Hello, dear readers. I come to you with an interesting dilemma. A few weeks ago I learned about the arrival to be on August 24th of a comedy mystery movie called The Happytime Murders, created by Brian Henson and others from the world of the late Jim Henson's Muppet media empire. Seeing the official movie trailer at AgonyBooth.com, I recalled once writing a similar themed short story in 2011 entitled "Murder on Poppy Street." It was about an urban neighborhood where puppets lived among and coexisted with humans and centered on a puppet police detective/private investigator named Samuel Phelps who investigates the murders of fellow puppets in this strange community. Phelps sees several crime scenes before tracking the murders down to a furred female puppet called the Marauder invented by human kids show creator "Uncle Johnny" Longbottom to destroy his creations and clear the way for new ones. "Murder on Poppy Street" was accepted by editor George Wilhite, along with two of my Jack Petrov Private Eye/Vampire Hunter stories ("Immorality in Clay and Wax" and "The Idiotic Medium") for his third collection of stories about cities involving unsolved crimes, dark legends and even the supernatural entitled Weird City 3. This paperback anthology was first published by Chris Bartholomew's small press Static Movement in May 2012 and sold on Amazon.com (sadly the volume is still listed but out of print today) and I was pleased to have three stories accepted into this anthology. I had one story accepted in Weird City (April 2011) and two accepted in Weird City 2 also both edited by George Wilhite ("Case of the Green Vampire," a Jack Petrov story in the first volume, "Undying Love Lost" and "The Christmas Murders," two more Petrov stories in the second one).
My point is, based on the trailer and reviews I've seen and read (not having actually seen the film to date but curious to watch it once for comparison), seeing a similar theme in a major motion picture (written by Todd Berger - screenplay and story - and Dee Austin Robinson - story, directed by Brian Henson) makes me wonder if my idea inspired this movie in any way. The movie appears to be very Rated R in tone and content, while my short story had a more PG-13 feeling as a satire on Sesame Street (a show I grew up with in the early 1970's on PBS) being my inspiration to have living puppets and humans interacting in my fictional Poppy Street neighborhood plugged into a bizarre murder mystery. Did anyone involved with this film read my story six years ago when it was first published? How similar is The Happytime Murders to "Murder on Poppy Street" and would I have any legal case of plagiarism (even though my story was a satirical take on Sesame Street mixed with a crime story) against the writers or other creative people behind this film? Or should I just mark it down as an amazing coincidence, since I don't think my story is the same as what I've seen of the movie without actually watching it in its entirety. Of course since the film appears to be failing after its first week in wide release, perhaps I should just forget the whole matter. I would welcome any feedback and commentary on this issue. To anyone who has seen the movie and reads this, if you want to compare it to my story, maybe you can get a used copy of Weird City 3 on some used book website or over at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Weird-City-John-X-Grey/dp/1617062049/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535424225&sr=1-9&keywords=Weird+City+3). The story is on pages 121-136 of the anthology.
My point is, based on the trailer and reviews I've seen and read (not having actually seen the film to date but curious to watch it once for comparison), seeing a similar theme in a major motion picture (written by Todd Berger - screenplay and story - and Dee Austin Robinson - story, directed by Brian Henson) makes me wonder if my idea inspired this movie in any way. The movie appears to be very Rated R in tone and content, while my short story had a more PG-13 feeling as a satire on Sesame Street (a show I grew up with in the early 1970's on PBS) being my inspiration to have living puppets and humans interacting in my fictional Poppy Street neighborhood plugged into a bizarre murder mystery. Did anyone involved with this film read my story six years ago when it was first published? How similar is The Happytime Murders to "Murder on Poppy Street" and would I have any legal case of plagiarism (even though my story was a satirical take on Sesame Street mixed with a crime story) against the writers or other creative people behind this film? Or should I just mark it down as an amazing coincidence, since I don't think my story is the same as what I've seen of the movie without actually watching it in its entirety. Of course since the film appears to be failing after its first week in wide release, perhaps I should just forget the whole matter. I would welcome any feedback and commentary on this issue. To anyone who has seen the movie and reads this, if you want to compare it to my story, maybe you can get a used copy of Weird City 3 on some used book website or over at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Weird-City-John-X-Grey/dp/1617062049/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535424225&sr=1-9&keywords=Weird+City+3). The story is on pages 121-136 of the anthology.