One "Hazel" episode Shirley Booth didn't like!

[missy's pop pop]

Strange as it may sound, Shirley Booth had one "Hazel" episode she didn't like at all. In fact, she filed suit over it.

In 1970, just as "Hazel" entered first-run syndication, the Colgate-Palmolive company introduced a new low-suds laundry detergent called Burst. The product, which was similar to Procter and Gamble's Dash, claimed to be the first detergent to combine low suds, enzymes and extra strength--and sat on the shelf for its first few months on the market.

Colgate's ad agency, Ted Bates and Company decided to revamp the marketing campaign by repositioning Burst as "the low-suds powerhouse" -- and what better way to do that than to use the powerhouse image of Ted Key's "Hazel" cartoon?

TV and radio ads appeared in January 1971, with the cartoon Hazel claiming "Burst is so powerful, it's a wonder your washer doesn't go into orbit!" and adding "you could go snowblind from the whites." When I heard the commercials, I thought it was Shirley Booth.

So did many other people, including acting friends who thought Miss Booth had fallen upon hard times. In 1971, she sued Colgate and Ted Bates, demanding damages because they had used an imitation of the "Hazel" voice. A New York district court ruled against her in 1973. The ruling cited "strong federal policy of permitting imitation" prevailed against her interest in protecting "whatever secondary meaning may have attached to her voice as that of the 'Hazel' character."

It was ultimately a moot point, since Burst was discontinued a few years later.

(Wonder how George Baxter would have handled it?)

[TeeVeeCloset]

Though I enjoyed the "Hazel" story, it had nothing to do with Shirley Booth not liking any "Hazel" episode ever produced as the tabloid subject line was written. It was a TV & radio commercial not a "Hazel" episode.

[missy's pop pop]

Okay, maybe the subject line was over the top...but it was a fascinating story of life after "Hazel" and, to Shirley Booth, how her character was still held in regard just after the show entered syndication.

Amazing, too, that we're still discussing "Hazel" more than 50 years after her first episode, just as if the show went off the air yesterday! To quote the title of one of those episodes, "ain't that a knee slapper?"

That we can agree on!

[Will Dockery]

Originally Posted by missy's pop pop

Okay, maybe the subject line was over the top...but it was a fascinating story of life after "Hazel" and, to Shirley Booth, how her character was still held in regard just after the show entered syndication.

Amazing, too, that we're still discussing "Hazel" more than 50 years after her first episode, just as if the show went off the air yesterday! To quote the title of one of those episodes, "ain't that a knee slapper?"

That we can agree on!

Agreed, I haven't sat down and actually watched Hazel in decades, and even then never really intentionally... the show is amazingly fresh and undated considering the show went off the air in 1966.

[Hazel Anyday]

I watched Hazel when it was first on the air as a little kid and then for years when it was syndicated on our local channels. Back then I had to rush home to see Hazel or when it moved to mornings I missed it due to wasting my youth in school instead of in front of the TV set. At one time it was on twice a day, once on a Baltimore channel and then another episode would play on a Washington DC channel. Anyway, it went off the air sometime in the mid '70's and I never saw it again (no miracles like VCR's back then) until 1988 or '89. But by then VCR's were invented and I started taping Hazel and I've been watching it ever since then. 25 years of Hazel in a row, & I still watch it 3 or 2 times a week. It's been one of my all time favorites and to be able to see it again whenever I want is truly a modern day miracle.

[jehobden]

I'm surprised to read that Ms. Booth didn't prevail in her lawsuit, since I've read that Bobby Darin's son sued McDonald's & its agency over the use of a soundalike for his father Bobby in its "Mac Tonight" ads. I can't find anything online to state whether he won or McDonald's settled with him and his father's estate though.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/...mack-the-knife

[TeeVeeCloset]

I don't know the outcome of the the "Darin" lawsuit but as well with the Hazel lawsuit, Booth had no rights, even though the voice was similar, so is every SNL sketch, Ted Key owned the "Hazel" character since the created comic strip and the law falls under "parody" and you can not sue for that.

