The Happytime Murders

New York U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick might not know how to tell you how to get to Sesame Street, but he had no problems telling the Sesame Workshop to get to steppin’.  Just days ago, the Sesame Workshop, which produces ‘Sesame Street’ filed a lawsuit against STX Entertainment over the ad campaign for their movie ‘The Happytime Murders’, a comedy spoof that features “explicit, profane, drug-using, misogynistic, violent, copulating, and even ejaculating puppets” that look a lot like the Muppets from ‘Sesame Street’.  ‘The Happytime Murders’ is using the tagline “No Sesame.  All Street.”  And it appears it will continue to do so.

Per the original filing:

“The promotion of The Happytime Murders should succeed or fail on its own merits, not on a cynical, unlawful attempt to deceive and confuse the public into associating it with the most celebrated children’s program in history.”

When news of the lawsuit first surfaced, STX offered a statement through their puppet attorney Fred Esq.  Now that the case has been thrown out, they did the same.

“We fluffing love Sesame Street and we’re obviously very pleased that the ruling reinforced what STX’s intention was from the very beginning — to honor the heritage of The Jim Henson Company’s previous award-winning creations while drawing a clear distinction between any Muppets or Sesame Street characters and the new world Brian Henson and team created. We believe we accomplished that with the very straightforward NO SESAME, ALL STREET tagline. We look forward to continued happytimes as we prepare to release Happytime Murders this summer.”

‘The Happytime Murders’ was directed by Brian Henson, the son of Jim Henson and the current head of the Jim Henson Company, the same group that created the famous characters on ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘The Muppet Show’.

‘The Happytime Murders’ opens on August 17, 2018.  Melissa McCarthy stars as Detective Connie Edwards.  The cast also includes Joel McHale, Maya Rudolph and Elizabeth Banks.

Source: Deadline