Quite a few folks have written to ask or tell me about David Letterman's battle over "intellectual property" when he left NBC. I should have mentioned that.
Basically, NBC made the same assertion and what Dave did was to abandon most of what they were claiming. For example, his music makers could no longer be called "The World's Most Dangerous Band" and Larry "Bud" Melman had to revert to using his real name, Calvert DeForest. But Letterman went ahead and used a few things — most notably his Top-Ten Lists — that he (and I suppose, his lawyers) felt were generic enough than NBC couldn't claim ownership. And NBC never made an issue of them. Whenever Conan O'Brien surfaces somewhere, he'll probably do the same thing — use a few bits and rename others.
NBC's Jeff Gaspin said the other day that Jay Leno's forthcoming Tonight Show would be a "hybrid" of the old Jay Leno Tonight Show and the 10 PM Jay Leno Show. In other words, it will be a mix of (a) the old show with two guests and (b) the exact same show with one, plus they'll put the couch back. I sure hope it's more than that.
Here's a question from one of those readers who doesn't want his name used for some reason...
They're saying that if Conan goes and does a new show for another network, he can't take his "intellectual property" with him like the Masturbating Bear and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Why not? Why can't he take his act with him? Isn't this piggish of the network?
I know it's hard to believe but networks have been known to do piggish things. In this case, there's a justification that may make sense on some levels. Let's take the Masturbating Bear, for example. Now, I don't know who came up with that idea but let's say it was a staff writer on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. That writer wasn't working for Conan. He was working for NBC and paid by a check that said NBC on it. To the extent rights are transferred when a writer is paid for his work, those rights transferred to NBC, not to Conan O'Brien. Why should Conan be able to have that bear masturbate on a show at Fox? He didn't create it. He didn't pay for it.
Now, some would say, "Well, it became Conan's bit. It's part of his show." Well, yes. But consider this. Paramount Pictures owns Star Trek. The character of Mr. Spock is part of Leonard Nimoy's identity and Mr. Nimoy obviously had a lot to do with the nature and worth of that character...but Nimoy is not free to take Mr. Spock and portray him in a show for Disney. Spock is "intellectual property" claimed by Paramount...and that intellectual property is worth a lot. You can understand why they would assert those rights.
Now, some of those same people would say, "Yeah, but what's a Masturbating Bear worth, anyway?" Probably not much. (I'm tempted to say "A handful.") But NBC has two concerns here. One is the precedent. Some "intellectual property" from their shows does turn out to have enormous value. Look at just the many properties spun off Saturday Night Live into merchandise and feature films — Wayne's World, The Coneheads, The Blues Brothers, etc. We don't know the ownership or split on all those but we can understand how anyone who might have a claim would want to claim as much of them as possible. What NBC is doing is what darn near any company (or even any individual) does in these matters, which is to quickly assert they own everything. They can always, in later discussions, back off those assertions. After all, it's harder to go the other way...or to stake your claim later.
Which brings us to their other concern. Even though NBC has settled with Conan and he's free to go to Fox or QVC or wherever, they're still going to have business relations with him. He has this 18 year body of work for the network and both sides will want to exploit it, reuse it, market it, excerpt it, draw from it, whatever. Down the line, he may need or want things from them and they may need or want things from him. So they're staking out future bargaining leverage. Down the line, if they need him to sign off on some syndication or home video plan not covered by existing contracts, they can say to him, "Hey, Coco...okay this and we'll let you have your Masturbating Bear, plus just to show what nice guys we are, we'll throw in the FedEx Pope!" That kind of thing. It's just bargaining chips.
I don't know if Triumph is included in this. Bob Smigel has used that character in so many other venues that he may have a special deal. Just because something appeared first on Conan's show doesn't mean it's part of NBC's "intellectual property." It all depends on the contracts. The Masturbating Bear may not be of much value to NBC in the future. In fact, they might do better to tell Conan, "You can have him if you pay us 50% of any future merchandising or licensing." But they're concerned about the precedent, and it's usually their default position to insist they own everything until it's proven — as it sometimes is — otherwise.
Hey, let's sing along with Popeye! This is a little short that the Max Fleischer studio cobbled together in 1934 when the squinty sailor and his theme song were getting popular. It uses animation that was done for Popeye's first short (entitled just Popeye the Sailor and produced the year before) and the voice is by Popeye's first voice, William Costello.
Some sources say that the one line where Popeye says "Sing along with me, everybody" was done by Jack Mercer, who took over the job of voicing the spinach-eater after Costello departed...and it does sound more like Mercer than Costello. The trouble with that deduction is that every single source says that Mercer didn't replace Costello until 1935. So if any of this matters to you, you'll have to figure it out for yourself...
January 22, 2010
