B.38 Similarities between Thank You For Being A Friend and That Golden Girls Show!
337 Mr Duncan-Watt wrote the script for The Goldenish Girls over June to September 2015. The resulting script altered the plot of Thank You For Being A Friend, but used many of the same jokes, and, like Thank You For Being A Friend, adopted common themes from the original television series. When considering the similarities between Thank You For Being a Friend and That Golden Girls Show!, particularly with reference to Mr Duncan-Watt's contributions to The Goldenish Girls script as set out at Section B.37 above, it is to be recalled that Mr Rockefeller had greater input in preparing the script for Thank You For Being A Friend than in relation to The Goldenish Girls - see Section B.4 above.
338 Mr Rockefeller submitted, and I accept, that in comparing the various scripts, it was necessary to recall that each drew upon elements of the original Golden Girls television series. In particular, each revolved around the four main characters - Blanche, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia - and their idiosyncrasies. The television series included, as a regular character, Stan Zbornak, who was Dorothy's ex-husband. There was a lot of cheesecake. Sophia and Dorothy made frequent enough reference to the Shady Pines retirement home.
339 Mr Rockefeller also submitted, and I accept, that, in comparing the puppet shows and the scripts, it is necessary to recall that they draw upon the house used in the Golden Girls television series. This had the front door on the left opening to the lounge area. There was a lanai at the back left of the lounge area and the bedrooms to the back right. A swing door on the right hand side, lead to the kitchen which featured, among other things, a round table at the front, a telephone (with a long cord), a central island bench and a refrigerator on the right tucked behind the hob.
340 It is fair to say that one would expect to see similarities between two parodies of the same television series.
341 However, what Mr Rockefeller's submission misses - as Mr Gooding submitted - is that both parodies (Thank You For Being A Friend and That Golden Girls Show!) operated on the format or framework of actors operating puppets on stage. A second parody might have taken any number of formats, for example, a musical. It may be accepted that the concept of a puppet parody was not novel. As Mr Duncan-Watt readily acknowledged, that idea had been done by Avenue Q. However, a puppet parody of the Golden Girls television series was novel. Thank You For Being A Friend and That Golden Girls Show! both reproduced elements from the television series, including the layout of the rooms and repeated references to cheesecake, and both drew on the themes of the original series and the idiosyncrasies of the main characters. However, this only adds to the conclusion that the two shows were substantially similar when assessed through the lens that both shows were puppet parodies.
342 The parties accepted that there were differences in the plot of Thank You For Being A Friend and that of That Golden Girls Show!, but - that aside and for the reasons which follow and those at [596] below - the shows were substantially similar.
343 First, both shows used puppets controlled by on-stage actors. The puppets themselves were of the same size and drew upon the physical characteristics of the four main characters from the television series. The puppets in both Thank You For Being A Friend and That Golden Girls Show! were cartoon-like caricatures of their televised namesakes. The puppets accordingly had the same feel and looked similar. The puppets were operated from the use of an internal hand and an external stick. The puppets were controlled in the same way by visible on-stage actors, as opposed to puppets being suspended from string or manoeuvred by puppeteers from off-stage, or who were otherwise unseen by the audience. Photographs of the actors on stage with their puppets in each of the shows are set out below:
Thank You For Being A Friend
That Golden Girls Show!
344 Mr Rockefeller submitted that there was no monopoly in the idea of using puppets with actors visible on stage. He submitted it was not novel; the adoption of that style of puppetry (in contrast to the use of marionettes in the manner of "The Lonely Goat Herd" from The Sound of Music or invisible actors in the manner of The Muppets television show) went nowhere.
345 However, it does go somewhere. It was a striking and central feature of both shows which highlighted their similarity. That Golden Girls Show! was little more than a second production of Thank you For Being A Friend, with plot changes based predominantly on the ideas and work of Mr Duncan-Watt on The Goldenish Girls.
346 Mr Rockefeller submitted that, on any brief visual inspection, the puppets used in Thank You For Being a Friend were different to those used in That Golden Girls Show!. He accepted that each had a likeness to their respective original character, but that was insufficient. The puppets in That Golden Girls Show! were, so it was submitted, superior in aesthetic quality, "akin to Henson-style puppets". Whilst this matter is inevitably subjective, it seemed to me that the puppets were similar. The average theatre-goer watching the two shows within a few months of each other is unlikely to have noticed a difference.
