Robert Smigel seems to get paid to do two things:
Write funny cartoons for "Saturday Night Live."
And irritate people with them.
The mind, and pen, behind "SNL's" popular "TV Funhouse" segments have goofed on everyone from Michael Jackson to Larry King to Barbara Walters to a good number of this country's past and present presidents to Disney to Christina Aguilera. If you're in the spotlight, chances are Smigel's gonna getcha sooner or later.
On a recent "SNL," however, Smigel ventured onto what some consider sacred turf: Charles M. Schulz's beloved holiday cartoon, "A Charlie Brown Christmas." How, some people are asking, could he do this without getting sued?
The segment featured the Peanuts gang waving their arms to magically transform people and things. Peppermint Patty and Marcie, for instance, were transformed into giant, voluptuous lesbians.
"I think it's terrible," says Edna Poehner, Schulz's former secretary who works at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, Calif. "I've had several calls ... from people who were just horrified."
Horrifying, perhaps. But is it illegal?
No.
Parodies fall under a legal umbrella called "fair-use exception," says Fort Worth lawyer Guy V. Manning. Permission, in these cases, is not necessarily required.
"To parody someone else who has put themselves out in the public, particularly if that other person is making a political commentary, is a quick way of rebuttal using their own work," says Manning. "Weird Al Yankovic was doing something similar. I imagine he did that with permission, but fair use assumes you don't have permission. I'm not saying what 'SNL' did is fair use, it's just that it might be."
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