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SAN DIEGO (AP) - Barney the purple dinosaur is
not pleased with The Famous San Diego Chicken. Barney's owners,
Texas-based Lyons Partnership, have filed a copyright and trademark
infringement lawsuit against The Chicken - Ted Giannoulas - for
pretending to beat a fake Barney at baseball and basketball games
across the country. "Specifically, Giannoulas would punch,
flip, stand on and otherwise assault the putative `Barney,'''
the suit alleges. Lyons said Giannoulas was first notified in
1994 that using someone in a costume similar to Barney in his
act constituted infringement. Despite the notice, the suit says
The Chicken continued beating up Barney. The complaint, filed
last week in Texas, said because Barney consumers are young children,
they aren't likely to know the difference between the real Barney
and the one getting knocked around by Giannoulas. "We have
a sense of humor about Barney, but we take the children who make
up Barney's audience very seriously,'' the complaint said. Lyons
is seeking a permanent injunction against use of the dinosaur
costume and a minimum $100,000 for each time Giannoulas has performed
a skit with the dinosaur in it. An attorney for Giannoulas said
the parody is protected under the Copyright Act, the trademark
laws and the First Amendment. "There have been plenty of
parodies of Barney,'' Giannoulas said Wednesday. "They probably
think that the Chicken is easy picking.'' POSTSCRIPT:
In June of 99 the San Diego Chicken won the lawsuit. The Barney
people were ordered to pay his legal bills of one hundred thousand
dollars. The Chicken still beats up the Purple Dinosaur as a regular
part of his act. The Lyons Group has since appealed and lost.
Hickory Daily Record 12/21/92 - A
47-year old man, accidentally shot himself to death in December in
Newton, N.C., when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside
his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith &
Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.
UPI, Toronto - Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety
of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through through a
pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police
spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto
Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the
strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Hoy
previously had conducted demonstrations of window strength according to
police reports. Peter Lauwers, managing partner of the firm Holden Day
Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was one of the best and
brightest members of the 200-man association.
A terrible diet and room with no
ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by
his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large
amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily
of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the
right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep
from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he
been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been
fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. According
to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating
"this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was
hospitalized.
MIAMI - A woman was
killed after hitting a garden wall in an apartment complex Tuesday.
Police have no idea who she is or exactly how she fell. Nobody saw her
fall. "We have no clue,'' Detective Delrish Moss said. Residents
heard a loud bang and went outside to find that a woman's body had
landed on a garden wall and was ripped in half, Moss said. Police said
she could not have fallen from a nearby 20-story apartment building, the
tallest structure in the area. The condition of her body indicates she
fell from a much higher point, Moss said. The woman was wearing a long
black shirt and black tights and had no identification, Moss said. She
was described as white with shoulder length black hair. Police estimate
she was in her mid-30s to late 40s. "Right now we're still trying
to figure out where we go from here,'' Moss said. "You have to put
together part of the mystery before you even start a direction.'' Police
will try to identify the woman through her fingerprints, Moss said. They
are also calling airports seeking information. An autopsy will be
performed to determine whether the woman was alive before she fell.
PADERBORN, GERMANY -
Overzealous zoo keeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant
Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries,
figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly-and
suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of excrement. Investigators say
ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an
olive-oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump
truck full of mud. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected
defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head
on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his
bowels on top of him," said flabbergasted Paderborn police
detective Erik Dern."With no one there to help him, he lay under
all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and
during that time he suffocated. "It seems to be just one of those
freak accidents that happen."
A
couple hobbled into a Washington emergency room covered in blood
soaked restaurant towels. The man had his around his waist, and
the woman had hers around her head. They eventually explained
to doctors that they had gone out that evening for a romantic
dinner. Overcome with passion, the woman crept under the table
to administer oral sex to the man. While in the act, she had an
epileptic fit, which caused her to clamp down on the man's member
and wrench it from side to side. In agony and desperation, the
man grabbed a fork and stabbed her in the head until she let go.
DENVER- Bill
Weinberger was set to buy his $497,000 dream house in a prestigious
Denver suburb when he learned the name of his would-be neighborhood:
Swastika Acres 2. Even though Weinberger had asked his real estate
agent to draw up a sales contract, he abruptly changed his plans.
