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© St. Petersburg Times, published January 3, 2003
WHAT'S IN A NAME? EVERYTHING, IN THIS CASE: A man who legally changed his name to Jack Ass is suing the MTV show Jackass, claiming that the show full of dangerous stunts and gross-out activities is giving him a bad reputation.
That would be hard do to, one would think. But Jack, who lives in Montana, says he changed his name from Bob Craft in 1997 for a noble purpose: to raise awareness of responsible drinking after his brother and a friend were killed in an alcohol-related car crash. He doesn't make clear how changing his name was supposed to accomplish this.
He has a Web site to promote his mission (note: don't let that big glass of beer on the home page fool you).
In his suit, reported by Reuters, the former Mr. Craft says that Viacom, the company that produces Jackass, is "liable for injury to my reputation that I have built and defamation of my character which I have worked so hard to create."
The suit asks for damages of at least $10-million.
A Viacom spokeswoman referred calls for comment to MTV. An MTV spokeswoman said the network doesn't comment on pending litigation.
THE SQUID BATTLE: Given the movie's premise, this isn't a surprising development: Sin Eater has been pulled from its Jan. 17 release date because the special effects were provoking unintended hysterical laughter.
"Sin eaters" refers to an ancient order of rogue priests who ate food off a corpse to take unforgiven sins upon themselves and absolve the deceased. In the movie, a sin eater resurfaces in modern Rome and allows evil to go unpunished.
Sins are shown flying out of bodies, but Variety says they looked like calamari. Only those with a fear of seafood -- or had seen too many episodes of Iron Chef -- were scared.
The movie has been sent to another special effects company and is now expected by summer.
Also, someone realized the title was worth a few laughs, too. It has been changed to The Order.
THE POT-ROASTED PORK IN WHITE WINE WITH GARLIC, FENNEL AND ROSEMARY MUST GO ON: Americans are worrying about smallpox; the British are worrying about the health dangers posed by TV chefs.
A health organization is saying that TV chefs fail to follow "basic rules" of hygiene in preparing food during their shows and that millions of impressionable people who follow their examples exactly could produce a potentially fatal outbreak of food poisoning.
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health singled out Jamie Oliver of Food Network and Nigella Lawson of E! and the Style Network.
The hyperactive Oliver sprays saliva over food while he talks and licks his fingers after dipping them into his creations, the group said in a Times of London story. Lawson should remove her rings when she cooks to prevent them becoming a haven for bacteria.
Responded Rob Kirby, master chef of Great Britain, "It's television, not a health and safety laboratory."