Retired Puppets Have Feelings (and Sex) Too!

First, the people who own the Rusty and Jerome puppets, and who graciously loaned them to the museum for display purposes, have every right to be upset that their property was taken without permission and used in a sketch aired for commercial purposes.

Second, the owners are likely upset that the sketch ridiculed these puppets, and by extension their owners.

Compared to these, the fact that the puppets were portrayed as smoking, drinking and having sex really ranks a distant third reason to be upset IMHO.

Note also that all other puppets portrayed in the sketch were caricatures of actual puppets, while for Rusty and Jerome the producers used the actual names and actual puppets themselves.

The sketch may have been inappropriate but the real issue is that the CBC was contractually obligated to ask permission to use the puppets for any reason. They violated this contract by not seeking permission of the puppet's owners, the Homme family. The Hommes have said that even if the CBC had sought their permission they would have denied it given the nature of the sketch. So they've chosen to remove the puppets from an organization that no longer respects them or their part of Canadian TV history.

Not everyone appreciates dumb, ironic, hipster humour.

Well, I thought it was pretty funny.

Oh, it was funny.

But it would have been just as funny if the producers had merely caricatured the Hommes' puppets as they had done with Casey and Finnegan, the Sesame Street puppets et al.

So how much will the lawsuit claim for damages, if there is a lawsuit?

It's really funny if you didn't dedicate your life to those creations. It looks alot like the sexual inuendo being introduced into the muppets skits now that Jim Henson has passed away. I guess nothing is sacred right?

On a somewhat related note, who are the popular Canadian puppets of TODAY? Are there any of note?

The other puppets were NOT caricatures. I thought so too at first, but was mistaken. We're all too old to know this, but in the late 90s Sesame Street in Canada was relaunched as Sesame Park, and Basil the Polar Bear was one of the stars. They basically used every puppet that was in the CBC storage/museum and faked up the ones they didn't have (Finnegan, Casey). A shame that there were no Fraggles!

Where in the video do faked Casey and Finnegan appear? All I saw was a rocking Tickle Trunk.

Is it just me or have Canadians grown to be really miserable people who can't laugh at anything anymore because they are too obsessed about being politically correct and not offending anyone.

This country is really beginning to turn ugly. everyone takes everything so harshly. People really need to chill the *uck out.

Sorry Ramius, but this isn't about Canadians who are too PC to have a laugh. It's about respecting the wishes of the family of a respected Canadian artist. The Homme family were not asked for permission to use the puppets in such a context.

A similar example is how, in the recent movie about Diane Arbus, "Fur", the producers were not allowed to use any of Arbus' work because her daughter didn't like the script and didn't feel that her mother would have approved. At least they were respectful enough to ask first.

uSkyscraper: Thanks, I didn't know that!

I wonder if the producers are now likely to get a knock on the door from Big Bird's lawyers. A certain purple dinosaur has demonstrated a very litigious nature of late...

Every discussion like this gets at least one guy who shouts about the country getting too "PC" and telling everyone to "chill." Give it up. Sensitivity doesn't always mean shackled speech. Sometimes, a joke just isn't funny.

I guess I'm just a dumb, ironic, hipster 'cause I love those puppets dearly and I thought the sketch was ****ing hilarious!

I'm sure the Homme family are on firm legal footing, but what about the millions of us who grew up on the Friendly Giant? Shouldn't we have a say? I thought the sketch was just fine. We're not kids anymore, and the sketch did nothing to change our fond memories of the show or the characters.

So true, rek. If anything, the Gemini skit brought us back a flood of good memories. I don't know anyone that was offended, but many that think it's funny.

Once again, yes. It was very funny.

But swiping the Homme family's property from a museum display in order to make fun of it isn't funny.

I am so upset that the cbc does not have "The Friendly Giant" in dvd. I loved this show, and it had a lot of great memories for me. The cbc does not remember the past. I would love to buy the show in dvd, but can never find it anywhere.