Bit-Actor Sues Fox For $250 Million Over Stereotypical Mob Character In The Simpsons, Says It's Based On A Role He Hadn't Performed Yet
from the fuggitebowdit dept
You know Frank Sivero from movies like The Godfather Part 2 and Goodfellas. He's the diminutive side-kick guy. One of several in those movies, actually, and one of many mobster sidekicks throughout the movie industry. What you may not know about Frank Sivero is that he thinks that the character Louie from The Simpsons, Fat Tony's stereotypical mobster sidekick, is based solely off of him and he would please like $250 Million dollars because of it, thanks. His reasons for thinking that Louie is based solely off of him are more convoluted than a 9/11 conspiracy theory.
In his latest lawsuit, Sivero alleges that in 1989, he was living in an apartment complex in Sherman Oaks, California. He says that writers of The Simpsons were literally living next door to him in that same complex.Well, case closed then. All the writers for The Simpsons were living directly next door to Frank Sivero, therefore obviously any mobster sidekick they might create on their own must be based on the character that he was also creating for a movie that hadn't even come out yet. The suit also makes it quite clear that everything about the Louie character is based on Sivero...except when it's also based on other actors, too.
"They knew he was developing the character he was to play in the movie Goodfellas," states the lawsuit. "In fact, they were aware the entire character of 'Frankie Carbone' was created and developed by Sivero, who based this character on his own personality."
"Louie's appearance and mannerisms are strongly evocative of character actor Frank Sivero," continues the lawsuit, which quickly adds that according to Dan Castellaneta, who provides the voice of Louie (as well as Homer Simpson), "he modeled his voice after Italian American actor, Joe Pesci, who also had a role in Goodfellas."So...it's not entirely based on Frank Sivero. The whole voice thing is kind of a big part of the mannerisms thing when it comes to a character. It's almost like Louie is supposed to be an amalgam of stereotypical mobster characters. A parody of them, if you will, one which would be mega-protected by the whole First Amendment thing we have. For Sivero, however, this composite character represents an afront to his likeness under California's publicity rights laws, putting him squarely on level ground with noted super-brain Lindsay Lohan. Further evidence of this theft of likeness, according to Sivero's filing, is a random dinner he once had with James Brooks and some supposed promise that they do some film work together. What any of that has to do with The Simpsons remains unclear.
But, with a rather insane claim that the supposed use of his likeness in The Simpsons somehow resulted in him being type-casted, Sivero wants roughly all the dollars from Fox.
Besides Sivero alleging that his publicity rights were violated and that his idea was misappropriated, he's also in court over defendants' alleged interference with prospective economic advantage. Sivero says that by stealing his likeness and idea, the defendants have "diluted the value of the character created by plaintiff, and contributed to the 'type-casting' of Plaintiff." He's demanding $50 million in actual damage loss of his likeness, $100 million more over improper interference, $50 million more in actual damage loss over the appropriation of his "confidential" idea, $50 million more in exemplary damages over that same "confidential" idea, plus injunctive relief and reasonable attorney fees for his lawyer Alex Herrera.The fact that the word "reasonable" appears in this lawsuit at all is a better joke than any that's appeared on The Simpons in years.
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Filed Under: fat tony, frank sivero, goodfellas, louie, publicity rights, the simpsons
Companies: fox
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He's got sleep with somebody first.
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I get him mixed up with the guy who says everything twice.
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Poor guy
The poor guy. I genuinely feel sorry for him.
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Reasonable...
Guessing the attorney used his own Bar Number as a starting point for the damages, then scaled back to 250 for "reasonableness," then changed it to millions.
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Why do all those...
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Further, the header mentions Does 1-100 but the complaint (in paragraph 5) references Does 1-10.
Paragraph 13 has this, among other things: "... In October 2012 the app got a Halloween update based on Treehouse of Horror. In November 2012 the app received a Thanksgiving update. In December, the app received a Christmas update in which the landscape was covered in snow. In February 2013, the app received a Valentine's Day update in which players received "hearts" from friends and using [ugh, more bad grammar] them to purchase limited-time Valentine's decorations, including the I Choo Choo Choose You Train. In March 2013, the app got a St. Patrick's update, and all the water in Springfield has turned green."
