Question re people/institutions parodied on "The Flintstones"

[ixnay]

The Flintstones thrived on playing on names of people and institutions.

There are 1m examples to choose from. I'll use just one (well, two; the other's below): the Rockefellers, who were referred to in one Flintstones ep as the "Rockefeathers" and another as the "Stoneyfellers". (One wonders what the then-governor of New York thought.)

My question: Did H-B ever seek permission to cut up names from the people or institutions targeted?

There was a scene in the 1994 Flintstones movie where the debt-ridden Rubbles (Rick Moranis and Rosie O'Donnell) have their Marshy Fields credit slab literally destroyed (smashed) by the cashier. I remember reading at the time that the writers wanted to call the store Neiman Rockus but the real Neimans denied permission, saying it didn't fit their image.

Discuss.

ixnay

 

[mleach]

The Flintstones thrived on playing on names of people and institutions.

There are 1m examples to choose from. I'll use just one (well, two; the other's below): the Rockefellers, who were referred to in one Flintstones ep as the "Rockefeathers" and another as the "Stoneyfellers". (One wonders what the then-governor of New York thought.)

My question: Did H-B ever seek permission to cut up names from the people or institutions targeted?

There was a scene in the 1994 Flintstones movie where the debt-ridden Rubbles (Rick Moranis and Rosie O'Donnell) have their Marshy Fields credit slab literally destroyed (smashed) by the cashier. I remember reading at the time that the writers wanted to call the store Neiman Rockus but the real Neimans denied permission, saying it didn't fit their image.

Discuss.

ixnay

I remember reading about Neiman Marcus refusing The Flintstones permission for the movie people to use the name "Neiman Rockus". With that being said Neiman Marcus isn't the only retail chain who is "touchy" about such things. Another one that comes to mind is Kroger. Back in 1971 there was a movie staring Telly Savalas & Monte Markham titled "Visions of Death" which was about some mad bomber who had declared war on the city of Denver, Colorado by planting bombs throughout that city. The "visions" part was that Markham had visions of that bomber. Anyway a number of scenes in the movie featured the local Denver-based King Soopers supermarket chain. In 1971 at the time of the filming King Soopers was locally owned but in 1972 Kroger had bought them. From what I can remember reading years ago, Kroger had went after CBS and demanded that all scenes involving King Soopers be deleted from the movie. I would like to say ( but not sure ) when the movie had first aired on CBS in 1972, the King Soopers scenes was left intact but after the original airing those scenes were deleted per request of Kroger.

And Kroger hasnt changed their stance over the years either. The recent Eddie Murphy movie "Imagine That" which was filmed in Denver, I was told that there was a scene of Eddie Murphy driving through a Denver neighborhood to get to his daughter..and yes on the way he passes a King Soopers. Kroger wasn't happy and again they refused to be seen in a movie. Maybe that was a good thing though since the movie "Imagine That" was a bomb at the box office.

Anyway your question "Did H-B ever seek permission to cut up names from the people or institutions targeted?"..I am sure back in the 60s most people would had been happy to have been "featured" on The Flintstones. Also keep in mind that The Flintstones had aired on ABC and some of those shows like "Shenrock" ( Shendig) and the one featuring Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York ( Bewitched ) those were ABC shows too. Perhaps Jimmy O'Neil, Montgomery & York really didn't have a choice.

 

[Stanislav]

I remember reading about Neiman Marcus refusing The Flintstones permission for the movie people to use the name "Neiman Rockus". With that being said Neiman Marcus isn't the only retail chain who is "touchy" about such things. Another one that comes to mind is Kroger. Back in 1971 there was a movie staring Telly Savalas & Monte Markham titled "Visions of Death" which was about some mad bomber who had declared war on the city of Denver, Colorado by planting bombs throughout that city. The "visions" part was that Markham had visions of that bomber. Anyway a number of scenes in the movie featured the local Denver-based King Soopers supermarket chain. In 1971 at the time of the filming King Soopers was locally owned but in 1972 Kroger had bought them. From what I can remember reading years ago, Kroger had went after CBS and demanded that all scenes involving King Soopers be deleted from the movie. I would like to say ( but not sure ) when the movie had first aired on CBS in 1972, the King Soopers scenes was left intact but after the original airing those scenes were deleted per request of Kroger.

And Kroger hasnt changed their stance over the years either. The recent Eddie Murphy movie "Imagine That" which was filmed in Denver, I was told that there was a scene of Eddie Murphy driving through a Denver neighborhood to get to his daughter..and yes on the way he passes a King Soopers. Kroger wasn't happy and again they refused to be seen in a movie. Maybe that was a good thing though since the movie "Imagine That" was a bomb at the box office.

