Hopefully you got a good glimpse last week of the teenage girl’s hand being mangled by a garbage disposal, because you might not get to see it again.
Disposal maker Emerson filed a federal lawsuit Monday against NBC to prevent the network from re-airing the pilot episode of the new drama Heroes, which featured one of the title characters demonstrating her superhuman healing prowess by sticking her hand down the drain.
Emerson, obviously concerned that the series’ 14.1 million viewers last week were busy looking at the disposal brand instead of Claire the cheerleader’s bloody hand, claimed in its petition that NBC Universal Television Studios didn’t have the right to show the St. Louis-area company’s In-Sink-Erator product and is looking to prohibit any further use by the network of the Emerson trademark.
The lawsuit further stated that the scene “casts the disposer in an unsavory light, irreparably tarnishing the product” by suggesting that the appliance “will cause debilitating and severe injuries, including the loss of fingers, in the event consumers were to accidentally insert their hand into one.”
Not that Emerson is saying you should try this at home or anything. And neither is Heroes, for that matter.
While Claire (Hayden Panettiere) struggled with the usual curse of adolescence–feeling both exhilarated and embarrassed by the notion of being different than her peers–her fellow Heroes confronted their “strengths” in different ways: Hiro (Masi Oka), who found himself in Times Square two seconds after being on a Tokyo subway, is thrilled with his ability to breach the space-time continuum. Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) dreams of being able to fly–just like his brother Nathan (Adrian Pasdar), it turns out–and just may be able to do so one day if he can extricate himself from his sibling’s shadow long enough to spread his wings. How’s that for metaphors? Isaac the painter (Santiago Cabrera) is psychic. Or is that just the drugs talking? Niki (Ali Larter) has a murderous (or is she just misunderstood?) doppelganger whose mirror image has only served so far to cause Niki–and the audience–much confusion. E! Online TV columnist and avid Heroes fan Kristin Veitch makes an appearance in episode four. She’s just all-around super.
Source: Yahoo / EOnline
Written by: Natalie Finn
I never really paid attention to the garbage disposal in my house.
But in the future, I will, and it won’t be a frivilous lawsuit company like Emerson.
And they’d better not cave and edit that out when they put Season 1 on DVD…
and yeah, that company is ripe for getting a “get a clue” letter from a few dozen thousand people.
I don’t see how this casts the disposer in an unsavory light. I mean, if it can handle human fingers then WOW what a GREAT DISPOSER!
Summer
I don’t think we need worry about the DVD, looking again at the offending scene there are probably only a few frames from which you can read the details of the waste disposal system. This could easily be removed or edited with CGI.
The good news about Heroes, according to tv.com, is that it is the first new series to get a full season pickup. Lets just hope it does better than last years three new Scifi series (Threshold, Surface and Invasion) and survives more than just one season as it is looking a very promising series at present.
So, if I put my fingers in one of their disposals, it won’t mangle them?
Since most garbage disposals claim to grind up chicken bones, I’m pretty sure fingers wouldn’t hold up too well, either.
Sorry, I should have said that the text could easily be removed or edited with CGI. The integrity of the scene could easily remain intact.
You can call the company here. 800-558-5700
By the way, if they ask for your name, it’s because they want to enter into a call-tracking database. I told them that while I didn’t even notice the brand of the disposal in the scene, I now knew the name of a disposal I would never buy. I suggest you all do the same.
I’m just glad the series, along with Eureka, is doing well and has been picked up.