The makers of Muddula Menalludu (1990) issued a famous and highly unusual full-page newspaper advertisement to counter the criticism the film received. The family drama, starring Nandamuri Balakrishna and Vijayashanti, gained from the controversial ad.
The ad asked the film critics fraternity to stop searching for believability in a story premised on two rivalrous brothers. Without taking the names of two such politicians, the poster says that one of them is in the TDP and the other one is in the Congress party, continuing to trade barbs.
Instead of a standard "blockbuster" poster, the producers (S. Gopal Reddy) and director (Kodi Ramakrishna) released the full-page ad in leading Telugu newspapers. Since the film starred Balakrishna (son of NTR), the line between cinema and politics in Andhra Pradesh was already very thin.
Muddula Menalludu also featured Nassar, Brahmaji, Vasanth, Prasanna Kumar, Balaji Venugopal, Mada Venkateswara Rao, Babu Mohan and others. KV Mahadevan was its music director.
