Coincidence? Dane Boedigheimer of Gagfilms.com
I created this silly short film back in 1984 called "Scrambled Eggs". It showed someone making breakfast from some terrified eggs point of view. It had won all sorts of awards and had it shown on national TV a few times back in the 80's. I've had the movie online since 1998. Cut to 9 years later... while on Yahoo, my buddy spots another short called "Eggs" by a Dane Boedigheimer of gagfilms.com. This short ALSO features someone making breakfast from the point of view of some terrified eggs. I'll let the reader spot any similarities:
"Scrambled Eggs" (1984) By Eric Bickernicks
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"Eggs" by Dane Boedigheimer of gagfilms.com
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Update: Then I discovered that Jibjab hired Dane Boedigheimer to remake his own video for their site:
Just so there isn't any confusion when mine was made...here are a couple of documents: (click on 'em to see the details)
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Vision of U.S. Competition Letter (1985) This is the earliest documentation I have. I had won one of the first 8mm camcorders from Sony from this competition with the short Scrambled Eggs. |
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Copyright Form PA Front (1990) Another TV show wanted to make sure I was squared away with copyrights, thus I submitted this back in 1990. Scrambled Eggs was part of a larger collection of shorts called "Beside The Mark" |
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Copyright Form PA Back (1990) Notice the highlight in yellow. |
Scrambled Eggs was part of a collection that won an Ace Award back in 1986. It was broadcast nationally on a syndicated show called "Video Challenge" (won a whole bunch of cool stuff on that show) circa 1989. I'm pretty sure it made an appearance on "America's Funniest Home Videos" I can submit the full list of awards on request. :-P
Then there is a site called The Internet Archive Wayback Machine. They had spidered the internet long before Google. If you do a search for biksco.com (my personal website at the time), in the 1998 column under Jan 27, 1998 you'll find the Biks Flicks page:
Wadda ya know, there's Scrambled Eggs AGAIN.
You can now see all my comedy videos on my Biks Flicks page. You can also see all them and everything else I've done on my Youtube Page. Here are some other films by Dane Boedigheimer of gagfilms.com.
Here's the email exchange I had with Dane:
Sorry it took so long to get back to you, I've been swamped lately. I do greatly appreciate you changing your webpage. Although there's similarities, I assure you that my girlfriend and I came up with the idea of Eggs independently from your video. Since you contacted me, I've looked at a lot of videos on the internet that have overlapping themes and shots. A lot of them come simply from the process of making eggs.
I'm sorry you've been frustrated, if I thought someone was blatantly ripping off my material I'd be extremely upset too. In fact, I very often have people that take my videos that I make, take my website tags and credits off, and then upload them to popular video sharing sites. For example, if you search for my comedy video "Girl with 2 pussies" on YouTube, you'll find no less than 10 people that have taken my video and uploaded it. Some of them have left the website tags, some haven't. This is after I have gone through and reported a bunch to get them taken down. It quickly became a losing battle.
Yes, I do know about the jibjab short, it was a video I produced for their Sendables series. There's actually a collection I did for them called "From The Fridge", in which different foods (that are all anthropomorphic) are subjected to "torture" for different holidays and occasions. There's at least 10 that are going to be released, but the only other one up right now is a pumpkins video for Halloween:
http://www.jibjab.com/sendables/12/Pumpkins_Halloween
Anyways, thanks again for changing your webpage, I really do appreciate it.
Thanks,
Dane
My Reply:
For example, if you search for my comedy video "Girl with 2 pussies" on YouTube, you'll find no less than 10 people that have taken my video and uploaded it. Some of them have left the website tags, some haven't. This is after I have gone through and reported a bunch to get them taken down. It quickly became a losing battle.Yes, COPYING/pirating an actual piece of media is easy as hell. Remaking a concept is a totally different thing.
Here’s a synopsis of my video:
We hear some voices in the dark. It’s revealed that they are from some eggs in a refrigerator. They wonder what is going on. They are quickly snatched from the frig and are placed next to a stove. They complain about being moved, one of them says “watch the shell”. After an egg is taken from the group and cracked open, then all panic. Another egg rolls off the counter top, shot from a dramatic view from the floor. Eventually they are placed back in the frig, relieved.
Here’s a synopsis of your video:
We hear some voices in the dark. It’s revealed that they are from some eggs in a refrigerator. They wonder what is going on. They are quickly snatched from the frig and are placed next to a stove. They complain about being moved, one of them says “watch the shell”. After an egg is taken from the group and cracked open, then all panic. Another egg rolls off the counter top, shot from a dramatic view from the floor. Eventually they are placed back in the frig, relieved.
(wadda ya know, I just cut and pasted the text)
The ONLY difference between our two stories is that you had cracked open a second egg while I had dunked one into boiling water. We literally have the same dialogue in spots (“watch the shell”) and the same shots. Go here to see a comparison:
http://www.thedacrons.com/gagfilms/storyboard.html
When I show your video to my friends and colleges, they go “what the hell?”
You sayin’ when you show MY video to your friends they go, “nope...don’t see a resemblance at all”? I’ve now had a couple of obscure friends track me down just to tell me that a JibJab video looks JUST like Scrambled Eggs.
We’ll have to see what the rest of the world thinks.
Dane never got back to me. Jibjab never replied to my request to look at this page.
Send an email to Eric (let 'em know what ya thought)