Sort of the opposite of product placement. Most companies would pay to have their product/logo/building in a major motion picture. Kroger seems to believe free advertising/publicity is a bad thing.

And I'm not sure they have a legal leg to stand on. It's not like the store is mentioned in dialogue, or plays an integral role in a scene -- the building just happens to be there, in public and viewable by any passer-by. They never went on Kroger property to film anything.

Anyway your question "Did H-B ever seek permission to cut up names from the people or institutions targeted?"..I am sure back in the 60s most people would had been happy to have been "featured" on The Flintstones. Also keep in mind that The Flintstones had aired on ABC and some of those shows like "Shenrock" ( Shendig) and the one featuring Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York ( Bewitched ) those were ABC shows too. Perhaps Jimmy O'Neil, Montgomery & York really didn't have a choice.

When it comes to an individual who is a public figure, they really have no complaint -- countless legal cases have established that a public figure is open to satire. Now, when it comes to playing with a trademarked name (like the "Nieman Rockus" example), that's a different story.

 

[ricksegers]

I would think that even today there would be no permission required in the Flintstones situation. Limited parody is a fair use. Many do try and get permission just to be nice but I don't think H-B would have had to gotten permission from CBS, etc for Perry Masonary for example.

 

[bpatrick]

Also, some of the celebrities being parodied supplied
their own voices: Tony Curtis (Stoney Curtis), Ann-
Margret (Ann Margrock), and Hoagy Carmichael, so
I'm sure there were no legal issues there.

 

[BRNout]

And don't forget their parody of Cary Grant (Gary Granite)!

 

[mleach]

Sort of the opposite of product placement. Most companies would pay to have their product/logo/building in a major motion picture. Kroger seems to believe free advertising/publicity is a bad thing.

And I'm not sure they have a legal leg to stand on. It's not like the store is mentioned in dialogue, or plays an integral role in a scene -- the building just happens to be there, in public and viewable by any passer-by. They never went on Kroger property to film anything.

Actually its the reverse. Being mentioned in dialogue is fair game . A great example... remember the movie "Rain Man" and the line "...K-Mart Sucks !!" ? . Of course K-Mart wasn't happy when Tom Cruise said that line to Dustin Hoffman, but there was nothing K-Mart could have done anyway. However when it comes to logos and such regardless if its on the side of a building or an a shopping bag...just by having that logo in sight can cause problems even if one isn't actually on the property doing the filming. This could explain why in "Imagine That", many of the businesses, stores and restaurant in Downtown Denver ( from Arby's, Chick-Fil-A & Chilis to Office Depot to Payless Shoe Source & TJ Maxx ) all had their signs "blocked out" in the movie. In other words one can see the stores and restaurants but unless one is familiar with Downtown Denver, one couldnt tell what stores they were. Yeah one would think retail stores, banks and the like would like the free PR & advertising..but it doesn't always work out that way.

Interetsing and oddly..as far as logos and such are concerned the exception is actually porno flicks only because those kind of movies don't follow contracts and rules. Come to think of it I don't think porn flicks are even copyrighted. Anyway this could explain why some "star" like Ron Jeremy can crank out 8 different films at a time through eight totally different studios. Imagine if TV had worked like that? David Letterman would be on CBS one week and ABC the next and Showtime after that. Boy would we need TV Guide !!!

 

[Ultimajock]

Interetsing and oddly..as far as logos and such are concerned the exception is actually porno flicks only because those kind of movies don't follow contracts and rules. Come to think of it I don't think porn flicks are even copyrighted. Anyway this could explain why some "star" like Ron Jeremy can crank out 8 different films at a time through eight totally different studios.

...pornographic films most certainly are copyrighted. In fact, that played into two notable landmarks in smut movie history: in the mid-1970s, after organised crime families began pirating Behind the Green Door, The Mitchell Brothers (the film's copyright owners) actually worked with the FBI to nail the pirating parties, leading directly to those FBI anti-piracy warnings that appear on almost every videotape or DVD (or compact disc, for that matter) manufactured since the late '70s; and at the time the Traci Lords underage porn scandal broke in '87, it turned out that the only video release that was made when she was of legal age in the United States, something titled Traci, I Love You, was copyrighted by Lords' own production company, thus she was the main party to profit from her only legal (non-kiddie porn) smutreel...

 

[bpatrick]

And don't forget their parody of Cary Grant (Gary Granite)!

I remember, but I don't recall Cary Grant using his own voice.
I suppose, though, that Mr. Grant had no complaints.

