Watchdog settles landmark oatmeal case

Purchase, NY (AP). PepsiCo, Inc., the corporate soft drink behemoth that has since 2001 owned The Quaker Oats Company, has announced that it has accepted a proposed cash settlement from the Cincinnati-based film monthly Video Watchdog in an historic and highly unusual trademark infringement lawsuit. The settlement, purported to be in the mid-to-high six figures, is a significant victory for the beleaguered cereal company, which suffered a considerable public loss of face with the recent recall of Aunt Jemima pancake and waffle mixes tainted with salmonella.

"We needed this win," declared Quaker Oats public relations director Mike Chaudhry. "Morale at the Chicago office has been pretty low lately and I'm hearing the cholesterol of everyone at Corporate is through the roof. Really, this settlement couldn't have come at a better time. And those Video Watchdog guys are totally guilty! I mean, look at any box of our long-cooking or instant oatmeals, oatmeal squares or oatmeal-to-go and then look at an issue of their magazine. They totally ripped off our design."

Quaker Oats' familiar "Quaker man" logo was the creation of American painter Haddon "Sunny" Sundbloom (1899-1976) and has been the company trademark since 1957. The association of Quakers with The Quaker Mill Company of Ravenna, Ohio, dates back to 1887, at which time the image became the first trademark registered for a breakfast cereal. Although the company has no known ties with the Religious Society of Friends, the image of a Quaker elder was chosen because it represented quintessential American values of honesty and integrity.

"A blind man could see the similarity," declared Quaker Oats counsel Jay Augustinian in a recent telephone interview. "Look... the same oval, the same white letters, the same guy in the middle, the same two color design. It's flagrant! Look, their guy's even wearing a hat, just like the Quaker Man." Augustinian was referring to issue 99 of Video Watchdog, which features a colorful illustration by Los Angeles artist Charles Largent of silent film star Lon Chaney in the 1927 horror film LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT and was a key piece of evidence in the long-running copyright infringement trial. "That movie's in black-and-white for Pete's sake," Augustinian continued. "But they gave him rosy cheeks, just like the Quaker Man!"

First published in 1991, Video Watchdog magazine is the brainchild of Ohio film critic, novelist, columnist and blogger Tim Lucas, a Saturn and Rondo Award winner and author of the 12 lb. coffee table book Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. The lavishly illustrated Video Watchdog is a highly prized consumer guide among the cult film cognoscenti and was begun as a way of tracking the differences in film presentation from the cinema to the home video market. Video Watchdog was an early proponent of letterboxing widescreen films on VHS tapes and DVDs, a presentation style that has since become an industry standard and is even used in episodic television and some TV commercials.

"We're appealing the decision, of course," Lucas commented in a brief late night call from his Cincinnati home and Video Watchdog headquarters. "I've got Donna on it," he said, referring to his wife and long-time collaborator, believed to be the brains behind their publishing empire. "She's pretty confident we can have the decision overturned. Or at least bring their price down a tick. And if not... our cover price is really going to shoot up there."

The Quaker Oats Company, the leading brand in the American breakfast cereal market, was founded at the turn of the 19th century by the merger of four oat mills in Iowa and Ohio. Ironically, Quaker Oats once dabbled in film production, financing the 1971 musical fantasy WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, starring Gene Wilder. That same year, movie title creator Saul Bass created a monochrome logo for the company that is still in use.

Veteran Hollywood character actor Wilford Brimley, an unofficial Quaker Oats spokesman via his iconic appearances in TV ads for over twenty years, could not be reached for comment.