Do You Swear To Draw The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nuthin’ But The Truth? Well, Not Exactly, Yer Honor…
Do you like goofy courtroom-cloggers, aka, lawsuits? Well then, you’ve come to the right place.
Every month, Inside Counsel Magazine sends me four items for their Strange Suits humor feature. I sketch out an idea for each one, they pick the one they like best. Here
are the winners and also-rans for the last two issues:
The 1980s rock band Survivor sued Republican politician and candidate for President, Newt Gingrich. Why? For using their 1982 hit, Eye Of The Tiger, at campaign rallies without permission. Hardly a first– the band sued John McCain back in 2008 for using the very same song. There have, in fact, been many similar cases, all but one involving liberal rockers suing conservative politicians. The one exception that received very little press: Sam Moore sued the Obama campaign in 2008 for using the Sam & Dave hit Hold On, I’m Comin’ without permission.
Here’s Newt enjoying some tiger rock:
Pop star Justin Bieber recently sued game maker RC3 for creating an iTunes app called Joustin’ Beaver, which features a cartoon animal modeled on the singer. The company responded by suing Bieber, saying their game is a parody, and as such, enjoys legal protection.
I tried to imagine what might happen if a beaver took the witness stand:
Here are the rough sketches for the cases that weren’t selected:
A homeless man sued rapper Eminem for $9 million for allegedly stealing his idea for
a Super Bowl commercial. The plaintiff claims he was having dinner with Christina Aguilera, who let him use her phone to discuss his idea with Eminem.
Joe Francis, the “entrepreneur” behind the Girls Gone Wild videos in which young women flash their breasts, threatened to sue Madonna if she sang a song called Girls Gone Wild during her Super Bowl halftime show. Francis claimed that performing the song would amount to a trademark violation. I had a vision of a slick huckster trying to buy flashes from a female jury member while Madonna fumed in the witness box. 
A man sued snack manufacturer Frito-Lay, claiming the company was not telling the truth about certain products being made with “all-natural ingredients.” He claims he
paid an extra 10 cents per ounce for all-natural chips, only to discover they contained ingredients from genetically-engineered plants.
Brand Sense Partners sued pop diva Britney Spears, claiming it helped her secure
a perfume deal, and that she subsequently failed to pay them a percentage of the profits. Spears agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to settle the suit.
A man sued former major league baseball star George Brett over a necklace. Brett is associated with a line of “ionic necklaces,” whose titanium ions are supposed to sharpen the wearer’s focus and improve their sports performance. The man says the $30 necklace failed to make him a better athlete.
A woman faces multiple fraud and theft charges for selling phony Facebook stock. She told buyers that she was able to acquire $1 million worth of the stock because her daughter was friends with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Here’s the original Eye Of The Tiger sketch:
And the original Bieber-Beaver sketch:
What do you think?
Can one find better joke material than celebrity name products? Is the insanity in cartoon courtrooms really that much different than the insanity in real courtrooms? Hope you’ll leave a comment.
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Other Posts You Might Enjoy:
Pennies From Heaven: Attack Of The Tweety Boids
A Blog Named Sue: More Lawsuits
Bicycle Assassin: You’re Never Too Young To Get Sued