"I told them not only no, but hell no,'' Weinberger, a Denver
businessman who is Jewish, said Tuesday. The agent found the subdivision's
name during a check of property records. It dates back to a corporation
called the Denver Swastika Land Co. founded in 1908, well before
before the Nazi Party in Germany was established and adopted the
swastika as a symbol of racial superiority. "How could 57
families live there and not petition to change the name?'' Weinberger
asked. "We're talking upper-crust Denver. That's startling.''
Saul Rosenthal, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League
office in Denver, said complaints about Swastika Acres - a subdivision
in Cherry Hills Village - tend to resurface every few years. "There's
no intended bigotry associated with it. Every now and then, somebody
moves in there and is surprised, and I don't blame them,'' he
said. "I certainly don't see this as a substantial issue
facing our community.'' An ancient symbol, the swastika has been
found on Greek coins, on Scandinavian artifacts and in the catacombs
of early Christians. The swastika also was used by early American
Indians as a symbol of infinity and can be found on pottery and
rugs.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) -
Kurt Vonnegut, true to his irreverent style, said he did not mourn
Princess Diana's death. Vonnegut said that Diana never made any
memorable statements and was not known to have read a book. "She's
too tall, for one thing,'' the author told a luncheon gathering
Wednesday. "I don't know why people are worshipping this tweed.
Don't you think you've all gone loony?'' The author of
"Slaughterhouse-Five,'' "Cat's Cradle'' and "Hocus
Pocus'' acknowledged that some have criticized his writing for not
giving more detailed descriptions of his characters. But he said the
best-selling book in history, the Bible, is short on details. "The
Bible did not stress that Job spoke with a lisp or that Jonah was
short,'' he said. "We don't care what he looked like, but with the
situation.'' Vonnegut said young people love his books because he writes
simple sentences without semicolons
TOKYO (AP) - A Japanese
man taking part in a sushi-eating contest choked to death after downing
three rolls of rice wrapped in seaweed, police said today. The event
where the death of the 60-year-old occurred was held Monday in Takahata,
a rice-growing town 180 miles north of Tokyo. Keiichi Aita, a local
police spokesman, said the choking took place after the man swallowed
three of the vinegar-soaked pieces of rice rolled in seawood one after
another. Each roll was 8 inches long and nearly an inch thick. The man
was rushed by ambulance to a nearby local hospital, where he was
pronounced dead, Aita said. About 50 people participated in the contest,
sponsored by the town and a farmers' group to promote rice consumption.
The competition was for who could first to eat a certain amount of
sushi, a traditional Japanese and recent international favorite.
DURHAM, N.C. - Road rage
- how to commit it, that is - wasn't supposed to be part of the driver's
ed curriculum. David Cline, a driver's education instructor for Durham
Public Schools, was suspended for allegedly ordering a student to pursue
a car that had cut them off and then belting the car's driver. Cline,
athletic director, physical education teacher and baseball coach at
Carrington Middle School, also was charged with simple assault after the
Sept. 19 incident in nearby Chapel Hill. The Herald Sun of Durham today
quoted unidentified officials as saying that Cline, 36, was teaching two
female students how to drive when the other car cut them off. Angered,
Cline instructed the student driver to chase down the car. The newspaper
said Macklin then took off and the instructor had the student give chase
again. Police spokeswoman Jane Cousins today confirmed parts of the
newspaper's account. She said a police officer pulled the driver's
education vehicle over for allegedly speeding. She didn't know how fast
they were going. She said while the officer was talking to Cline, the
other driver, Jon Macklin, pulled up and told the officer Cline had
assaulted him. She said Macklin swore out an assault warrant against
Cline, who was arrested and released on $400 bond. The girl was not
ticketed, Cousins said. Shirley Arrington of the Durham Public Schools
personnel department said a decision was expected later today on whether
Cline should return to his job or be recommended for dismissal. Several
of the Cline's supporters said Tuesday that the outburst was out of
character. "When I found out it happened, I just couldn't believe
it,'' said Ray Bisplinghoff, who has known Cline for about seven years.