347 Secondly, both shows used a male actor to perform the female role of Dorothy. Again, this was an important and in some ways defining feature of the parody shows.
348 Thirdly, both shows used a male actor - without a puppet - to perform the role of the featured male love interest. Again, this was an important and in some ways defining feature of the parody shows.
349 Fourthly, in both shows, the actors simultaneously acted the role of their puppet - that is, the actors conveyed the facial expressions and moods of their characters. This was central to the production.
350 Fifthly, the sets of Thank You For Being A Friend and That Golden Girls Show! were substantially similar, as one would expect when they drew on the Golden Girls television series. The first run of Thank You For Being A Friend, which occurred before Mr Gooding and Mr Henderson were involved, did not have a set of any substance. Both shows were presented as if the audience was watching an actual episode of the Golden Girls television show. However, there was no requirement to adopt for the purposes of a second puppet parody the layout of the Thank You For Being A Friend set simply because of the original television show.
351 Sixthly, both shows used a substantial number of jokes drawn from the original Golden Girls television series. Mr Rockefeller submitted that the appearance of the same or similar jokes, of itself, went nowhere. Mr Rockefeller made the following submissions in this regard:
(1) To the extent that those jokes (whether in identical expression or in broadly similar form) emanated from the original the Golden Girls television show, then that was a common source. Audience members who were aficionados might well recognise, and appreciate, them for that reason alone.
(2) The mere presence of the original jokes cannot be viewed in isolation, but should be taken into account with their relative position in the scripts.
(3) In any event the copyright was in Mr Rockefeller's companies (assuming that copyright represents an appropriate analytical tool with respect to individual jokes in the context of a dramatic work as a whole). Put another way, the jokes were neither the dramatic work, nor a substantial part of it.
352 Contrary to Mr Rockefeller's submission, the use of common jokes obviously increased the similarity between the two shows. There were multiple seasons of the television series from which jokes could potentially have been sourced. In Thank You For Being A Friend, seventeen original jokes were used. Except for two, each of these found their way into the script of That Golden Girls Show!, through the script of The Goldenish Girls. These would have been well-recognised by aficionados of the Golden Girls television series and, perhaps more particularly, they would have been recognised by any reasonable audience watching Thank You For Being A Friend and then That Golden Girls Show!. As Mr Gooding submitted, it would have been commercial madness to run Thank You For Being A Friend in New York at the same time or immediately after That Golden Girls Show!, because of the similarities between the two shows. The jokes represented a common device between the two shows, adding to the impression which would have been gained that one was a copy of the other, albeit with some changes to plot.
353 Seventhly, in addition to the use of jokes drawn from the original television series, there were other similarities between the scripts for Thank You For Being A Friend and That Golden Girls Show!. Mr Gooding submitted, and I accept, that these included:
(1) Sophia trying to make money through a food-based business;
(2) Blanche introducing the concept of getting plastic surgery;
(3) a male character introduced to create competition between Dorothy, Rose and Blanche as they all vie for his attention;
(4) Rose, Blanche and Dorothy having a confrontation over the male character;
(5) Rose, Blanche and Dorothy contemplating the possibility of Sophia leaving the house;
(6) Dorothy and Sophia reconciling and apologising to each other;
(7) Sophia coming into a lot of money;
(8) the show concluding with "the girls" realising that the most important thing is that they have each other; and
(9) the end credits are similar, involving the playing of the theme music ('Thank you for being a friend') and fading to black.
354 Mr Rockefeller submitted that, taken at their highest, these matters, themes or devices were characterisations of events at a generalised level. At that level of abstraction, they reflected mere similarities to common literary elements in dramatic works, for example, the introduction of conflict or dramatic tension, its denouement and subsequent resolution. He submitted that these themes or devices should not be divorced from the combination or series of situations, incidents, character development and plot of the respective dramatic works, or the common source of the television series.
355 Mr Rockefeller submitted:
(1) As to Mr Gooding's submissions concerning the introduction of a "male character" (see points (3) and (4) above), there is significant difference between that male character being an unknown dance instructor (Emilio in Thank You For Being a Friend) and it being Dorothy's ex-husband, Stan, who was a constantly recurring character throughout the television series (in That Golden Girls Show!).
As to this submission, I accept that there is a difference; but it is a difference in plot, which is otherwise swamped by the similarities of the two productions.
