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Biatch..LOL Murphy Gets the Mop Wed Apr 3,10:32 PM ET A Chicago janitor's looking to clean up Eddie Murphy's act.
The mop man, Tally Collier, is suing Murphy and the producers of his now defunct animated series The PJs, claiming they ripped off his image for a character in the show. The potentially big-bucks lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Illinois, has several A-list defendants, including Murphy and Imagine Entertainment producers Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Tony Krantz, according to Daily Variety. Also listed: Will Vinton Studios, the company that animated The PJs, and Fox, which first aired the show in 1999. Collier claims Murphy and the rest of The PJs braintrust came into possession of an amateur documentary on janitors made by Windy City filmmaker Daryl Murphy. Murphy (no relation to Eddie) had submitted a video of his work to The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1998. The documentary centered on janitors living and working in Chicago's city projects and featured Collier. Collier believes the tape ended up in The PJs producers hands after Daryl Murphy--hoping to make his documentary the centerpiece of a future Oprah segment--asked show staffers to pass it along to future guests like Howard, Spike Lee, Quincy Jones, Tom Hanks and Fred Williamson, who might be willing to help with distribution. Collier contends that once The PJs creators got a hold of the tape, they decided to borrow his face and mannerisms--without his expressed permission--turning him into the character of Sanchez. According to court papers, both Collier and his supposed 'toon doppelganger Sanchez use an electronic voice box and walk with a cane. The lawsuit also claims that others featured in the documentary form the basis for many of the PJs characters, including Mrs. Mambo Garcelle, Mrs. Avery, Smokey and Juicy. The PJs, which poked fun at cultural stereotypes involving African-American families, starred Murphy as the voice of Thurgoode Orenthall Stubbs, the superintendant of the Hilton-Jacobs Housing project. Stubbs just wants to spend time with his wife and Wheel of Fortune but is constantly bothered by the 40-odd tenants in the building. The show, which was shot in "foamation," debuted on Fox in January 1999 and ran for two seasons to lackluster ratings. It moved to the WB network, where it ran one season, from 2000-01, before getting the axe. No immediate word on why Collier waited until now to file the suit. Reps for Murphy, who also executive produced the series, had no comment on the suit and neither did Fox or Imagine.
As for Collier, the janitor is looking to mop up financially. He's seeking $75,000
in actual damages, as well as more than $10 million in punitive damages.
From Yahoo [TM] By Josef Adalian and Michael Schneider HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - After surviving two networks, two studios and numerous time slots, "The PJs" is once again fighting for its life. The current home of the Eddie Murphy produced and voiced cartoon comedy -- the WB -- is happy with the show's performance and has already ordered 13 episodes for next season from producer Imagine Television. The problem is, production partner Warner Bros. Television has opted against making any more episodes of "The PJs", deciding it no longer makes economic sense to continue producing the series --the only primetime network toon to feature a mostly minority cast. The critically acclaimed series revolves around Thurgood Stubbs, a Homer Simpson-like housing project superintendant (voiced by Murphy), his long-suffering wife and their fellow residents. Imagine TV president Tony Krantz is working to find a way to save "The PJs," and he may have found a potential savior in Paramount. The studio has expressed tentative interest in coming on board as Imagine's production partner and as distributor for the 56 total episodes of the series, industry insiders said -- though a deal is far from cinched. For one thing, Paramount is only interested in doing a deal if Imagine can line up a deal for rerun rights to the show. The obvious home: BET, which will soon be a part of Paramount's Viacom family. Even if deals with Paramount and BET happen, Imagine faces another hurdle: convincing both Warner Bros. and original "PJs" production partner Touchstone Television to agree to share their backend profit with Paramount before each has fully recouped its investment in the show. Insiders said that would be a highly contentious negotiation. Bottom line: The odds are stacked against "The PJs" coming back. "It's a jump ball," Krantz said. "I was trained at CAA (Creative Artists