"Obviously, I believe it's unfortunate that it happened. But I
believe everybody should get a second chance.'' Cline could not
immediately reached for comment; there was no answer at a phone listed
to a David Cline this morning
SAN FRANCISCO - Anton
Szandor LaVey, the former lion trainer who became the "Black Pope''
of the Church of Satan, died last week aged 67, his daughter said
Friday. "He said his epitaph should be ...'I only regret the times
that I was too nice,''' Karla LaVey, a self-described Satanic high
priestess, told a news conference. LaVey, the goateed occultist who
played Satan in Roman Polanski's 1968 film "Rosemary's Baby'' and
wrote the "Satanic Bible,'' died of pulmonary edema brought on by a
heart attack. Family members said LaVey died Oct. 29, but for some
reason his death certificate lists him as having died Oct. 31 -
Halloween. Deepening the mystery, the family said they kept his death
secret for a week in order not to distract his followers over their most
important holiday season. "We knew that our members would be very
upset by this,'' said Karla. In the small, black-painted Victorian house
which served as LaVey's home and church headquarters, Karla and LaVey's
longtime companion Blanche Barton, another church high priestess, vowed
Thursday to continue with his work. "We will follow in his
footsteps ... to keep the Church of Satan alive and strong,'' said
Karla, seated beside a life-size waxwork figure of her father in the
house's "Ritual Chamber'', or parlor. "No-one will take his
place,'' added Barton. LaVey worked as a circus lion trainer, a crime
photographer and professional organist before founding his church in
1966. With his shaven head and trademark black cape, he gained notoriety
in 1967 when he performed the very first Satanic wedding. The church
claims more than 10,000 members, scattered across the globe. His
followers, which the British newspaper The Sunday Times last year said
included Sammy Davis, Jr. and Jayne Mansfield, nicknamed him "the
Black Pope.'' LaVey's books about Satanism sold more than a half million
copies worldwide, and Singapore banned one, "The Devil's
Notebook'', in 1995, saying it promoted Satanism and denigrated
Christianity. In recent years, LaVey released several musical recordings
like "Satan Takes a Holiday,'' an album that included such tunes as
"Honolulu Baby'' and "Answer Me.'' Barton said that though
LaVey "got away from the cape thing a long time ago,'' he had
further developed his Satanic philosophy and regretted that some people
had the wrong idea. "Satanists would be the first people to say
'Hey, the laws have to be carried out,''' Barton said, adding that the
Black Pope had long been disdainful of those "who listen
rock'n'roll more than they read the Satanic Bible.'' Besides his
daughter Karla and Barton, LaVey is survived by a 4-year-old son,
Xerxes.
SALT LAKE CITY A food
plant employee was killed Tuesday after being pulled headfirst to the
bottom of a 3-foot vat of salsa when her arm got caught in mixing
blades. Nobody saw how Aimee Stone, 22, got pulled into the mixer or
knew how long she was in the vat before a co-worker at the Lynn Wilson
Food Plant spotted her and called for help shortly after 7 a.m. "We
really don't know exactly what occurred. One of our employees saw she
was bent over one of the blenders,'' said David Wilson, president of
Lynn Wilson Fine Food Products. Stone was hospitalized with a badly
broken arm and other injuries, Wilson said. She died later in the day of
asphyxiation, a nursing supervisor said. "Basically she was in the
salsa for quite a period of time, unable to breathe,'' said hospital
spokesman Jess Gomez. It took five to 10 minutes to extricate Stone from
the heavy mixing blades, Wilson said. "She'd been working here
about a year so she was fairly experienced with the equipment,'' Wilson
said. "We've been in business almost 60 years and we haven't had
anything this serious before.''
"In retrospect, lighting the match
was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil,"
Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt
Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski and his homosexual partner, Andrew
"Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after
a felching session had gone seriously wrong. "I pushed a cardboard
tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in," he
explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out 'Armageddon,' my cue that
he's had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldn't come out
again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light
might attract him." At a hushed press conference, a hospital
spokesperson described what happened next. "The match ignited a
pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out the tubing, igniting Mr.
Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to
the gerbil's fur and whiskers which, in turn, ignited a larger pocket of
gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a
cannonball." Tomaszewski suffered second-degree burns and a broken
nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and
second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.
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