And the Oscar for the best tone deaf parody video that attracts unwanted awkward media attention goes to ... Morgan Stanley, for Margin Games: Manager on Fire!

Mason Braswell of InvestmentNews broke the news about the Hunger Games parody that the wirehouse created for a branch manager meeting last year. Morgan Stanley never ended up using the video internally, but that didn't stop the trade publication from finding a copy and posting it for your viewing pleasure. The video stars a number of Morgan Stanley employees, including field management chief Shelley O'Connor.

Other journalists are taking note. Business Insider calls the video "super cringeworthy." The New York Post asserts that "Wall Street just shouldn't make parody videos." MarketWatch labels the video "amateurish" and quips that "Morgan Stanley's army of wealth managers sure have a lot of free time on their hands." Even the Guardian covered the video. And InvestmentNews offers a snapshot of reactions posted on Twitter.

FoxBusiness reports that Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management president Greg Fleming have launched an internal probe into the leaking of the never-used, 10-minute video, which reportedly cost $100,000 to produce. The channel adds that Fleming and others held a damage control meeting on the video yesterday.

Morgan Stanley confirms to the various publications that the video was never used internally but offers no explanation as to why. InvestmentNews cites unnamed sources as pointing to Fleming being part of that decision. The trade pub notes that the video's likening of job insecurity on Wall Street to the fight to the death in the Hunger Games movies came shortly before yet another reorganization at the wirehouse -- Morgan Stanley even eliminated the position of one of the divisional directors in the video. And more managers left during another reorg over the following summer.

"Fleming basically felt that the parody was like bad porn so he killed it," one unnamed Morgan Stanley executive told FoxBusiness.

"This is the last thing we need the Obama Administration to see -- a bunch of fat cat executives making fun of being fired," another exec told FoxBusiness. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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