I usually just go by whether it’s available on Project Gutenberg:
There are a bunch of Tarzan stories there, so it’s very likely they are out of copyright.
Remember though, that copyright and trademark are different things. Just because certain Tarzan stories are in Public Domain does not mean the character is. You can’t necessarily go out and create any Tarzan-branded content or item you want. But you can re-publish the original work (I am not a lawyer).
RIght, they definitely are PD now, but we were talking about their status in the 1960s.
I am aware of the difference, and although I didn’t look into the trademark question before my first post here, I did look into whether ERB had asserted a copyright on the character of Tarzan in the 1960s, and only found this 1981 case, which discussed the copyright status of the Tarzan character, but decided the case against ERB, Inc., on other grounds.
As the judge in that case suggested, Tarzan almost certainly meets the standards for asserting copyright of a fictional character, so it’s possible, even likely, that ERB, Inc., used that claim in the legal actions @CalMeacham says it took against Charlton and the other companies. I just haven’t looked them up.
Since you mentioned trademarks, I just looked them up, and all of the live trademarks ERB, Inc., holds were filed after 1991, the majority in the last decade. They have even trademarked this:
The earliest Tarzan trademarks ERB, Inc., filed, now dead, seem to be from 1980, so trademark issues probably weren’t a factor in the 1960s cases.
Oops! I didn’t look at the second page of results at USPTO!
The trademark “Tarzan” for “PAPERBACK BOOKS, HARDBOUND BOOKS, COMIC BOOKS, AND NEWSPAPER CARTOONS” was registered as of Dec. 7, 1965, and is still live.
This will only be of interest to people who like Blackadder (WHICH SHOULD BE ALL OF YOU)
The actor who played him:
also played this guy:
You should be a little clearer in your designation. I thought you were saying that the actor who played Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson, of course) played Toht in Raiders. That was Ron Lacey, of course. Looking through his credits, I find that he played the Bishop of Bath and Wells in the episode “Money” of Blackadder II. I’ve seen it, but it’s been a very long time.
Outside of Lost Ark, I think of Lacey as Thaddeus and Bartholomew Sholto in the PBS Jeremy Brett version of The Sign of Four. He apparently played Inspector Lestrade in the 1983 (Ian Richardson) version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, too.
He was only 55 when he died of liver cancer in 1991.
On a late model Golf with a manual transmission, the knob on the shifter is sized, and dimpled, like a golf ball.
Please. It’s “the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells.”
I’m sorry, of course. Doh.
And he’d be the first to tell you.
Natto is a Japanese dish consisting of fermented soybeans.
Some people are actually allergic to it. A disproportionate number of these allergic folks are surfers. What’s the connection?
These researchers think it’s jellyfish stings:
The story of the Kansas City Massacre is interesting. In 1933, Feds were bringing a prisoner back to KC by rail, and the mob tried to free him at the station. It went pear- shaped and the prisoner and 4 others were dead. The latest detail I read was that one of the lawmen saw the gangsters approaching the car they were using, and grabbed a shotgun that was of a kind that fired as it was racked. The law guy killed the prisoner and racked it again and killed another before the gangsters ever let off a shot. This is an account I read recently.
VW Cars… Fahrvergnügen…types of wind…fahrt…breaking wind…
There’s a joke in there I’m sure. Maybe several. But my head’s too stopped up today to think straight.
Here is my question:
Why did Professor Longhair say: “If I’d have known you had company, I would have had weiners for my lunch?”
Nice try. The word Fahrvergnügen was derived from Fahren (to drive) and vergnügen (enjoyment) Now, the word for driving might have some connection to the word for wind but that one is either Wind (just like ours) or Luft which also means air or breeze. No farts there.
But, but…The corresponding noun to the verb “fahren” (to drive) is “Fahrt” (drive), almost exactly pronounced as “fart”, so there you have it.
ETA: and yes, “Fahrtwind” is a perfectly cromulent German word, meaning the air or wind that blows around your nose when driving.
What’s that from? I’m not familiar with it, but I’m guessing the meaning is “I like weiners but they give me bad breath, so I avoided them today, in the hopes that when I visited you, you’d be alone (and thus available for smooching) - but you’re not, so I missed the chance to have a lunch I enjoyed, all for nothing”
The famous early humanoid fossil Lucy, found in 1974, was named after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds which was playing on the finders’ cassette player on the day she was found.
There is a space mission called Lucy, named after that fossil, now on its way to the Jovian asteroids. It will fly by an asteroid called Donaldjohnson after the discoverer of that fossil.
On that spacecraft is a disc made of artificial diamond. So there is literally Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds now.
Never thought of that. I think you might have something there.
At about :30 …
Thanks.
In 1875 a vicar was awarded £120 after playing a game of… Leapfrog.
Although many old claims are light on detail, the big payout said the religious figure had ‘fallen’.
That’s about £14K today.