Clowns don't copy, but CBS does
The "CSI: New York" episode of 7 Jan 2011, titled To What End had an IP angle as to the idea of a clown registry. Parts of the episode (the idea of a registry, and of clowns represented on eggs) are based in reality. See
Clown Eggs which notes:
Quoting from the Department of Clown Registry information sheet: "It is an unwritten law among clowns that one must never copy the face of another." Linda McBryde told us, "Although this is not a legal institution, the collection is a record of the person's name, the makeup design, and the date it was submitted. In one case that I know of, a person used the registry in a court case in which someone was infringing on his makeup design."
Too bad we don't have an unwritten law in the IT business about not copying software. Are IT guys less honorable than clowns?
In the CSI episode, someone dressed up as a clown shot a bakery owner, who at first glance appeared to be an upstanding small businessman but was later revealed to be a drugmaker. Part of the plotline was that a whole bunch of clowns showed up at the time of the murder, responding to an internet ad, thereby confusing the police.
CBS, known for using one news story on various shows, had two dramas which "pre-saged" this plotline on CSI: New York.
First, the “18-5-4″ episode of "The Mentalist" had a gun-wielding clown. [Yes, 18-5-4 spells R-E-D]
Second, the Heihei episode of Hawaii-Five-O had a a whole bunch of painters showing up at crime scene, wherein the criminals were dressed up as painters:
This is a strange case and they figure out things from interviewing the other "painters" who were just hired on craigslist to stand in and pretend to be painters on the job during the truck take-over.
The bad guys in the 5-O episode were endurance/marathon/ironman types, who staged the later diamond heist during a race, but got caught.
Clown Eggs which notes:
Quoting from the Department of Clown Registry information sheet: "It is an unwritten law among clowns that one must never copy the face of another." Linda McBryde told us, "Although this is not a legal institution, the collection is a record of the person's name, the makeup design, and the date it was submitted. In one case that I know of, a person used the registry in a court case in which someone was infringing on his makeup design."
Too bad we don't have an unwritten law in the IT business about not copying software. Are IT guys less honorable than clowns?
In the CSI episode, someone dressed up as a clown shot a bakery owner, who at first glance appeared to be an upstanding small businessman but was later revealed to be a drugmaker. Part of the plotline was that a whole bunch of clowns showed up at the time of the murder, responding to an internet ad, thereby confusing the police.
CBS, known for using one news story on various shows, had two dramas which "pre-saged" this plotline on CSI: New York.
First, the “18-5-4″ episode of "The Mentalist" had a gun-wielding clown. [Yes, 18-5-4 spells R-E-D]
Second, the Heihei episode of Hawaii-Five-O had a a whole bunch of painters showing up at crime scene, wherein the criminals were dressed up as painters:
This is a strange case and they figure out things from interviewing the other "painters" who were just hired on craigslist to stand in and pretend to be painters on the job during the truck take-over.
The bad guys in the 5-O episode were endurance/marathon/ironman types, who staged the later diamond heist during a race, but got caught.
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 11:46 AM
1 Comments:
Such a blatant copy! Mentalist episode was rerun tonight and I got confused, thinking "Didn't I just see this?" After a few confusing moments, I realized, no, I had seen the same kind of beginning on CIS NY just last week. Geesh. The Mentalist episode was first aired last May, so the CIS NY episode "borrowed" from it, I guess. Ridiculous.
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