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Hollywood Reporter: In what might be the wildest lawsuit of the year, actor Frank Sivero has filed a $250 million lawsuit against Fox Television Studios over one of the "wise guy" characters on The Simpsons.
Ok, so I love Goodfellas. It is perhaps one of my most favorite films of all time, and I'm not the only one who feels that way. In fact, the movie was so successful that it helped drive the stereotype of the mafioso, and has yielded countless ripoffs and spoofs. What I'm getting at is that when The Simpsons, a television show that has existed since before the release of Goodfellas, does a spoof on a mob character that is similar to Frank Carbone, who gives a shit. Even if the writers of The Simpsons literally modeled the character after him, which they very well may have, they are still completely within their rights to mock or replicate or spoof that character. They are using that character for comedic effect, they aren't trying to call it their original idea, there's no way they should shell out $250 million or any amount of money to anybody involved in goodfellas unless they bring Ray Liotta or Joe Pesci in as voice actors.
This is a pretty ridiculous lawsuit. It seems like Sivero has demonstrated a trend of suing in scenarios where he is not justified to do. For example, he sued a sandwich shop for naming a sandwich after his character from "Goodfellas", but I wouldn't consider him to have any rights to the character name. He didn't write "Goodfellas" nor is he the real man that character is based off of. I don't see how he bares any ownership over the name of his character. It seems like he is looking for attention and maybe some extra money. The idea that this Simpsons character could in some way, be damaging to his career is pretty absurd to me. I don't think it would really perpetuate type casting for Sivero, his past characters are iconic enough on there own. This looks like he's grasping at straws to me.
2 comments:
Ok, so I love Goodfellas. It is perhaps one of my most favorite films of all time, and I'm not the only one who feels that way. In fact, the movie was so successful that it helped drive the stereotype of the mafioso, and has yielded countless ripoffs and spoofs. What I'm getting at is that when The Simpsons, a television show that has existed since before the release of Goodfellas, does a spoof on a mob character that is similar to Frank Carbone, who gives a shit. Even if the writers of The Simpsons literally modeled the character after him, which they very well may have, they are still completely within their rights to mock or replicate or spoof that character. They are using that character for comedic effect, they aren't trying to call it their original idea, there's no way they should shell out $250 million or any amount of money to anybody involved in goodfellas unless they bring Ray Liotta or Joe Pesci in as voice actors.
This is a pretty ridiculous lawsuit. It seems like Sivero has demonstrated a trend of suing in scenarios where he is not justified to do. For example, he sued a sandwich shop for naming a sandwich after his character from "Goodfellas", but I wouldn't consider him to have any rights to the character name. He didn't write "Goodfellas" nor is he the real man that character is based off of. I don't see how he bares any ownership over the name of his character. It seems like he is looking for attention and maybe some extra money. The idea that this Simpsons character could in some way, be damaging to his career is pretty absurd to me. I don't think it would really perpetuate type casting for Sivero, his past characters are iconic enough on there own. This looks like he's grasping at straws to me.
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