Initially, Fox withheld a 2003 episode of The Family Guy for reasons that will soon become obvious, but the lure of money eventually prompted them to issue more than a million copies on video that twisted the venerable ballad When you Wish Upon a Star and used it in an episode titled: When You Wish Upon a Weinstein. Weinstein, of course is a name selected to sound Jewish and as everybody at Fox knows, Black people are good at frying chicken, the Irish are drunks, Italians are all hoodlums and Jews are good at making and keeping money. It's only fair and balanced. "I need a Jew" sings the main Family Guy, Peter Griffin, unable to manage his finances by himself.
Perhaps now he will get one or at least Fox will. The Bourne Company, owner of the rights to the academy award winning song that premiered in the 1940 Disney Classic Pinocchio, has filed suit in a Manhattan court, claiming that:
"By associating Bourne's song with such offensive lyrics and other content in the episode, defendants are harming the value of the song."
I wonder if Fox executives are humming If I Only Had a Brain to themselves this morning.
4 comments:
Reminds me of Archie Bunker picking his lawyer from the name - Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz.
I'm sure Archie would be an avid Fox fan.
Sounds like a valid suit to me. People will be humming that song but thinking the new lyrics. You can get away with that kind of racism if its done very artistically and well. All in the Family did it for years. But using someone else's art to highlight it is a no-no.
I think All In The Family was intended to be a spoof on small mindedness, but I remember that an awful lot of people where I worked at the time saw Bunker as a hero and I saw a lot of "Archie Bunker for President" buttons worn by those who thought Archie represented traditional values.
Of course Archie didn't win - we got Nixon instead.
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