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As of this week, it’s officially been 20 years since the release of Team America: World Police, the puppet action movie made by famed restaurateurs Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Sure, it’s not perfect, but at least Team America gave us one of the greatest sex scenes in movie history, and one of the greatest outraged Sean Penn letters in “Sean Penn being outraged” history.
At the time, a lot of fans were expecting Team America to be a blistering takedown of George W. Bush’s calamitous foreign policy, but instead they got a movie that was more focused on satirizing Jerry Bruckheimer-produced blockbusters and lampooning self-involved celebrity political activism. As a result, there were a number of cameos from marionette versions of A-list Hollywood stars, including the aforementioned Penn, Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin. But the breakout star of the film was, of course, Matt Damon.
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The portrayal of Damon, as someone who’s only capable of saying their own name, was famously inspired, not by the actor himself, but by the look of the finished puppet, which Matt Stone has previously described in not-so-sensitive terms. Still, the puppet version of the star had a largely negative impact on the real Damon. Not only do people constantly shout “Matt Damon” at him in the puppet voice wherever he goes, Damon seemingly had an existential crisis; after seeing Team America, Damon questioned, “Is that how people perceive me? … Really, I can barely say my own name?”
But whatever became of the actual, physical puppet that ruined Matt Damon’s life?
Well, the puppet still exists, and was auctioned off just last year by Propstore. Judging from the photos that were included with the online listing, “Matt Damon” has definitely seen better days (although at least puppet Matt Damon never appeared in any cringey crypto ads).
Propstore.com
Per Propstore, the puppet (created by the Chiodo Brothers effects team) also came with the wires that make him move, and the “control bar used to operate the puppet’s facial features.” They also noted that some conservation work had been done on the face (as with most Hollywood actors), but he was still “extremely fragile.”
In the end, the puppet was sold for a whopping $37,500, which is a whole lot of money to spend on a single marionette. A far cheaper option was to buy an assortment of disembodied Team America heads, which went for just $1,375. Of course, they were less iconic — and far creepier.
Propstore.com
While the identity of the winning bidder and new owner of “Matt Damon” is unknown, it presumably went to a prop collector with deep pockets. Or perhaps the real Matt Damon bought the puppet himself and cast it into the ocean’s depths it in an attempt to break the curse he’s carried with him lo these many years.
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