Why? Why bother mentioning this? What does this have to do with anything at all about your complaint about the Louie character? You did not even allege that the character appears in the app!
Or is this some attempt to show that the statute of limitations doesn't apply because they applied some minor changes that have little or nothing to do with the character in question?
Paragraph 27: "Defendants have used, and continue to use... the name and likeness of plaintiff"
Oh really? They used his NAME? Funny, I thought the plaintiff's name was Frank, and the character's name was Louie.
Paragraph 29: "Defendants have never secured the consent of Plaintiff, either in writing or orally, to use plaintiff's name in likeness in the manner described herein..."
Come on. "Name in likeness"? If you meant "name and likeness", then it runs into the same problem it runs into everywhere else you use it, in that the plaintiff's name is not "Louie". And for crying out loud, if you must capitalize "plaintiff", at least be consistent about it.
Multiple paragraphs contain this language: "Plaintiff re-alleges and reincorporates each and every allegation contained in all previous paragraphs of all previous sections and subsequent Causes of Action in this Complaint, inclusive, as though fully set forth herein."
Wait. If 5 separate paragraphs in the complaint reincorporate each other and the rest of the complaint, that means there's some sort of weird infinite loop where those 5 paragraphs each incorporate the entire complaint, but those paragraphs also incorporate each other so now they each contain 5 copies of the complaint, but now they must include each other again so now they each contain 25 copies of the complaint... 125 copies... 625 copies... 3125 copies...
I mean, that sort of paragraph is always ridiculous, but in most lawsuits it avoids the infinite loop by only including all PREVIOUS paragraphs. This one includes all previous AND subsequent paragraphs. If I were the judge, I'd throw this out and tell the plaintiff to file a non-infinite complaint.
Paragraph 54: "That this Court award damages for actual loss against Defendants in favor of Plaintiff in the sum of $50,000,000.00 by reason of Defndants' improper appropriation of Plaintiff's confidential idea."
The confidential idea of the character... which you played in Goodfellas, a movie seen by millions of people, that came out a year before the Simpson's character came out? That's the "confidential" idea you are referring to? How can you say that with a straight face?
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This is a $250,000,000 lawsuit. You'd think he'd proofread.
Unless, of course, he views this as some sort of extremely-high-payout but extremely-low-probability lottery ticket. Don't bother putting to much effort in; it'll probably come to nothing.
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He exploded:
I said "sorry, wrong number/actor/character" and hung up.
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Wait, wait. Soooo...he's claiming--at the same time, in the same sentence!--that they diluted the character he "created", thereby depriving him of money he would have presumably earned by playing versions of it from then until the end of time, AND that he was type-cast due to them and, so was forced to play versions of that character then then until the end of time. Did I read that right?
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Definitely different.
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He's suing over publicity rights, not copyright.
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When you base a character on your own personality, YOU'RE NOT ACTING!
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Plagiarism?
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Louie_%28mafia%29
Compare paragraphs 9 and 10 of the complaint. It's almost word for word. (The "To be fair" line in the wiki was added after the complaint was filed.) THEY COPIED AND PASTED THEIR INFORMATION FROM A WIKI.
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Re: Plagiarism?
Due diligence? Sounds hard, let's just trust the first editable-by-anyone site on the Internet we find, not fact-check it, and then swear under penalty of perjury that it's correct (and not even include the standard "upon information and belief" disclaimer.) How could that go wrong?
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Re: Plagiarism?
Once again: This was presented as fact, under penalty of perjury, without an "upon information or belief" disclaimer.
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Huh? This isn't a copyright claim. It's a publicity rights/ misappropriation of ideas/interference with prospective economic advantage/unjust enrichment claim. (You can tell it's not copyright because it's not filed in a federal court.)
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Frank Sivero
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Hey Frankie!
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Get FOX to settle for "only" $10 million
Didn't the lawyers at least realize the cartoon character started 23 years ago? Why wasn't the lawsuit filed then? Have the lawyers not heard of "statute of limitations"?
Oh, wait, that's because the character wasn't popular back then. Oh, wait, the character has never been popular.
But this case has the same issue as all the other frivolous lawsuits: who are the lawyers that take these cases? Courts really need to penalize lawyers when they knowingly take a case like this.
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SLAPPed down
Put a fork in it, Louie. She's a done.
E
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