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Creepy 'Lolita' label

A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for 6-year-old girls after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens. Woolworths Group PLC (spun off years ago from the now-defunct chain of five-and-dime stores in the U.S.) said staff who administer the Web site selling the beds were not aware of the connection. In "Lolita," a controversial 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter — but Woolworths staff had not heard of the classic novel or two subsequent films based on it. Hence they saw nothing wrong with advertising the Lolita Midsleeper Combi, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard intended for girls aged about 6, until a concerned mother raised the alarm on a parenting Web site. "What seems to have happened is the staff who run the Web site had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either," a spokesman told British newspapers. "We had to look it up on Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now."Woolworths said the product had now been dropped, adding, "We will be talking to the supplier with regard to how the branding came about."

'Naked Cowboy' dresses down M&M's

Here's a case of risque business: The New York City street performer known as "The Naked Cowboy" is suing Mars Inc. for $6 million over the use of his trademark look -white underwear, cowboy boots and a hat — by a blue M&M candy on an animated Times Square billboard. For nearly a decade, Robert Burck has been a fixture in Times Square, where he strums a guitar on a street corner while dressed in his skimpy signature costume.In a lawsuit filed this week in Manhattan federal court, Burck said that two oversized Times Square billboards that promote M&Ms used his look without compensating him.The billboards feature a scantily clad blue M&M with a guitar alongside views of New York including street scenes and the Statue of Liberty. Burck is suing privately held Mars Inc., which makes M&Ms, and Chute Gerdeman Inc., an Ohio agency that he said created the ad, for trademark infringement.Neither company was immediately available for comment."Just like The Naked Cowboy does on a daily basis in Times Square, the M&M is not only dressed as "The Naked Cowboy," it is playing the Naked Cowboy's distinctive white guitar in the cartoon," the lawsuit said. Mars and Chute Gerdeman "decided to exploit and trade upon The Naked Cowboy's well-recognized likeness without a license and without furnishing any compensation," the lawsuit said. He also could claim the ad has severely hurt his chances of landing an endorsement deal with Godiva chocolates.

Courtesy MSNBC