Tom Brady Threatened To Sue Paul Scheer Over A Jokey T-Shirt With His Name On It
Stars, they’re nothing like us! Or at the very least, some stars don’t exactly have the most robust sense of humor or ability to engage in a little self-deprecation. In this case, Tom Brady is that person. And that’s according to Paul Scheer, another famous person, although one might consider him a few fame levels lower than the greatest quarterback/worst retired guy in history. Paul recently claimed that Tom got mad enough to call his lawyers when he discovered that Paul’s podcast threw Tom’s face on a t-shirt alongside a little joke about retirement.
Paul, who you may recognize as Andre the kind-hearted douchebag from The League, or from the podcasts How Did This Get Made and Unspooled, spoke about this situation with Tom during an Instagram video posted yesterday. Paul explains that the drama began last month, courtesy of an episode of his podcast Unspooled (originally the intent of Unspooled was to talk about AFI’s Top 100 films, but has since evolved into covering general classics). So last month, Paul and his co-host, film critic Amy Nicholson, released an episode on Hayao Miyazaki’s 1992 animated film Porco Rosso.
While discussing Miyazaki’s career, Paul noted on the podcast that Miyazaki has infamously “retired” several times, and then come out of retirement to make another film. That’s when Paul decided to make the innocent comparison between Hayao Miyazaki and Tom Brady, another person who happens to be a legend in their world of expertise, that also notably retired and un-retired. At the beginning of this year, Tom announced that he was retiring from the NFL. A month later, he came out of retirement. Much like Miyazaki! The joke went over so well, that Unspooled began offering a t-shirt featuring an illustration of Tom Brady in what could either be Hayao Miyazaki’s signature beige suit or Porco Rosso’s trench and red scarf look, with Paul’s joke attached, reading: “Miyazaki is the Tom Brady of the animation world.” Personally, if I was ever compared to the man who created My Neighbor Totoro, I’d never shut up about it for the rest of my living days. But that’s not what Tom had an issue with, apparently. Paul says that Tom’s lawyers threatened Paul and Unspooled with an injunction, because the t-shirt had the words “Tom Brady” on it, and Tom Brady has trademarked the name “Tom Brady.”
Here’s Paul talking about the legal threat, and you can see the offensive t-shirt in question as well:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CfZbCVwpjN4/
Paul had the shirt removed from Unspooled’s TeePublic store because he clearly didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit from a litigious multi-millionaire. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. Paul says that they worked around Tom’s legal threat, simply by removing the name “Tom Brady” and replacing it with just “Brady.” However, the football-tossing likeness remains. There might be some people who think Paul folded like a cheap umbrella, but not me! I don’t blame Paul and the Unspooled team for disappearing that t-shirt. Who would want to get sued by a man who is both rich in money and free time? Just think how much extra time he could dedicate to a trademark lawsuit? He could be the GOAT of podcast take-downs.
Pics: INSTARimages