Carol Burnett sues Family Guy

Cafe Society
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[QUOTE=mobo85]
According to Wikipedia’s article on Harley-Davidson, the reason the Harley trademark was thrown out is because other motorcycle companies stated their products make a similar noise. It is possible to trademark a sound in the United States- the USPTO even has a category for “situations where there is no drawing possible, such as sound.” The first trademarked sound was the NBC chimes, filed in 1950. Over the years, a handful of familiar sounds have been trademarked, including the MGM lion’s roar, the 20th Century Fox fanfare, the THX noise, the Intel jingle, the sounds of the TiVo, and Homer Simpson’s “D’oh!,” to name a few.
[/QUOTE]

How’d they copyright the THX noise? The identical sound can be found on Asia’s Astra album which came out years before Lucas rolled out THX. I’d always assumed when I heard the THX noise that it was a basic sound file on a keyboard since I first heard it on Astra (that came out when I was in high school).

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The Margaret Mitchell Estate is still in the 21st century notoriously controlling (Pat Conroy) and litigious (Alice Randall among others) of GWTW and at that time it was controlled by her brother Stephens Mitchell, the most zealous of them all. Joe Hamilton (Carol Burnett’s then husband and her show’s producer) was a long-time Hollywood veteran who was very used to making sure all jots and tittles were taken care of (as shown in court documents for Mama’s Family when the heirs of Dick McMahon filed a quasi-famous lawsuit to recover his shares of the show*). For these reasons I would guess that The Carol Burnett Show sought official permission and blessing from the Mitchell Estate, who would probably have given it willingly for several reasons.

First was the show: The Carol Burnett Show was squeaky clean. It was funny, many (not all) of the sketches hold up well 30+ years later, but there was no controversy associated with it and Carol Burnett was one of the most loved people on prime time ever. They didn’t do topical or controversial issues and the only profanity is in the [hilarious] bloopers reels, so there was no stigma to being parodied on her show and the sketch was respectful.

Also, that sketch was a tie-in that aired the same week (or at least the same month- not sure of the exact dates) that GWTW aired on television (November 1976). The publicity helped both CBS (Burnett’s network) and NBC (the station that first aired GWTW). While GWTW seems to be on TV every other week now, at the time, when there was no home video market to speak of and cable was still teething, this was a HUGE event that garnered media attention for months before it aired and (according to this site a 47.6% ratings share. That’s probably the last time any network got anything like that for a primetime event. Also, while NBC paid $5 million to air GWTW first, CBS was already in negotiations to buy subsequent rights (which according to that same web site they did- they paid $20 million for rights to air the movie 20 times in 20 years) so the Mitchell estate had a financial incentive in playing ball with CBS (getting the price up).
Around the same time I remember SNL doing a send-up of Mandingo, an almost completely forgotten plantation melodrama. This would imply to me that they probably couldn’t get permission to parodize GWTW.

My biggest complaint is the sketch wasn’t funny. It didn’t even make any sense: why would Carol Burnett be mopping a porn store? That’s not even funny on an absurd level. (A former child star or faded celebrity [Robert Blake, Loni Anderson] or some church group dedicated to “cleaning up the porn industry” or whatever mopping it would be funny, perhaps, but even so that’s straining a bit.) Coupled with the incestuous innuendo (“what does she tug to say goodnight to her dad”) I have no trouble believing that Seth McFarlane wrote it in when he was pissed at Burnett and it’s absolutely flipping her the bird, and if true he’s an asshat. That said, I can’t imagine how Whacko Productions (which owns TBCS according to the court papers on Smoking Gun) can demonstrate the $2 million they claim in “actual damages”. I see this one being thrown out of court or Whacko Production paying $300,000 in legal fees to receive an award of $5,000 for the use of the charwoman likeness (which had they not actually explicitly said it was Carol Burnett it wouldn’t even be that much); I’m guessing Carol’s lawyers told her “We’ll take the case, but only for cash up front”.

Of course if The Family Guy does lose, which I can’t see happening but one never can tell, they are so screwed. Everybody from Looney Tunes to whoever owns the rights to Diary of Anne Frank will have recourse.

