The Interested Observer

Jokes on the animated sitcom “The Family Guy” ususally go by so fast, only the most astute student of pop culture can catch them all. Well, make that astute students of pop culture and Carol Burnett’s lawyers.

Burnett, a comedic icon has had amazing career that includes her own hit 1970s self-titled TV show. Boomer readers will remember Burnett’s hilarious send-ups of “Gone with the Wind” and “Sunset Boulevard.” She also did a skit of a charwoman in blue cap with a mop and pail. She feels that the charwoman image so represents her that she owns the copyright and trademark rights to the image as well as the theme music from her TV show.
In just one episode of “The Family Guy” a quick homage to Ms. Burnett and her charwoman character and a variation on her theme music (also protected by copyright) is dropped in as Peter and his entourage visit and adult video store. I don’t have a stop watch but the reference can’t last more than 20 seconds. Maybe.

The clip and the accompanying complaint are on the The Smoking Gun Web site.

Burnett alleges that to an ordinary viewer, these 18 seconds — of one of the many throwaway references that makes “Family Guy” so unique is a violation of Section 1125 of the Lanham Act, alleging copyright infringement and trademark dilution, among other things. Her claim maintaints viewers of this particular episode will cause consumer confusion and lead innocent viewers to think that Carol Burnett has some sort of relationship or has given her charwoman’s seal of approval to the Fox sitcom. As a result of this, apparently those who are familiar with Ms. Burnett’s work will now think less of her and more importantly think less of her work.

You think? I mean honestly?

Granted, it’s not the most tasetful reference, but c’mon people. This is the definition of trademark fair use. I wouldn’t even want to hazzard a guess as to the number of people who would shoot their dogs (but not Brian!) to have themselves referenced on “The Family Guy.” Given the show’s demographic, Ms. Burnett’s name and mark may have become familiar to several new generations of viewers. “Family Guy” and Fox may have done more good than harm.

So why the suit? Tastelessness, particularly on “Family Guy” is incredibly subjective and the brief nod to Ms. Burnett (in an adult video store) may have just insulted her personally. As she says in her complaint, perhaps, consumers will really be confused and think Ms. Burnett has some sort of “blue” reputation and will leave viewers unfamiliar with her work with an impression of her that she believes (correctly,I think) is misleading.

Still, her claims sound a little hollow, shrill and dare I say it , humorless. As studio spokesman Chris Alexander told the San Francisco Chronicle “We are surprised that Ms. Burnett, who has made a career of spoofing others on television, would go so far as to sue ‘Family Guy’ for a simple bit of comedy.”

My interest in so-called “illegal art” goes way back to the early 1990s when Negativeland ambushed U2 in the pages of Mondo to ask for a simple explaination about the 180-page lawsuit citing Negativeland for copyright and trademark infringment (See for yourself if they had a case).

The Chilling Effects Web site points users to an entire exhibit of Illegal Art. I particularly liked David Byrne’s IBM mash-up, but do take a turn around this monument to derivitative works in a variety of media.

PS — I realize this is all a bit dated, but interesting nevertheless. The articles section is also worth a look.

All righty then. You have built a brand. It’s a really, good really popular brand, like, say Kleenex or Xerox. People use tissues, but call them Kleenex. People make copies but they call it Xeroxing. The search engine Google, as you probably know, has already become a household word. We google old boyfriends. We google products, news and street addresses. But what makes Googling, in my opinion different from using a Kleenex or Xeroxing, is that when people say they’ve “Googled,” about 99 times out of 100, they really actually went to Google to google whatever it is they wanted to google.

But Google, would prefer you not google. Or at least not use the word google to describe what it is you do on Google. In a polite letter to the Washington Post Google’s trademark lawyers respectfully asked if the Post could stop using Google as a verb. (The WaPo had recently published an article noting that Google had made its way into the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.)

Google’s posture here is curious, particularly to anyone who remembers the portal wars of the late ’90s. What Yahoo! wouldn’t have given to have people all over the world “yahooing” things. But alas, nobody Yahoos anything anymore. Well, that’s not quite right. I’m sure some people do, but I would bet my neighbor’s dog they don’t say they googled, when in fact they searched for something on Yahoo.
To drive home their point, Google also offers up a brief (and adorably pseudo hipsterish) list of the right and the wrong way to use the brand name Google. You might want to make a note of this:

Appropriate: He ego-surfs on the Google search engine to see if he’s listed in the results.

Inappropriate: He googles himself.”

There are quite a few other examples, but the Post voted this one “best in show” and I totally agree:

” Appropriate: I ran a Google search to check out that guy from the party.

Inappropriate: I googled that hottie.”

I appreciate Google’s desire to protect its brand, but the horse is long out of the barn and resting comfortably in the pages of Merriam Webster, the Washington Post and my everyday vocabulary.