The Big Picture
Chiquita Beyonca Sasha Fierce gets fruity, apparently channeling Carmen Miranda for a video shoot in Brazil
More PhotosTop 10 Stories
- Deadliest Catch Captain Phil Harris Dies
- Ellen Tortures With Ease on American Idol
- Jay Leno Gets His Punk'd Ass Out of Prime-Time
- Beyoncé's Dad Will "Certainly" Take Paternity Test
- Tom Cruise Signs Up for Mission: Impossible IV
- The Bachelor's Chris Harrison: It's Definitely Not Over with Ali!
- Did Air Force Reserve Rip Off White Stripes for Super Bowl Ad?
- The Bachelor Gets Dumped—and Likes It
- Lil Wayne Avoids Jail...With a Little Help From the Tooth Fairy
- Black Eyed Peas Settlement a Real Perez Dispenser
Fashion Police
Not Feeling the LoveAnne's supershort blue dress and chunky shoes at the Valentine's Day premiere has us seeing red
More Photos
Latest Movie Reviews
Get Your E! News Now
Seinfeld's Punchline Is Lawsuit's Bottom Line
Some people just can't take a joke. Others can't quite deliver them.
Jerry Seinfeld, despite a career of evidence to the contrary, apparently falls into the latter category.
So say his attorneys, who are attempting to get a defamation and copyright infringement suit filed against the sitcom legend by a cookbook author tossed out of court, alleging that the nationally televised comments he made that prompted the legal action were clearly—though, in retrospect, perhaps not that clearly—a joke.
"Jerry Seinfeld made overstatements of opinion for comic effect," his attorneys said in paperwork filed Friday in Manhattan's U.S. District Court, per the New York Daily News.
Missy Chase Lapine, author of The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals, has not only accused Seinfeld of defaming her, she has alleged that Jessica Seinfeld lifted ideas from her cookbook.
She first filed suit against the Seinfelds back in January, seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for both copyright and trademark infringement—Jessica Seinfeld's conceptually similar Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food was published six months after Lapine's—in addition to slander.
In addition to their just-kidding defense, the Seinfelds denied any claims of plagiarism in the court filing, saying, "The idea of sneaking healthy foods into a child's diet is not original to your author."
The defamation charge, on the other hand, stems from an appearance the comic made on Late Show with David Letterman back on Oct. 29, in which he discussed Lapine's supposed accusation of "vegetable plagiarism" against his wife.
"My wife never saw the book, read the book, used the book," Seinfeld said on the show. "Didn't know anything about it."
He went on to describe the basis of Lapine's claims—then simply a war of words and not yet a lawsuit—as revolving around pureed vegetables.
"You stole my mushed-up carrots," he said. "You can't put mushed-up carrots in a casserole, I put mushed-up carrots in a casserole."
He went on to refer to Lapine as a "wacko," and in the pièce de legal résistance, he unflatteringly likened her to some historical three-named forbears—chiefly, the assassins of John Lennon and Martin Luther King Jr.
"She's a three-name woman, which concerns me," he told Letterman on the show. "If you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins. Mark David Chapman and, you know, James Earl Ray. So, that's my concern."
Letterman, who knows from well-documented "wackos" of his own, did attempt to warn his guest from running his mouth too much.
"Are you worried now that discussing it on the television program, that it will incite or exacerbate the circumstance?" the host prodded.
Seinfeld, alluding to the fact that all of his recent Letterman appearances have been ill-timed to coincide with a related pop-culture scandal, be it with the accusations of vegetable plagiarism or, previously, by costar Michael Richards' racist ranting, answered Letterman's concern:
"Well, that gives me another shot on your show."
0 Comments
Now loading...