If I were McFarlane I’d offer to donate $250,000 out of my own pocket to a charity of Burnett’s choice. I’m pretty sure he can afford it, he can write it off on taxes, Burnett’s bruised feelings and McFarlane’s decency both get public warm fuzzies, and he can get back to writing the “Rue McLanahan and Fred ‘Rerun’ Berry’s zombie corpse are now crack whores” interlude for the next episode.

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  • from above:

Dick McMahon, aka Richard Jones, was a director and producer who took over Mama’s Family and received partial ownership of the show on a sliding basis that had to do with which episodes he directed and other matters. Eventually his company purchased additional partial ownership from Joe Hamilton. When he died of AIDS McMahon bequeathed most of his estate including life insurance policies, personal property, and his residuals from Mama’s Family and Facts of Life (which he owned a tiny percentage of as well) to ALCOR the cryonics facility that made him an eternal popsicle. His family (siblings, nieces, nephews) sued to break the will, settling out of court- they received his house, cash, and other personal property but ALCOR retained the residuals and his life insurance. I remember reading this at the time and appreciating the absurdity of it, then looking at the court documents online later where it was explicitly spelled out in his estate’s accountings what episodes he owned what percentages of (down to the name of the episode) and how his ratio of earnings was to be determined and how much Hamilton retained and blah blah yadda yadda.
So the point is that if you want to live forever watch Mama’s Family reruns. It’ll cause that’ll up their ratings and they’ll sell more ad space and that goes to funding research and one day you can be in the Deep Freeze with Dick Jones and woken up in 2498 all thanks to the zany hijinks of Thelma, Vint, Naomi and the rest of those eccentric folk over in Raytown. Laughing at Iola just might have you dancing the tango in the 28th century.

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Okay, folks, a couple of points. I’m British, and completely unfamiliar with Carol Burnett and her show. Nor have I seen the FG episode in question. And I can’t get the link in the OP to load. So just to clarify, FG used some copyrighted music after they had been specifically denied permission, is that right?

Did she actually use the GWTW theme music in the sketch?

If so, was it used without permission or did she obtain prior permission from the copyright holders, and pay an appropriate fee for the use?
It seems to me that there is a difference between recreating a scene that is similar to a well known movie, and using someone else’s work unchanged.

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[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
just to clarify, FG used some copyrighted music after they had been specifically denied permission, is that right?
[/QUOTE]

It was a parody of the show’s music, not the actual music.

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Ah, okay. That’s fair game, then.

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[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
How’d they copyright the THX noise?
[/QUOTE]

They didn’t copyright it- they trademarked it. According to the trademark application, the mark is for “entertainment services; namely, motion picture exhibition services.” The sound was apparently created on a computer- here’s the story on how it was made (be sure to click on the Jesse Fox “organ factory accident” recreation attemp- it’s hilarious).

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[QUOTE=Joey P]
There is the chance that it wasn’t her who is suing them, but rather her people.
[/QUOTE]
My people won’t let me eat dairy, drink more than three shots of tequila in a row, or talk to the really hot chicks.
I need new people.

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I’ve been thinking about this, and it seems that Family Guy could have a problem because the cartoon image of Carol the Janitor is surely a registered copyright It’s not when they ‘have a celeb’ on the show and draw an image of them. They took a cartoon character and put that into their show. Just like they can’t put Mickey or Pluto in their show, how could they ‘borrow’ the cartoon Carol for the show.

The parody of the music was pretty weak. IMO Without the cartoon Carol, I’m not sure I would recognize it.

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[QUOTE=Zebra]
I’ve been thinking about this, and it seems that Family Guy could have a problem because the cartoon image of Carol the Janitor is surely a registered copyright …
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Trademark. The image would be trademarked, rather than copyrighted – and it would not necessarily be registered.

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[QUOTE=Zebra]
They took a cartoon character and put that into their show. Just like they can’t put Mickey or Pluto in their show, how could they ‘borrow’ the cartoon Carol for the show.
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Family Guy has used a ton of trademarked/copyrighted cartoon characters for the purposes of humor, although trademark infringement is one of the charges Burnett is claiming. (Including Disney characters- I have a vague recollection of a sketch with a young Walt Disney asking Minnie Mouse to take her dress off so he could draw her naked, as well as another with a horny Gepetto bending over while asking Pinocchio to tell a lie, with the characters drawn in the Disney style, IIRC.)