Thursday
Jul092009
Copyright Unfringement
July 9, 2009 Technically, you know, if you want to get all law-abiding about it, you have to have permission to use copyrighted characters on cakes.
Or, you can try one of these techniques:
1. The Alter-Ego:
Of course it's not Thomas the Train. It's Loco Larry, the Mentally Unstable Locomotive.2. The Unibrow:
Is that a seagull on your face, or are you a licensed Disney character? (Seagull. Duh.)3. The Brother By a Different Mother:
"Okay Super...uh...Sam?...just keep your hands where I can see them!"4. The Foreign Equivalent:
"Que Pasa, El Lightningo?""Hola, Senior Rustico."
"Isn't it nice how we are completely original foreign creations in no way affiliated with Disney or its subsidiary companies?"
"Si."
"Si."
Tracy L., Ed S., Erin M., & Emily S., er, none of you are lawyers, right?
- Related Wreckage: Guess Who!
Reader Comments (104)
Just wanted you to know I am new to your blog and there hasn't been a day yet since I've been reading it that I haven't laughed out loud! Bert the chimney sweep makes me have tears in my eyes every time I see him! Thanks so much! I appreciate the daily laugh!!
Wow! These are terrible remakes.
http://confessions-of-a-waitress.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://confessions-of-a-waitress.blogspot.com/
I just about peed my pants from laughing so hard. Good one!
-Emma
Super Sam is scary. Not only does he not have hands, but he doesnt have ARMS either!
But then again if he does.......
ew.
OMG LOL the "thomas" train is gonna put a kid in therepy. It does not look like the friendly thomas I remeber but then again i remember when George Carlin was Mr. Conductor man...
New to this blog and absolutely love it!!!! I don't know bout an Emo Nemo but i found an albino Nemo... http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/4451859/NemoCake-main_Full.jpg
awful just awful!!!!!
And I thought Mater was ugly already.
I'm a little surprised nobody else has brought up the controversy over who rightfully owns Pooh.
I made one of these once. Did the eyes wrong on the Power Puff Girls..looked like they were stoned. :)
wv: congall: Thomas was not happy to lead the congall line.
Some days words escape me, so. . . .
BAWHAHAHAHAHA!
Okay, it's scary that the Pooh cake was unrecognizable to my 4-year old, who's a HUGE fan of Pooh. So apparently giving him seagull eyebrows did, indeed, take care of copyright issues!
I can type LOL truthfully this time. (I know you others out there put LOL when you're really not laughing out loud) This post had at first "angy Thomas" glance. With a two year old, this is totally relevant with me. so LOL!
I think this is my new favorite post, and mostly because of Senor Rustico. J
cw1 - my 3 year old, who is a Thomas NUT, said, "Thomas is mad."
He also recognized the non-Lightning & non-Mater in cw4.
Does that mean that he's got a creative mind that can recognize what something is supposed to be, when it's not exactly like the original? Or does it just speak to his obsession with Thomas & Cars?
wv - gleche There was definitely a gleche in the plans for those cakes.
Trudi said...
"You are allowed to use the licensed character pans and other images on cakes for your own use. Only when you sell them for profit does it become illegal."
**********
If you were to ask me, I'd suggest that simply MAKING cakes that look this bad should be illegal.
The "Pooh" cake looks like someone regurgitated stale popcorn on a platter, tossed on some *accents*, et Voila! "Have a HAPPY, little Eddie-boy."
Poor kid...he's probably got that vintage photo in an album--along with a sinister list of people he plans to get back at some day...
=^-.-^=
Congruatulation, i like this, it's too funny !!
The angry Thomas made me think of "Charlie the Choo Choo" from Stephen King's "The Waste Lands."
lightning mcqueen is a lamborghini (sp?) and tow-mater has a couch for a hood! yikes!
i did a lightning mcqueen cake for a friend before i knew what he was....luckily it turned out good and hopefully won't debut on your blog! :) it was for personal use of course...and perfectly legal. :)
I almost never comment despite the wonderfully hilarious commentary you provide, but this one has to be my absolute favorite.
Loco Larry and unibrow Pooh! Jen you are amazing!
Am I the only one to notice that Jen spelled señor wrong??? HMM?
The spanish cars are hilarious.
I think the black Superman is pretty cool, actually. They make multiracial versions of all the popular girl-oriented dolls, why not black Superman? "Sam" is probably the birthday kid's name, not the character's.
The Thomas cake that Jenn posted was made for my daughter's 3rd birthday (she requested the pink icing on her Thomas cake!).
