just like my nuts"

Published Nov. 14, 2018

Claim:
A “Wonderful Pistachios" ad featured The Grinch touting the slogan “Green and salty. Just like my nuts."

An image purportedly showing an in-store advertisement for Wonderful Pistachios and the animated movie "The Grinch" raised some eyebrows as it circulated on social media in November 2018 due to an unusually crass slogan: "Green and salty. Just like my nuts”:

This is not a genuine advertisement. "The Grinch" and Wonderful Pistachios did run a series of cross-promotional advertisements that utilized the character's mean-spirited humor, but this image was digitally manipulated.

One indication that this image is fake is the watermark for Instagram user "@Jaunty_Jenkhead," a self-described meme hoarder, visible on the top left of the display. A scroll through Jaunty_Jenkhead's Instagram feeds reveals a number of other memes and manipulated images.

We also managed to find the original, undoctored image via a reverse image search. On 9 November 2018, two days before the "Green and Salty. Just like my nuts" image started to make its way around social media, Imgur user "twistable69" posted a photograph of this advertisement which featured a much more palatable slogan: "Green and salty. Just like me."

Here's a comparison of the doctored image (left) and the genuine photograph (right):

A photograph showing another in-store advertisement for The Grinch and Wonderful Pistachios from the web site "The Packer" confirms that the genuine slogan for this advertisement is "Green and salty. Just like me."

Sources

Koger, Chris.   "The Grinch Gets Crackin’ with Wonderful Pistachios Campaign."     The Packer.   17 October 2018.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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