Seinfeld Insists Likening Cookbook Accuser To A Murderous Psychotic Was All In Good Fun
Jerry Seinfeld, whom we most recently had the pleasure of hearing robotically introduce the nominees for Best Animated Short through the guise of the CGI star of his egregiously under-publicized Bee Movie, is currently being sued by cookbook author Missy Chase Lapine for comments he made on Late Show with David Letterman. On the show, he called Lapine, who had expressed concern that Mrs. Seinfeld had stolen the basic concept of her book, a "wacko" waiting "in the woodwork," "hysterical," and "a three-name woman...and many of the three-named people do become assassins—Mark David Chapman, James Earl Ray..." Now Seinfeld's lawyers are trying to have the suit thrown out, claiming the comments were jokes, no more harmful to Lapine's reputation than an exasperatedly humorous observation about airplane-peanut packaging:
"Jerry Seinfeld made overstatements of opinion for comic effect," the comedian's lawyers said in the filing.
Lawyers for the Seinfelds dismissed the plagiarism allegations in the court filing, saying, "The idea of sneaking healthy foods into a child's diet is not original to your author."
The strategy, of course, is an iffy one, as it requires the court to designate a clear dividing line between where humor ends and slander begins. In Seinfeld's defense, Letterman's audience did erupt into laughter and a round of applause during the assassin quip, though the stunned silence that followed a four-minute comic riff likening the gourmand scribe to Pol Pot will be harder to enter as evidence that he was just joshing around.