One who did, and who was never parodied because
"The Flintstones" parodied "The Honeymooners," was Jackie
Gleason himself. When he heard what Bill and Joe had in
mind, he came very close to suing them.

 

[mleach]

Interetsing and oddly..as far as logos and such are concerned the exception is actually porno flicks only because those kind of movies don't follow contracts and rules. Come to think of it I don't think porn flicks are even copyrighted. Anyway this could explain why some "star" like Ron Jeremy can crank out 8 different films at a time through eight totally different studios.

...pornographic films most certainly are copyrighted. In fact, that played into two notable landmarks in smut movie history: in the mid-1970s, after organised crime families began pirating Behind the Green Door, The Mitchell Brothers (the film's copyright owners) actually worked with the FBI to nail the pirating parties, leading directly to those FBI anti-piracy warnings that appear on almost every videotape or DVD (or compact disc, for that matter) manufactured since the late '70s; and at the time the Traci Lords underage porn scandal broke in '87, it turned out that the only video release that was made when she was of legal age in the United States, something titled Traci, I Love You, was copyrighted by Lords' own production company, thus she was the main party to profit from her only legal (non-kiddie porn) smutreel...

For some reason I have always believed that porn films weren't copyrighted..Learn something new everyday. About such films...years ago when I was working part-time at my cousin's video shop ( yes he offered such stuff to the public ), I was looking at the list of all the adult titles that were available for various video shops. They had a section called "Not Quite TV" where among their titles I can recall were "Give it to Beaver", "I Love Juicy", "One Way At A Time" and "The FlintBones"..hell they even offered a prono version of The Price is Right and even a gay version of the HB cartoon.."Wait til Your Father Gets Home"..Ok does any of this stuff fall under "parody" ( much of what was done on the original "clean" Flintstones ) or can the owners of these shows go after the smut people for making such films such as "Not Quite The Brady Bunch"? My store at the time actually had that X-rated "The price Is Right" well in their case "The Price is F***** and remembering the box imagine my surprise when I saw a TV camera on that box with the CBS logo on it. Becuase of that I can remember having people ask me if CBS was behind this..well movie. Well not exactly the first time some people tried to assume that some TV network had some "ties" to a porno. There are some people who to this day believe that ABC/Disney "owns" Bearfilms Inc. ( a gay porn company ) even though both parties ( ABC/Disney and Bearfilms ) some years back had flat out denied it.

 

[Ultimajock]

Ok does any of this stuff fall under "parody" ( much of what was done on the original "clean" Flintstones ) or can the owners of these shows go after the smut people for making such films such as "Not Quite The Brady Bunch"?

...as long as they don't actually use names that are trademarked -- for ex, there's quite a few smut spoofs of Gilligan's Island, none (that I've encountered anyway) that actually use the word "Gilligan" or the TV series' character names -- they can pretty much get away with it. The only one I can think of that actually got nailed with a major studio or network C&D was something called Late Night Sex with Jonathan Morgan, a short-lived series on New Frontier Media's various satellite channels (Extasy and The Erotic Network) from October 1997 to February 1998, with porn star Morgan hosting a live comic talk show on which various porn stars would perform assorted sex acts. NBC objected to the use of the phrase "Late Night" and claimed the set too closely resembled that of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, leading to the C&D and the Morgan show's demise after only seven programs; NBC also disrupted the VHS release of material from the show under that umbrella title later in 1998...

 

[mleach]

And don't forget their parody of Cary Grant (Gary Granite)!

I remember, but I don't recall Cary Grant using his own voice.
I suppose, though, that Mr. Grant had no complaints.

One who did, and who was never parodied because
"The Flintstones" parodied "The Honeymooners," was Jackie
Gleason himself. When he heard what Bill and Joe had in
mind, he came very close to suing them.

On one of my Simpsons DVDs in the extras , Julie Kavner ( voice of Marge Simpson ) kinda hinted around that The Simpsons had their share of "close" lawsuits like Gleason & The Flintstones. Kavner didn't mention names but I do remember a news report from the Wireless Flash news service my old radio station used to get that was about the city of Indianapolis and how they were highly upset with The Simpsons writers and Matt Groening about a show that was to take place in Indy.
From what I remember the news story said that Mr. Burns & Smithers had sent Homer Simpson to Indianapolis on business or whatever. Bored in his "cheap motel" room Homer decides to a walk around the city and as he was walking around he kept saying "Hey Indianapolis..YOU SUCK !!" Now that wasn't the part of the Simpsons that had upset Indianapolis but rather a scene where Homer Simpson goes to a bar , I guess for a glass of Duff Beer only to venture downstairs to find everyone including the comic book guy all decked out in S&M gear, holding whips and smoking cigars all doing their thing under a banner that said "Indianapolis...America's Capital of Sexual Fetishes". Ah......The city of Indianapolis wasn't happy about that as Wireless Flash ( WF ) had reported that the city had contacted their lawyers. Come to think of it WF I am pretty sure said this whole thing was filmed so maybe there is a "lost" epiosde of The Simpsons out there

 

[Markieo]

And don't forget their parody of Cary Grant (Gary Granite)!

