In the 67 years since its debut, "When You Wish Upon a Star" has been recorded by more than 100 artists and orchestras.But the song's owner is irate about what it calls an unseemly spoof of the familiar tune, saying the dreamy classic was twisted into an anti-Semitic ballad and widely distributed as part of a comedy television program.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, music publishing house Bourne Co. aims to stop the program's distribution. The suit accuses Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., Fox Broadcasting Co., the Cartoon Network and others of copyright infringement. It seeks unspecified damages.
The lawsuit said that in 2000, the defendants included the parody, "I Need a Jew," in an episode of the Fox television animated series "Family Guy."
The episode, titled "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein," relied on the premise that the main character could not manage his family's finances and needed to hire a Jewish person to take care of his money, the lawsuit said.
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