michael muller/nbc photo
Heroes cast members
GIVE THE LADY A HAND: NBC seems to have a runaway hit on its hands with Heroes, its low-key superhero show, because the lawsuits have already started clustering like wasps around a watermelon — a sure sign of success.
According to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the company that makes the In-Sink-Erator — a kitchen garbage-disposal unit — are suing to prevent NBC from rebroadcasting the premiere episode, which aired last week, either on the USA network, in Canada, or online.
The disputed scene involves a high school cheerleader, played by Hayden Panettiere, who sticks her hand into the garbage disposal unit in her family’s kitchen, mangling her hand in the process. She painlessly extracts her mangled digits, then calmly watches as her nascent superpowers straighten and heal them before her eyes. Emerson, the makers of the In-Sink-Erator, claim that the scene “casts the disposer in an unsavory light, irreparably tarnishing the product,” and that the scene suggests that the In-Sink-Erator “will cause debilitating and severe injuries, including the loss of fingers, in the event consumers were to accidentally insert their hand into one.”
A quick Google search shows several kitchen garbage-disposal units on the market; at no point during the scene in question was it clear whether Panettiere was sticking her hand into an In-Sink-Erator, a Waste King, or a Whirlaway, though since the Waste King used to be called a BoneCrusher by Sinkmaster, its manufacturer, it would seem that the kitchen garbage disposal industry isn’t unaware of the potential for its products to do some serious mangling, under the right circumstances, and especially in the absence of superpowers.
And while incredible safety breakthroughs have no doubt been made to kitchen garbage disposal units, it might still be considered ill-advised to stick one’s hand into one, especially if you lack superpowers. You’d be sympathetic, perhaps, if it was a case of the In-Sink-Erator’s manufacturer being frustrated by the general public’s lack of awareness of their revolutionary advances in garbage disposal safety features, and regards a network prime-time demonstration of hand mangling as a potential threat to sales.
But no — a spokesman for Emerson claims that the lawsuit is “a trademark thing,” and has nothing to do with safety issues, which would suggest that, lacking superpowers, one had still best avoid jamming one’s digits into a kitchen garbage disposal unit. So — would Emerson be happier if Panettiere’s character had turned to her mother and said, “Is this BoneCrusher by Sinkmaster still working, mother? We really ought to upgrade to the superior safety features of the In-Sink-Erator, don’t you think?” before jamming her hand in, just to check on that whole superpower thing one more time?
It’s refreshing, in any case, that at least one company isn’t desperate to get their products branded on some TV show, though in either case it’s the lawyers who get the work. Time to think about a different job, don’t you think?
