'This Is It' vs. 'Rise & Shine' - Can Warner sue themselves?

[Keith Paynter]

I'm surprised no one considered this before...Just like John Fogerty's being sued by his own label for 'Run Through The Jungle'/'Old Man Down The Road', why didn't Warner sue HB over the Bugs Bunny Show Theme ('This Is It') vs The Flintstones original theme ('Rise & Shine')? Those first four measures are uncannily similar, melodically and structurally...

Hum amongst yourselves:

BBS: dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah-dah...
FL: dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah-dah...

Should Warner sue themselves today?

:confused:

[PudgieDParrot]

If only the first two bars are similar, and the rest of the songs are completely different, no point in taking legal action. Just my opinion.

[LooneyFan]

You know, whenever I try to whistle ethier theme song, I lead into the other! And then I don't know which theme Im whistling! :rolleyes:

[Fibber Fox]

If only the first two bars are similar, and the rest of the songs are completely different, no point in taking legal action. Just my opinion.

Frankly, I don't see a lot of similarity.

Something I didn't notice until today, for those of you from Vancouver-Victoria reading here, is how http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1h06eEODXo is the same as "Roar, You Lions, Roar", note for note.

F. Fox

[Stanislav]

If only the first two bars are similar, and the rest of the songs are completely different, no point in taking legal action. Just my opinion.

Lawsuits over music have been filed for as little, or less.

John Lennon was sued because the opening lyric line of "Come Together" was very similar (not exact) to a line in Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me." It was settled out of court, but Lennon didn't fulfill all the requirements of the settlement, and Berry's publisher eventually won a small cash award:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_together#Lawsuit

And George Harrison was successfully sued over the melody to "My Sweet Lord," which had similar passages to the melody of The Chiffons' "He's So Fine." Harrison was forced to surrender some royalties as a result:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Sweet_Lord#Legal_controversy

The point being, the alleged plagiarism doesn't have to constitute a major portion of the song, nor be an exact match, for the possibility of a damage award to exist.

[J Lee]

Both shows debuted on ABC in the fall of 1960, so it would hard to claim that either Jay Livingston and Ray Evans or Hoyt Curtain were privy to what the other was composing at roughly the exact same time (if one show had debuted a year earlier or later, you might have a strong case, though with both shows being on the same network, it's unlikely that even if that had been the case, any legal action would have been taken).

[Jack G.]

I immediately thought of This Is It when I bought and watched Flintstones vol1 for the first time.

[CartoonCrazy]

I immediately thought of This Is It when I bought watched Flintstones vol1 for the first time.
Ditto.

[Kevin McCorry]

When Bugs & Tweety switched to "This is It" in October, 1988, when I heard the first phrases of the music, I thought for a second or two that WVII-TV was preempting B&T for an episode of The Flintstones.