Twin Peaks Prop – Recreating Metropolitan Cigarettes

During my last viewing of Twin Peaks, I was really curious about what brand of cigarettes were being smoked by Donna Hayward as she chatted with Maddy Ferguson in the Double R Diner. Here’s a look at how I identified this prop and made replicas for my ever-growing prop collection.

RESEARCHING THE SMOKES USED IN TWIN PEAKS

Donna Hayward at the Double R Diner
Episode 2.001

After zooming in on a screen shot, I noticed Donna’s cigarettes are from a red pack of Metropolitan brand cigarettes. I’ve never heard of such a brand.

Audrey Horne smoking in the girls room at Twin Peaks High School
Episode 1.004

I also noticed Audrey Horne was smoking the same brand when she discusses algebra with Donna in the ladies’ room of Twin Peaks High School.

Google searches came up empty (except for mentions of it in this blog), so figured they were made just for the world of Twin Peaks by the prop department. Working from blurry screen shots, I decided to recreate this brand of cigarettes to add to my collection of prop replicas.

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT THE PACKAGING

Details of the Metropolitan Cigarette packaging

Discussing my mission with fellow Bookhouse Boy (and mayor of Twin Peaks) Karl Reinsch, I was provided better resolution screen shots and noticed some details that I hadn’t seen before.

Some things barely visible are the “RIPE TURKISH AND DOMESTIC TOBACCOOS” on the front of the pack and the slanted dashes along the top of the pack. Also one detail was the “FREE” on the tax tab that wraps over the inner foil wrapper.

Metropolitan Gothic Logo

I stared to digging through different fonts and found that Deutsch Gothic had many of the same characteristics of the Metropolitan logo seen on the sides of the packs. Using this as a starting point, I made a few changes and adjustments until I was happy with something close to what is seen on screen.

Chesterfield Cigarettes Advertisement

One interesting thing about the design is that there is a white stylized pack of cigarettes ON the pack of cigarettes. I searched vintage cigarette ads and found that vintage Chesterfield ads had many similarities to this design. I used this ad as a template to recreate the stylized pack and also used their logo as an inspiration for the font.

MAKING THE REPLICA METROPOLITAN CIGARETTES PROPS

I bought a real pack of cigarettes to dissect and use as a template for my recreation. After scanning it and making measurements, I was ready to piece together all of the graphics. Once everything was to my liking I took my file down to the local print shop and had them print me up a few test prints of the outer packaging on a light glossy paper.

Recreating the Metropolitan cigarettes

Now it was time to gather the materials to piece everything together. Since it was just before Christmas when I was making this, I found a roll of gold foil wrapping paper to use as the inner wrapper.

Recreating the Metropolitan cigarettes

I measured out and cut up some scrap pieces of cardboard to use as the filler in place of real cigarettes.

Recreating the Metropolitan cigarettes

Then I cut out the outer wrapper and bent it over the cardboard, but being careful not to create too sharp of creases.

Recreating the Metropolitan cigarettes

Once everything was generally pieced together, I used a good old fashioned glue stick and few tiny pieces of masking tape to adhere everything together.

MENTHOL METROPOLITANS

Shelly and Leo Johnson in the pilot
Pilot

I shared my creation with a few Twin Peaks prop enthusiasts and was pleased with the results. Fellow Bookhouse Boy Steven Miller pointed out that a green pack is seen next to Leo Johnson in the pilot. The details were blurry, but an agreed assumption was that they must be menthols.

Menthol Metropolitan Cigarettes

Using my same template, I made a few modifications and made Leo’s green menthols that would go nicely with his straight from the bottle Crème de Menthe.

Leo Johnson chugging Creme de Menthe
Pilot

Yum!

BLACK METROPOLITANS

Audrey Horne and Bobby Briggs in Episode 2010
Episode 2.010

Continuing to keep an eye out for more details, I notice Bobby Briggs has a black pack of Metroplitans.  He pulls a pack out when he is kicked out of Ben Horne’s office.

Three Queens at the Roadhouse
Episode 2.016

Later Shelly Johnson is seen with a pack when she, Donna, and Audrey meet at the Roadhouse after Windom Earle’s invitation.  I used the same template as the red pack, but did notice that the tax tab was blue.

Twin Peaks Prop - Recreating Metropolitan Cigarettes Twin Peaks Prop - Recreating Metropolitan Cigarettes

Now I have all three varieties of season 1 & 2 Metropolitan brand cigarettes in my collection. They are a simple, but important little Twin Peaks props.

VINTAGE ADVERTISEMENTS FOR METROPOLITAN IN TWIN PEAKS

Fellow Twin Peaks Blog contributor Jason McMahan suggested I make some vintage style ads for Metropolitans. I gladly accepted the challenge and created these just for fun:

Twin Peaks Prop - Recreating Metropolitan Cigarettes

Twin Peaks Prop - Recreating Metropolitan Cigarettes

Twin Peaks Prop - Recreating Metropolitan Cigarettes

ORIGINAL METROPOLITAN CIGARETTES PROPS

Shortly after this article was published, Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks Archive shared images of the original props on Twitter.

Tweet - Twin Peaks Archive - Metropolitan Cigarette Prop

Here is a another look at that packaging.

Twin Peaks Archive - Metropolitan Cigarette Prop
Twin Peaks Archive
Twin Peaks Archive - Metropolitan Cigarette Prop
Twin Peaks Archive

Author

3 thoughts on “Twin Peaks Prop – Recreating Metropolitan Cigarettes

  1. I doubt youll ever see it, but interesting thing you can also see this brand in Columbo S2 episode 3 for about 3 seconds about 3:30 into the episode

    that episode aired in mid 1972
    i guess twin peaks and columbo used the same prop department and that prop department was using the same cigarette generic brand and box for 18+ years!

  2. After noticing the pack in Columbo, “The Most Crucial Game”, my research led me to this blog. I can add nothing to the already available information.

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