The parody book “The Cat NOT in the Hat! A Parody” by Dr. Juice used Suess- like rhymes and illustrations to tell the story of O.J. Simpson’s double murder trial. The book depicts O.J. Simpson, wearing the Cat in the Hat’s distinctive red and white striped stove-pipe hat, and holding a bloody glove. An example of a line from the book: “One knife?/Two knife?/Red knife/Dead wife.”
Parody falls under fair- use according to the Copyright Act. However, what defines parody? According to the book, “Mass Media Law”, parody must “reflect the content of the original work not just the style or method of presentation”(523). In fact, Dr. Suess Enterprise sued because they did not believe that Dr. Suess’ image should be allowed to be commingled with a murder trial. Penguin book lost the trial because the court found that it was more a parody of the O.J. Simpson trial that used Suess’ shtick.
http://www.imaginelaw.com/lawyer-attorney-1181191.html
I thought that this was a picture of the Cat in the Hat at first glance, but then I realized its not. It caused me to slightly chuckle when I analyzed it further. I think it is definitely a parody and it takes creativity to think of a way to intertwine one subject matter with an already created one. This is fine.
i think this is a really creative parody. although i can understand where Dr. Suess Enterprises is coming from, I think that this is an obvious parody of OJ, not of Dr. Suess.
I think this is an interesting case. I can see both sides of the argument. However, for children’s sake I don’t think this should be allowed. Dr. Suess writes such innocent things and to take his style and illustrations to such a violent extreme I think in a way takes away from the tone of his books. Even though the focus of this parody book is to poke fun at the OJ trial, I think it also hurts Dr. Suess.
I understand Dr. Suess Enterprise not wanting to be associated with a murder trail especially because it is mainly for children. It seems unfair that Dr. Suess’ books have the potential to be hurt by this ad since it is connected with a horrible case just because someone wanted to do a funny parody.