My piece here yesterday about Yogi Bear and Yogi Berra brought about twenty e-mails asking that I explain all about The Kirward Derby, another famous time when a cartoon show fiddled with the name of a celebrity. This was another one of those instances where a lawsuit was threatened and people think it was filed and the parties went to court…but all that happened was a threat was made and never pursued.
The show we now think of as Rocky and Bullwinkle actually began as a series for kids called Rocky and His Friends. It debuted on ABC’s late afternoon schedule in November of 1959. Less than two years later, NBC bought a variation of the same show and slotted it at 7:00 PM on Sunday evenings just before Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. Obviously, they hoped to lure both adults and kids to the set with what was now called The Bullwinkle Show.
The new time slot encouraged the writers to include some jokes for the parents watching. The first story arc in the (serialized from week to week) adventures of the Moose and Squirrel was about a search for a legendary hat which, when worn, makes its wearer super-intelligent. They called the hat “The Kirward Derby” — named after a TV personality named Durward Kirby who served as announcer/sidekick on The Garry Moore Show and also as co-host of Candid Camera. Those were both series on CBS.
Before long, a letter arrived from Mr. Kirby’s attorney…and for the next part of the story I’m going to quote from the superb must-have book, The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel, and a Talking Moose by my friend Keith Scott…
Jay’s lawyer was instructed to reply by saying, “Tell Mr. Kirby that he has our permission to name any one of his hats after any character in our show.” In fact, Ward actually sent Kirby a hat. Then he replied to Kirby’s lawyer: “The only other names for the Derby — Kentucky and Brown — were already taken. We had toyed with the idea of calling it the Bullwinkle Bowler, but discarded this as being too chauvinistic. Please sue us, we love publicity.” As he told the press a year later, “Whenever anybody says they are going to sue us, we always tell them we will send our lawyer right over to help them draw up the papers. Nobody has ever accepted the offer.”
And that pretty much was the end of that. No lawsuit was ever filed. I seem to recall hearing somewhere that thereafter, Mr. Kirby would tell people who asked about it, “That was my lawyer acting without my knowledge. Personally, I was flattered by the reference.” Which might be true or it might be what you say when you find yourself looking like a comedian who can’t take a joke. (By the buy: You can order a copy of Keith’s book at this link…and should.)
Lawyers send letters like that all the time, even when they know they have no legal legs on which to stand. Durward or his lawyer might even have thought Jay Ward might start selling the hats and they wanted to position themselves to demand a cut. Durward Kirby was actually kind of a funny fellow who had a fairly decent career, working in all corners of the broadcasting industry until his retirement. Almost none of the thousands of hours of TV and radio he did are available these days but a lot of people still remember the Kirward Derby.
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