A lawsuit alleging late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien stole three jokes from another comedy writer moved forward in a Southern California U.S. District Court, and Tom Brady is the subject of one of them.
Alex Kaseberg claims O’Brien and his writers infringed on the copyrights of at least five of his jokes between December 2014 and June 2015, The Hollywood Reporter reported Monday. And although Judge Janis Sammartino agreed that jokes about facts and current events only have “thin” copyright protection, she believed a jury could potentially find enough similarities in three of the jokes.
That’s where the Brady quip comes in.
After the Patriots won Super Bowl XLIX against the Seahawks, Kaseberg posted a joke the morning of Feb. 3, 2015, saying, “Tom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. So enjoy that truck, Pete Carroll.”
That night, O’Brien ran with a similar take on the Seahawks coach:
“Tom Brady said he wants to give the truck that he was given as Super Bowl MVP … to the guy who won the Super Bowl for the Patriots. Which is very nice. I think that’s nice. I do. Yes. So Brady’s giving his truck to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.”
The other two jokes were about former decathlete and Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner and the Washington Monument. If the two sides can’t reach some sort of settlement, THR reported there’s a final pretrial conference scheduled for August before the case would go to trial.
Thumbnail photo via YouTube/Team Coco
