The Six Dollar Thicklawsuit
When I first read this, I thought Ted Frank had missed the point of this suit. Surely I’m not the only person who recognizes the ad in question as an obvious rip-off of Carl’s Jr.’s ad a few years back about a chicken’s lack of nuggets, and while a copyright or trademark suit would still seem a bit of a stretch, it would not be nearly as retarded as the suit they really are bringing. Lordy.
May 27th, 2007 at 7:36 am
I don’t recall the Carl’s Jr. commercial you’re referring to, but Wendy’s had a nuggets commercial like you describe in the 1980s, back before they had nuggets themselves, done in the same style as the where’s-the-beef ads. (”All the parts are fused into one big part, which is cut up into little-pieces parts. And parts is parts.”)
May 27th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Well, that would explain KCE not making an issue of the rip-off angle, as it suggests the current ad is not just a rip-off, but a rip-off of a rip-off.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Geeze, could you really sue someone just for making an ad that uses the same joke as an ad you made? Not even the same joke; the same joke sketch. I thought copyright infringement required copying actual material, not just ideas.
But I suppose jokes could be patented: Patent application for a process to make people laugh by way of an anecdote involving a camel and a troop of the French foreign legion…
June 1st, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Carl’s Jr. has an angus burger? I thought that was Burger King. I need to eat more fast food to stay in touch with these trends.
June 3rd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s had Angus burgers before BK, IIRC.
Not very long before, but…