Hence as with music parodies, it's nice to ask the artist, but Weird Al has made a career of using the parody laws as well as every sketch show like SNL, the same laws apply with commercials as well as song titles which cannot be copyrighted......anyone could write a song titled "Like A Virgin", "Let It Be", etc with different lyrics and not even be a parody.

Lastly back to Dodd Darins' lawsuit I doubt the courts would have favored it, since Bobby's was a cover version of the song originally from "Three Penny Opera" so he really had no claim, the original recorded song of Bobby's would have had to be used without unauthorization to have any claim.

[jimmo]

Originally Posted by missy's pop pop

Strange as it may sound, Shirley Booth had one "Hazel" episode she didn't like at all. In fact, she filed suit over it.

In 1970, just as "Hazel" entered first-run syndication, the Colgate-Palmolive company introduced a new low-suds laundry detergent called Burst. The product, which was similar to Procter and Gamble's Dash, claimed to be the first detergent to combine low suds, enzymes and extra strength--and sat on the shelf for its first few months on the market.

Colgate's ad agency, Ted Bates and Company decided to revamp the marketing campaign by repositioning Burst as "the low-suds powerhouse" -- and what better way to do that than to use the powerhouse image of Ted Key's "Hazel" cartoon?

TV and radio ads appeared in January 1971, with the cartoon Hazel claiming "Burst is so powerful, it's a wonder your washer doesn't go into orbit!" and adding "you could go snowblind from the whites." When I heard the commercials, I thought it was Shirley Booth.

So did many other people, including acting friends who thought Miss Booth had fallen upon hard times. In 1971, she sued Colgate and Ted Bates, demanding damages because they had used an imitation of the "Hazel" voice. A New York district court ruled against her in 1973. The ruling cited "strong federal policy of permitting imitation" prevailed against her interest in protecting "whatever secondary meaning may have attached to her voice as that of the 'Hazel' character."

It was ultimately a moot point, since Burst was discontinued a few years later.

(Wonder how George Baxter would have handled it?)

You are correct, "missy's pop pop," that the heading (or "subject line," as you wrote) of your posting is disingenuous, since it wasn't an actual episode of Screen Gems' Hazel television series about which the now-deceased actress, Shirley Booth, had filed a lawsuit in 1971, but against a commercial sponsor which utilized the single-panel comic strip image of cartoonist Ted Key's Hazel that he had drawn for nearly three decades by that point for The Saturday Evening Post (and after that magazine ceased publication in 1969, for King Features Syndicate in newspaper syndication another 20 years until 1993 when Key retired), in which Miss Booth had no financial interests.

Of course it must have been a deliberate move on the part of the Colgate-Palmolive Company and it public relations agent, Ted Bates and Company, to make those radio and TV spots for Burst laundry detergent sound as if it was the Screen Gems "Hazel" hawking its product. But that is just good common sense PR strategy, for which the advertiser had full legal authority to do and since it had also obviously received advance permission from Mr. Key to do so. And also, as others have already stated here, parody and satire are protected by courts under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Miss Booth must have had either a poorly educated or unscrupulous attorney that such a claim would even have been permitted to proceed

But I am pleased nonetheless that you posted about this anecdotal news item concerning Shirley Booth's failed lawsuit regarding Hazel, else I probably would never have known about it, since I only visited this website seeking some information regarding another Hazel-related matter.


I shall now check to see if I may make my Hazel inquiry following this thread here or in another section of this website. But while I am here, does anyone reading this have any other suggestions about other websites where one may post a question concerning trivia about Screen Gems' TV sitcom Hazel?

[Zoneboy]

Originally Posted by TeeVeeCloset

Hence as with music parodies, it's nice to ask the artist, but Weird Al has made a career of using the parody laws.

Weird Al has never done his parodies based on any laws. Every one he has done he has gotten permission from the artists to do. He has stated that he knows he doesn't need permission, but he always asks as a show of respect. If he were doing it based on laws then Prince would've screamed bloody murder since he always turned him down.