(2) As to Mr Gooding's submissions which referred to "conflict" between some of the main characters which reached its climax and resolution and the presentation of a moral as to the importance of their friendship (see points (4), (6) and (8) above), this is merely emblematic of common dramatic tropes, as well as being reflective of the dramatic arc deployed in the television series.
This may be so, but it does not cause any differentiation between the two shows which were both produced in the format and framework of puppet parodies.
(3) Other devices are illustrative of the personalities of the characters themselves, namely Sophia's financial schemes (see points (1) and (7)) and Blanche's vanity (see point (2)).
Again, this submission may be accepted. However, maintaining those devices emphasises the similarities, or the lack of difference, between Thank You For Being A Friend and That Golden Girls Show!.
(4) Finally, Mr Rockefeller submitted that the format of the "end credits" is a device that brings to mind the closing credits of the Golden Girls television series.
Again, that may be accepted. However, the audience watching both Thank You For Being A Friend and That Golden Girls Show! would be left with the impression, upon seeing the shows conclude with the "end credits", that one has watched what is, in essence, the same show with some differences in plot.
356 Mr Rockefeller submitted that the concession that there were "changes to the plot from the story in Thank You For Being A Friend" should be given "its full weight and significance, bearing in mind the critical importance of the combination or series of situations, incidents, character development and plot". Mr Rockefeller submitted that Mr Gooding pivoted away from this concession, when he asserted that "it is no answer therefore to say that they both follow the same set and themes from the original television show". Mr Rockefeller says that, taken to its logical conclusion, Mr Gooding's submission permits of having two puppet parody plays based on the Golden Girls provided that, after the plot changes, the audience is presented with something unlike the Golden Girls and more like, for example, Anna Karenina or War and Peace.
357 Mr Rockefeller described the plots in the following way:
Thank You for Being a Friend
Thank You For Being a Friend is a 'contemporary' episode of the Golden Girls, as though it were still on television today, being filmed in-front of a live studio audience with breaks for 'real' commercials which play during the show. Dorothy tricks her mother Sophia into going to the doctor. Sophia doesn't take too kindly to being swindled and places a Sicilian curse on her daughter. Blanche's gay son wants to have a Chinese baby via artificial insemination which causes the Southern Belle to reconcile her prejudices, and the more devastating consequence of being old enough to be a Grandmother. Rose is determined to win the 'Miami theme song' competition and enlists Dorothy to help her write the song lyrics.
Meanwhile, Dorothy, wanting to lose some weight, employs a dance instructor called Emilio, which all of her other flatmates fight over in a last-ditch effort to find a date for Saturday night. Dorothy, Blanche and Sophia all purchase the same dress which brings about a large altercation. Unbeknownst to Dorothy, Sophia cooks up a Green Card scheme with Emilio, and hoodwinks Dorothy as revenge for taking her to the doctor.
That Golden Girls Show!
That Golden Girls Show! is a prequel of fictionalized events that lead up to the genesis and creation of the Golden Girls television series. Sophia tries selling all of the other three girls' belongings to afford a new big screen television. Dorothy's ex-husband Stan proposes to Dorothy who turns down his offer. Unbeknownst to Dorothy, Stan's proposal is linked to a clause in his Aunt's will that he can only inherit a large sum of money if he marries within 48 hours. Rose has alarming news from her home town of St Olaf that the "Herring Circus" is in financial trouble, and Blanche has plastic surgery that botches her beyond recognition. A competition begins between Rose and Blanche to try and seduce Stan for his inheritance.
After some soul searching, Dorothy realizes she indeed still has feelings for Stan which complicates the other two's chance for the cash. Sophia sells Dorothy's diary to a television station, which adapt the events of the diary into a new 1980's television series called 'The Golden Girls'.
358 It is perfectly possible that a second puppet parody of the Golden Girls television series could be made differently or substantially differently as the discussion above indicates. However, That Golden Girls Show! could not be so described. The combination of similarities, even recognising the plot differences, left the two shows substantially similar. An audience of both shows would have been left with the impression that they had seen the same show, in the same format, with the same jokes, but with certain plot differences.
359 Mr Gooding submitted that, apart from the changes to the plot from the story in Thank You For Being A Friend, there was very little to differentiate between the two shows. I accept that submission for the reasons set out above.