Disney Declassified: Tales of Real Life Disney Scandals, Sex, Accidents and Deaths (20 page)

When the case was filed, Mary filed it in her home state of Florida. Disney countered and moved to have the case tried in California. If they could get the case into California’s legal system, it could sit there for years as the courts are notoriously backed up. Disney’s argument, and it is certainly an interesting one, was that they don’t conduct business in Florida. They are based in California and, therefore, the case should be tried there. Disney contended that the film was produced under a different corporation. The theme park in Florida is under the umbrella of Walt Disney World Company, which is different from the film company based in California. This tactic didn’t work, the courts denied their motion and allowed for the case to proceed in Florida. Days before the trial started, Disney settled the case out of court for undisclosed terms.

At the time, both women made a couple of interesting statements to the media about their cases. Peggy Lee was quoted as saying, “You know, they always say, don’t mess with the mouse. I’m glad that my rights were vindicated.” Mary’s view was a bit more nostalgic or maybe naïve: “None of this would be happening if Walt were still alive.” As Mary indicated, many of the folks Walt employed were fiercely loyal to him. They envisioned him as a father figure and held him in the highest of regard.

 The lawsuits Peggy and Mary filed led to a similar lawsuit from a contract Walt signed with the Philadelphia Orchestra for their work on
Fantasia.
The orchestra received a flat fee of $2,500 for their work on the Disney film. They confirmed that they received royalties annually for records, cassette tapes, and compact discs that were sold over the years but received zero royalties for the video of the film released in 1991. The orchestra’s lawyers estimated the gross sales of the video surpassed $350 million and the orchestra should be entitled to ten percent. They filed a suit seeking $35 million, which was subsequently settled out of court in October of 1994; no terms were disclosed.

The last lawsuit with origins back to the time of Walt, deals with that honey lover, Winnie the Pooh. Remarkably, this case went on for nearly twenty-one years. It all started when Disney agreed to license Pooh back in 1961, and again in 1983, from the family of Stephen Slesinger. Stephen had bought the rights of Winnie back in 1930 from the original creator A.A. Milne.

Disney featured Winnie the Pooh in a variety of movies, cartoons, and endless merchandising. At one point, the bear franchise was grossing more money than the mouse franchise. In 1991, the Slesingers filed a $700 million lawsuit against Disney claiming they were shorted on their annual royalty checks. The family's lawsuit claimed Disney lumped Pooh’s earning into the earnings of other characters and weren’t disclosing accurate royalty figures. By doing this, they were in breach of contract. The family also sued for copyright and trademark infringement.

Over the years, actually, over the decades, there were repeated dismissals and appeals on this never-ending case. There was even a libel suit by a reporter caught in the crossfire. Nikki Finke, a reporter for the New York Post, claimed she lost her job with the Post after writing articles covering the ongoing Pooh case. Nikki wrote a series of articles about the original royalty case filed in 1991. This case was ultimately thrown out in 2004 when a judge found misconduct on behalf of the Slesinger family. As it turned out, the family hired a private investigator to uncover “hidden” Disney documents that would outline Disney’s theft of royalties. The investigator was accused of breaking into Disney corporate offices, rummaging through trash bins and into a garbage disposal center to find the damning papers. The judge said the family illegally obtained evidence and their investigator trespassed at Disney, case dismissed.

However, all was not holy for Disney after this. The judge fined Disney $90,000 for destroying documents that could have been very pertinent to the case. These stories were covered by Nikki (and other news agencies) and published in the New York Post. Her stories apparently infuriated Michael Eisner so much that he had his right-hand man, Bob Iger, write a letter to the Post stating Nikki’s story had “serious misrepresentations clearly designed to injure the Walt Disney Company”. Nikki claims this letter got her fired from the Post. She filed a wrongful termination suit against her former employer and a libelous suit against Disney, and her lawsuits were settled out of court.

Now back to the original case, as stated above, the original 1991 case dealt with royalties was dismissed in 2004, due to the shady behavior by both parties. After several rulings and appeals on the copyright and trademark case in 2003, 2007 and 2009, a court finally ruled in December of 2012 that Disney does ultimately control the copyrights and trademarks to Winnie when the Slesinger family ultimately transferred all rights to Disney in 2009, case closed.

