When The Poo Hits Your Eye Like A Big Pizza Pie

Notwithstanding our promise of poo will be flung, it is never our intention to malign any individual, but rather to hold the entire field of entertainment advertising up to ridicule.

With that in mind, we wish to highlight the refudiation made by Rob McFarlane in the comments section of our February 6 post “Monkey See, Monkey Steal” in which we mave implied that Mr. McFarlane is a thieving monkey: We apologize and we stand corrected.*

Dear Edwina,

I almost didn't post at all because (at the risk of sounding like Woody Allen) the whole issue seems so absurd.  As anyone who's ever worked with me can attest, I'm perfectly capable of coming up with my own mediocre concepts without having to steal them from Anne Kingston's brother.  With all due respect to Mr. Kingston, if I'm going to rip-off another designer I'll stick with the likes of Stephen Frankfurt, Saul Bass, and Milton Glaser.  In any event, I appreciate the chance to share my side of the story with the four or five people who are likely to care.  

Sincerely, Rob McFarlane

Here is a repost of Mr. McFarlane's comment:

As the guy who wrote the copy line and came up with concept for the Ant Farm “Family Stone” poster I fully admit to stealing the idea. I stole it from an unused concept sketch I did for “The Third Wife’s Club” back in 1995 (I’ve found that if you keep submitting the same idea over and over there’s a chance it’ll eventually stick). Suffice to say I’d never laid eyes on the Anne Kingston book cover prior to the point at which Fox contacted the Ant Farm.

More to the point, Fox’s lawyers were able to produce at least one other example of the same basic concept having been produced prior to Ms. Kingston’s book cover (a European album cover, if memory serves). What’s amusing is to me is that Ms. Kingston regards the ring/ finger concept as being so original and unique that only her brother could have conceived it.

My only regret is that Rupert Murdoch never asked me to join forces with him in an evil plot to steal an obscure, and not terribly inventive, dust jacket concept. Because that would have been awesome!

…In an earlier post I’d made mention of an album cover, but I'm pretty sure I was thinking of this Kurt Cobain photo. Point being (for the three or four of you who still care) if anyone got ripped-off it was probably Cobain and his photographer.

*Not to be confused with standing with Art Corrector/Art Korrector, a known provocateur and lanceur de poo here on MonKeyArtAwards.

Comments

[Rob McFarlane]

Much obliged to Ms. Trout for publishing my refudiation. I trust Paramount Pictures and the estate of the late Olivia Goldsmith will forgive me for having misstated the title of "The First Wife's Club" in my original post.

[I’m A Monkey, Too]

Ignition stole the First Wives Club idea for the Single Mom’s Club only they women are holding champagne flutes instead of cigars and they’re standing instead of sitting and there’s 5 women instead of three and they’re dressed in gold and cream instead of black and it’s not against a white background --- other than that it’s a dead frickin’ ringer!!!

[Art Corrector]

It's all good.

[The thief of Bagdad]

Being from Canada and being in regular, civilian advertising, Kingston probably thought he could make a case for concept theft. Anyone in our business would know better.