You may recall that Carol Burnett filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox Television for using her "charwoman" character in the "Peterotica" episode of Family Guy. A parodic version of the animated cleaning woman from The Carol Burnett Show appeared in the first few seconds of the episode as a cleaning lady at a porn shop. You can watch the clip here.
Burnett claims the character was used without her permission, along with a snippet of the music from The Carol Burnett Show.
Unfortunately for Burnett, U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson has said he'll probably dismiss the case, though as of this writing he hasn't made a final decision.
I'm not going to speculate on anything having to do with copyright law, though considering the amount of parody prevalent in almost every medium these days, I would have found it more than a little strange if this case had actually gone anywhere.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-26-2007 @ 7:05PM
BartmanDK said...
What us it she want? she may get some money and have it taken out of syndication and she will forver be known as a bitch who cant take a joke!!!
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5-26-2007 @ 8:35PM
BC said...
I'm sure many people wouldn't find it humorous to be portrayed in a pornography shop. Ordinarily I agree that cartoon characters are fair game for parody use, but in this case the cartoon character has the visage of an actual person, and actors have been traditionally given greater rights to control how they are portrayed, given that their image and persona are their stock in trade. I am surprised that the judge is apparently ready to issue a summary judgement without hearing further arguments. Her attorneys' written pleading must have been very poor to have this result.
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5-26-2007 @ 8:39PM
David said...
It was 18 seconds and 90% of the people watching have no clue what it meant.
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5-26-2007 @ 11:29PM
Brent McKee said...
I still wonder if the "charwoman" character is a registered trademark in which case there's always the question of needing to defend your trademark against unauthorized third party use.
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5-27-2007 @ 11:06PM
Phish said...
people who cant laugh at themselves need to be shot in the stomach with a .44 calibre coiled bullet, so that they die a very slow and incredibly excruciating death.
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6-02-2007 @ 10:39PM
Darren said...
Easy there, Phish...
I agree that the lawsuit is misguided and an over-reaction. But I think that the Charwoman character is something of great sentimental value to Ms. Burnett. I read her autobiography many years ago, and I don't remember many details; but I seem to recall that the character wasn't just something concocted by the show's art director for the credits; it had a backstory and some special meaning for her.
I have enormous respect for Carol Burnett, and I expect she can generally take a joke. She's almost certainly off base here legally -- fair use covers a lot of ground when you're parodying pop culture -- and should lighten up, but I'm willing to cut her some slack, in deference to her four or five decades as a class act in the entertainment industry.
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6-03-2007 @ 5:36PM
Ashley said...
I expect that Carol Burnett can take a joke as she is a comedian and has been making people laugh for years. Maybe she is morally opposed to pornography in which case, I would be upset that they use my image (which was used on a good, clean, family show) and place it in a pornography shop...joke or not.
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