Lawsuits claiming discrepancies over royalty payments continue on productions that were created long after Walt has passed away. The writer of
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
and the family members of the man who wrote the catchy tune “the lion sleeps tonight” that was featured in the
Lion King
both went after Disney in court through the 1990s and 2000s. By the way, this is a notorious practice in Hollywood. Writers file cases seeking transparency in accounting and royalty payments all the time.  The situation isn’t exclusive to Disney. Neither is the challenge by writers and producers that a studio stole their idea or script for a movie.

Over the years, Disney has been accused more than once of stealing an idea about a hit movie or television show. These accusations are something Disney has gone to court for several times and left the courtroom with their usual high winning percentage.

A popular movie from 1992 was Disney’s
Sister Act
starring Whoopi Goldberg (no relation to the author!). The hit movie went on to gross over $200 million and led to a sequel and Broadway musicals. In June of 1993, Donna Douglas, former star of
The Beverly Hillbillies
, sued Disney for $200 million dollars claiming their film was based off a book Donna owned the rights to, “A Nun in the Closet.” Donna said she bought the rights to the book and developed it into a screenplay, which she claimed had over 100 similarities to Disney’s
Sister Act
. Douglas said she submitted the script three times to Disney in 1987 and 1988 and they outright plagiarized the movie from her screenplay. The case went to court and in 1994, but a federal jury didn’t find enough similarities between the two works and Donna lost her case. 

Twenty years later, Disney’s
Sister Act
was the focus of another lawsuit. Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely of the Franciscan Handmaids of Mary Covenant in Harlem, New York, claimed the movie, the sequel and anything else having to do with the nun-centric movies were based on her life. She claimed many of the scenes in the movie are based on things that actually happened to her. The Queen Mother claimed her 1987 biography “The Harlem Street Nun” was the basis for the
Sister Act
movies. In September of 2012, she filed a breach of contract among other claims, seeking $1 billion in damages. Makes you wonder why it took her twenty years to file this lawsuit, maybe she took a vow of silence.

A few of the more recent Disney/Pixar movies have also been subject to plagiarism and copyright infringement lawsuits. In April 2001, Deborah Thomas submitted her script called “Squisher the Fish” for Disney to review in hopes of having it made into a movie. Two months later, her script was retuned to her, with Disney informing her they do not accept unsolicited stories and thus rejected her story.

When Deborah went to the movies and watched
Finding Nemo
in 2003, she claimed much of the plot line was similar to the story she submitted to Disney two years prior. She filed suit against Disney claiming they stole parts of her story and worked them into
Nemo
. Instead of merely returning her script, they in fact copied it before returning it to her. In February 2008, a judge ruled against Deborah’s copyright infringement claim. There weren’t enough similarities between the two stories. Both stories dealt with young fish in the ocean that are captured, and that was about it.

This next case almost made it to the United States Supreme Court. In 2006, Disney released the hugely-successful movie
Cars.
A sequel ensued, as did the thousands of products that flooded the marketplace. The movie even made its way into the Disney theme parks and resort hotels. Plain and simple, it was another Disney cash cow.

In 2011, Jake Mandeville-Anthony filed a lawsuit against Disney claiming they infringed on his copyrighted material and incorporated it into their
Cars
movies. Jake claimed he created very similar anthropomorphic cars in his works called
Cookie and Co.
and
Cars/Auto-Excess/Cars Chaos
back in 1992. Jake claims he sent copies of his work to Disney years before
Cars
debuted, and Disney incorporated his ideas into their smash hit.

There were a few small problems with Jake’s case. Disney’s attorneys pointed out that Jake didn’t register his works with the U.S. Copyright Office until 2010, which was five years after
Cars
was released. The court ruled the two works weren’t similar enough to warrant infringement, in addition to Disney’s claim about the copyright being filed years after the movie was released to the public. Jake took the case up to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and even attempted to get his appeal heard by the Supreme Court. In April of 2013, the court declined and all of Jake’s copyright appeals were denied.