I remember, but I don't recall Cary Grant using his own voice.
I suppose, though, that Mr. Grant had no complaints.

One who did, and who was never parodied because
"The Flintstones" parodied "The Honeymooners," was Jackie
Gleason himself. When he heard what Bill and Joe had in
mind, he came very close to suing them.

Ho ho ho. Very funny Wilma, you're a regular Jackie Gleastone! (Frad actually said that on one of the later episodes)

 

[markwats]

In the "Shinrock" episode Jimmy O'Neilstone introduces special guests the Beau Brummelstones singing their latest hit. They actually used the Beau Brummels' hit "Laugh Laugh". Also, there was an episode when Fred & Barney appeared on "The Ed Sullystone Show". And they also parodied Mitch Miller ("Hum Along With Herman") and Candid Camera ("Peek-a-Boo Camera")

Mark

 

[Markxxx]

The use of names by The Flintstones would easily fall into parody protection.

Movies don't like to use store names without permission, because there's too much potential for complaints. If Neiman Marcus doesn't like it, there are plenty of other stores to use. They could've used it but it's not worth the hassle

Also remember opinion has always been protected and the Supreme Court of the United States, always backs this up. This is why papers have editorial pages, op-ed pages and letters to the editor, in one place. While the papers have a duty to print fact, these "opinion pages" give the paper a chance to "sneak" things in that way.

As long as the paper makes it clear, and they do, that this ISN'T news but opinion they are in the clear.

I can go on TV and say "Tom Cruise sucks and I don't think anyone should see anymore of his movies, because he sucks so bad." Now if suddenly everyone said, "You know what, Mark's right," and stops seeing Cruises's movies, he's out of luck.

But it works both ways, too. If I say K-Mark sucks, and K-Mart doesn't like it they can pull their advertising dollars. They can also pull it from any show that has advertising for the movie they hate.

"Weird Al" Yankovic says he gets permission to do parodies, but he doesn't have to. He has to pay royalties in any case, but he does. Why? 'Cause if he makes a song he wants it to sell. The original artist is also entitled to his opinion and can say "Don't buy 'Weird Al's' parody."

I recall an interview with Jo Stafford, who did parodies of people's songs singing off key and she says the Bee Gees were none to happy of her parody of "Stayin' Alive," and pitched quite a fuss. She said "we did it anyway."

 

[bpatrick]

And don't forget their parody of Cary Grant (Gary Granite)!

I remember, but I don't recall Cary Grant using his own voice.
I suppose, though, that Mr. Grant had no complaints.

One who did, and who was never parodied because
"The Flintstones" parodied "The Honeymooners," was Jackie
Gleason himself. When he heard what Bill and Joe had in
mind, he came very close to suing them.

Ho ho ho. Very funny Wilma, you're a regular Jackie Gleastone! (Frad actually said that on one of the later episodes)

I wouldn't quite call that a parody (I would if there were an animated likeness that looked even more like Gleason than Fred did), but I would think that when Fred said that line (and I do remember it), Gleason had withdrawn any threats to sue.

Another name that was mentioned, but not seen, was Johnny Rockson, a late-night talk show host; it was on the episode where Fred dreamed that Pebbles and Bamm Bamm had become singing stars, and Wilma mentioned that they were going to appear on the Johnny Rockson show.

And although he's not mentioned by name, Lawrence Welk is the obvious target of satire in the Hoagy Carmichael episode; Daws Butler was reprising his Welk imitation from Stan Freberg's "turn off the bubble machine-a" Welk parody; here he's performing at "the beautiful Piltdown Hotel-a in-a downtown Bedrock-a."
(Welk, I've heard, wasn't too thrilled with Freberg's record; it's not known--at least to me--how he liked being parodied on "The Flintstones.")

 

[gr8oldies]

No doubt there were a zillion of them in Rocky and Bullwinkle but one stands out as there was an episode where our heroes are looking for the Kurwood Derby (obviously Candid Camera co-host Durward Kirby.).