Agency) to always move forward and never let anything die. But I also think it's a wonderful show. It's one of the rare, funny groundbreaking comedies that also has something to say about life in the projects." If "The PJs" can't be saved, those in the animation industry say TV will be losing one of the medium's more thoughtful and groundbreaking series. "It's a really great quality show, very smart," said "King of the Hill" co-creator Greg Daniels. "It would be a shame if it weren't on the air." Critics have also been supportive of the series, which got off to a strong start in the ratings when it premiered on Fox two years ago this month. But time slot changes ultimately caused audience levels to head south, though the show always had respectable numbers in key demographics. When Fox seemed ready to cancel "The PJs," the WB stepped in and picked up the series; that's also when WBTV entered the equation. Repeat episodes have been airing since fall to decent numbers; new episodes are slated to hit the WB next month. As for why WBTV is pulling out now, sources said Warner Bros. execs lost interest in continuing to co-produce "The PJs" after the WB ordered just 13 episodes for next season. Because the network ordered only about 10 new episodes of the show this season, Warner Bros. TV felt another short order wouldn't cover its deficits. Other sources, however, said the studio simply didn't think the show could fetch much money in syndication. A WB spokesman said the network is waiting to see what happens next. "The PJs" works very well for us, which is why we ordered more episodes, he said. "Our hope is that Imagine is able to fulfill the order."
Reuters/Variety REUTERS
By Terri L. Heard No, they won't take away my black membership card for admitting I like The PJs. After all, nobody's perfect. Certainly not the show's "lead," maintenance man Thurgood Stubbs (voiced by series creator Eddie Murphy), who manages the crumbling, high-rise Hilton Jacobs housing development in an unnamed inner city. And certainly not the WB programmers who have searched so far in vain for a breakout sitcom for their network. The series jumps to the WB this fall after it returns to its original home on Fox for a limited run starting tonight. With its slapstick tendencies and raunchy language, the clay-animated PJs may not be what the NAACP had in mind when it protested the lack of color among last season's network TV characters. I mean, who really wants to see a sitcom set in the projects? Haven't black people come further than that? Besides, it's been done. It was called Good Times. And audiences can tune into TV Land anytime they need their Florida Evans fix. But The PJs goes beyond Good Times and borrows elements of The Simpsons to create brilliant, stinging satire from an African-American point of view. Usually. The PJs skewers everything with breathtaking audacity. Its targets include blacks' own color prejudices ("I'll never come over to the dark-skinned side" says neighborhood kid Calvin to his playmate Juicy as they play Star "Gang" Wars); passing for white (Thurgood reassures a wary postman that most violence in the projects is black-on-black crime and the mail carrier confesses, "Actually... man, I'm passing"); the tae bo craze and crackheads. Each episode is a jackpot of visual and verbal drive-by gags. The elderly, rifle-toting Mrs. Avery, for example, is shipped off to the 40 Acres and a Meal retirement home. Then there's Thurgood's lecture to the kids in the building: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste. That's what the United Negro League says. Come on boys, I'm calling a tenants' meeting so we can get everybody on the same Satchel Paige." Like The Simpsons, it takes two or more screenings to catch every single joke. Still, treading the thin line between witty satire and tacky send-up is tough. The sitcom's humor too often depends on unsavory stereotypes that do no one justice. It can be tasteless ("Luke, I'm your father... maybe"). And it can be smartly topical, as in tonight's episode, "Home School Daze." Thurgood and his wife, Muriel (voiced by Loretta Devine), start the Hilton Jacobs Academy after they learn the teachers are on strike. Typical of this show's edgy humor, the Stubbs family opens the home school with a ceremonial walk through a metal detector. Of course, it goes off. And so do our political-correctness meters. But should we care?
For years, The Simpsons has managed to laugh at its characters without
demeaning them. If The PJs can master that trick, it can ignore anyone
who might take issue with its provocative humor. And then the WB may
finally get the hit sitcom it needs.
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