This next case could bring a little shock and disbelief to a Disney cowboy, a cowboy known for his honesty and humility, none other than Woody from the
Toy Story
franchise. In February of 2014, Diece-Lisa Industries (DL) sued Disney for copyright infringement. DL is a toy manufacturer that produces, markets and licenses a stuffed teddy bear known as Lots of Hugs.

DL claims that Disney stole their idea for the devious Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear, (aka, Lotso) co-star of
Toy Story 3
from DL’s trademarked Lots of Hugs bear, that the company has marketed since 1997.
Toy Story 3,
is
an enormous revenue generator for Disney. According to the lawsuit, Disney sought copyright and trademark protection for certain
Toy Story
characters but not Lotso. DL further claimed that the enormous success of the movie and notoriety of the Disney character Lotso has damaged the worth of DL’s Lots of Hugs trademarked characters.

The company noted that firms they do business with and that eventually the consumer may confuse their bears with Lotso. They cite an example of a licensing agreement they entered into with a firm willing to market and sell their Lots of Hugs bear. After the success of
Toy Story 3,
the licensee was reluctant to move forward with their bears and asked for the trademarked name to be changed to “hugalots” instead of the traditional Lots of Hugs bear. This case is still pending.

The Walt Disney Company isn’t just the target of trademark and copyright infringement of scripts and toys. Their supposed theft and plagiarism runs deeper. Disney has faced some tough lawsuits from a few folks that went right after the heart of the mouse. The lawsuits claimed Disney plundered their ideas for theme parks. How would you feel if someone told you Disney stole the idea for EPCOT?

Most folks that follow Disney know the story about Walt’s creation of Disneyland. To this day, the Disney marketing machine still spins the black and white interview with Walt explaining about how he took his daughters to a park; a filthy park. Something else was needed, a place where adults and kids could enjoy their day together and have fun. Presto, Disneyland was born.

The creation of Walt Disney World and Walt’s original ideas for EPCOT and the City of Tomorrow has also been chronicled. But what about the EPCOT that did come to fruition? Was Disney actually the originator or did they steal this idea from someone else? A lawsuit from November 2002 challenged Disney on their authenticity of the world famous park. According to Orrin Corwin, a painting he inherited from his neighbor was the inspiration for EPCOT.

Orrin’s deceased neighbor, Mark Waters, painted something titled, Miniature Worlds. The picture featured many miniature villages representing different areas around the world. The concept showed villages and landscapes representing nineteen nations and six continents. Each nation would feature an iconic symbol such as Big Ben for London or the Coliseum in Rome. There would also be a train circling the area. Throw in the lake and a large globe at the entrance, and there you have it, EPCOT; at least in Orrin’s eyes. 

Mark painted this for Robert Jaffray in the early 1960s. Apparently, Robert was a former intelligence employee at the Pentagon. He commissioned Mark to put his thoughts and ideas down on canvas as “a way to foster world understanding during the Cold War.” Robert’s family claimed he showed the picture to Disney in 1963 to see if they would be interested in investing in his Miniature World. Disney allegedly declined, there is actually no tangible proof Robert ever met with Disney or sent them his work. Fast-forward four decades, Orrin received the painting and heard the story from Robert’s widow and daughter, he moved to have the artwork copyrighted and then sued Disney for copyright infringement. He claimed they took the idea for EPCOT from Miniature Worlds.

In 2007, the case was officially dismissed. A judged ruled that the painting and EPCOT were not strikingly similar. While the picture did have a large globe at the front of the park, EPCOT had a silver sphere with no world map on it. The train in the picture ran along the entire perimeter of the park; EPCOT’s monorail only cuts through a portion of the park.  While the park and picture did have similar ideas, both works expressed these ideas dissimilarly, therefore case dismissed. As we know from a myriad of interviews and books, including his own published in 2013, legendary imagineer Marty Sklar detailed the creation of EPCOT with influences from previous World’s Fairs, along with other Disney-based ideas.