As soon as we opened the box the whole family laughed so hard at the expression on the train's face. Even my daughter commented about how angry Thomas was feeling.
This is our favourite family birthday cake memory so far!
Thanks for posting it, Jenn - I am glad others are enjoying it too!
Tracy L.
My family actually has that Winnie the Pooh cake pan... I've had that cake (minus the uni-brow, of course!) many a time for my birthday. In fact, I'm pretty sure we had it for my birthday this past year. Rock on! :)
thanks for posting
Super Sam is really funny.
I think I like the mentally unstable locamotive the best.
I just laughed until I cried at the "Cars" cakes... I couldn't stop.
I just wanted to let you know I read that whole last caption with a bad mexican accent(think jeff dunhams hose jalepino on a stiiick) and will now think every thought with a bad mexican accent! You are too funny! ~Carrie
So funny!!! Thomas looks ticked.
I think whoever made that Winnie the Pooh cake took the last part of his name a little too literally.
I do believe that "Uni-the-Brow" cake is actually made from half of a 3D rabbit pan that Wilton put out in the seventies. I'll have to check my 1979-84 yearbooks.....Yep that's it!
puckpuhx="Uni-the-Brow's" angry alter-ego.
Oh well, you know a 2- or 3- year old is going to love it anyway, right?
Lynn said Even if it is illegal, how would they ever police infringement on copyright characters anyway ?
The same way the RIAA/MPAA take accused file sharers to civil court and demand outrageous damages. You won't go to jail for selling a character cake without properly licensing the character, but you could get sued and fined. Actually, that would be interesting to see: a crackdown on illegal character cakes in the same way as there has been a crackdown on file sharing.
I think Superman has been hittin the local bakery maybe too often...
Wow. Some of the comments today are really leaning on the racist track. Nice to know you can be offensive as long as you're white and hiding behind butter cream.
They are all SOOOOO funny!!!!!!!!
But my favorite one is definitely “The Angry Thomas”.
~Lucia Winter
We had both the Pooh cakepan and the Superman pan when I was growing up. In defense of whomever made the Superman cake - the pan really was terrible & the colors listed were worse than the pan itself!! I'll have to find the Cabbage Patch cake pics...some of those were really terrible!!!
HAHA! Why even try if you know you can't pull it off??
Oh! My parents have a photo somewhere of a Sesame Street birthday cake done in all the wrong colors. I was always perplexed by it- did they just not know what they were doing, or were they trying to make it 'technically NOT Bert & Ernie and Big Bird.' I'll have to find it and scan it.
Emo Nemo made me laugh...
This Nemo looks like he's stoned...
http://www.absolutefun.co.za/gallery/products/Cakes/Nemo%20Cake.JPG
Love this blog!! You guys rock!
Jesika, that nemo is so zoned, it's hilarious!
Oh my, that Thomas is Mad!
I loved these cakes, my toddlers did too, as they are big fans of just about every character in the post. I will admit it took them a few min to figure out that it was Pooh there. ^-^
Off to see if I can make an Emo Nemo *chuckles*
I do so love Loco Larry! As a librarian, I'm aware the copyright commandos are gonna get us all. But I think Larry's baker is safe!
really too funny!!!
Sarah Jayn I feel the same way. I Was laughing so hard before I got to the Superman Cake...This was my first time back to the blog in a while and now I'm pretty sad.
I know, Renee! I had the same reaction. It was the first time I was like, "Wow, that's really not cool." I feel like a line was not only crossed - it was leapt over. So sad to be disappointed!
I laughed a lot, but I think changing superman's skin tone to match your child's is actually very sweet. The commentary struck me as being racist.
It's a shame, because I usually love your blog.
How are those cars in any way Hispanic?
Oh, I remember the tin for the Winnie the Pooh cake! My mom has one, and made me a few cakes with it. I seem to remember them looking a lot better than this wreck, though...
I don't think the comment about Super Sam was meant the way it came across- before I read the comment, the first thing I thought when I saw it was, his hands are in his pants!
I think they were still pretty racist - hands in pants or not. I think its a little interesting that no comment has been made by the admin. I've been a fan of cake wrecks for a while and I've seen them comment on things before. I guess being racially insensitive doesn't qualify as a reason for an apology, though.
I love how the Cars one looks so horrible, but they paid so much attention to detail and even included the Rusteze logo on Lightning McQueen's hood...
My 5 year old saw the Thomas the train cake and made me go back up the page to ask me "what happened?" to thomas! LOL
I'm going to reiterate that the racist comment was still unnecessary a year later.