Tempo Goes to Hollywood

I end up watching the Disney Channel a lot, having a kid of that age and all. There are a few episodes of "Suite Life of Zach and Cody" that have scenes in a corner market. There is a magazine rack at the market and on the rack is Tempo Magazine.

Tempo is an Indonesian magazine that is sort of like Time Magazine here in the US. But why would a TV show that is set in Boston have an Indonesian magazine at the checkouts?

My guess is that they don't use "real" magazines on the sets so instead they go find a magazine that no one will recognize.

The show is most likely filmed in Los Angeles, which has a large (but not that large) Indonesian population. Maybe the person in charge of set design picked one up somewhere there. Or maybe the prop director is Indonesian.

So here's the next twist to this story. I was watching another show on a different network (I forget which one). There was a magazine in the scene, somewhere in the background as a prop, and lo and behold, it's a Tempo Magazine.

Maybe this is the most boring post on this blog but I find it fascinating that prop directors in Hollywood use Tempo Magazine as a prop in TV shows. I guess it makes a good prop because it's not familiar to most Americans, it still uses Roman letters, and "Tempo" still means something in English.

Fascinating.