It’s been far too long since I’ve done a Plagiarism in Pop Culture. The reason is simple: I ran through the list I had and have been compiling a new one, with the intention of starting on it when things slow down some.
To be clear, I’ve gotten a lot of great suggestions (and welcome even more) but this has been a VERY active year for this space. So I simply haven’t had a chance to pick it back up.
That said, sometimes I run across an episode or film that I cannot help but cover, usually because the topic or its handling are just too interesting to pass up. That is exactly what happened here.
Having recently watched (or possibly re-watched) American Dad’s episode Mom Sauce, Episode 13 of Season 14 (or Season 15, depending on numbering), it’s an interesting episode for two reasons. First, it deals with recipe plagiarism, a topic surprisingly missing from this list. Second, it’s a rare case of double plagiarism that also delves into some intellectual property issues.
So how does an absurdist comedy like American Dad deal with the very real issue of recipe plagiarism? Well, absurdly, of course.
The Plot
Content Warning: Spoilers for Episode 13 of Season 14 of American Dad, entitled Mom Sauce.
The episode begins with a flashback to Steve Smith’s childhood, when he was in kindergarten. The teacher introduced a new student, Snot, that she mocks for being poor. Snot sits next to Steve, who gives him a pencil and promises to help him out.
The episode flashes forward to the present and we see that the relationship between Steve and Snot is going on and lopsided financially. Steve even gives Snot “Steve Bucks” to exchange for food and other necessities. He also invites Snot and his mom to have dinner at his house.
While dining with Steve’s mom, Francine, Snot’s mom, compliments Francine’s salad dressing. Steve proudly proclaims that his mom made it by hand, along with everything else. The dinner ends with Snot agreeing to hold his upcoming birthday party at Steve’s house.
However, the next time he sees Snot, Steve realizes that Snot suddenly has money to spend. Even buying the group two “Walletbuster” pizzas. Snot reveals that his mom has been making a ton of money by selling her salad dressing, dubbed “Snot’s Mom’s Mom Sauce.” Trying it, Steve realizes that it’s the same as his mom’s recipe.
This angers Steve, who feels like Snot’s mom ripped off his mom. Tensions between the two grow as Snot becomes more and more insufferable as the wealth goes to his head.
However, when Steve finally tells his mom about the theft, she reveals that Snot’s mom didn’t steal anything from her. The dressing, as it turns out, was never homemade and was simply Newman’s Own brand. When Snot’s mom called her for the recipe, Francine just read the ingredients off the bottle.
Steve, seizing the opportunity, notifies Newman’s Own about the bootleg recipe and “Newman’s Own Copyright Police” raids Snot’s birthday party and arrests Snot’s mom. They place her in “Newman’s Own Women’s Own Prison.”
Steven, distraught that things had gone so far, gets Snot’s mom to trade her toilet wine recipe (which she had been developing in prison) for her freedom. As such, the episode ends with Snot and his family being free but broke, effectively resetting the universe.
Understanding the Plagiarism
Right off the bat, it’s almost impossible to discuss an TV show like American Dad in this context. The show is so absurdist that taking any element of it remotely seriously is an exercise in futility. That said, as the person who has run a site named “Plagiarism Today” for over 21 years, I have a lot of experience with futility.
To start at the beginning, Steve had every right to be upset about Snot’s mom using his mom’s recipe to make a commercial product. Even if it is not illegal (more on that later), it is still highly unethical and a violation of trust. Snot should not have been surprised that Steve was so angered, especially since he believed it was his mom’s secret recipe.
However, I can’t fathom why Steve would believe that about his mom. Francine’s character, if nothing else, is that of an absentee mother who often fails to do the bare minimum for her children. It would be completely out of character for her to make anything from scratch, let alone a salad dressing. The fact that she was passing off a commercial product as her own is hardly surprising knowing Francine.
But this raises an interesting question. While most would agree that Snot’s mom plagiarized (or tried to plagiarize) Francine’s recipe, is what Francine did plagiarism? Saying that something is “hand-made” and/or a “secret recipe” when it’s just a commercial product is definitely a lie, but is it plagiarism? I would argue that it is since it’s taking credit for the work of someone else, but it somehow still feels different, even if it’s difficult to explain why.
But then we enter into the real problem with the episode. Though I’m willing to permit Newman’s Own as having its own police and prison system as artistic license for an absurdist comedy, the fact remains that recipes aren’t protected under copyright law. If Snot’s mom had managed to perfectly reproduce their recipe, the most likely thing it could have been is trade secret, but even that is difficult to argue given that she was read the ingredients off the bottle.
But even if it were a copyright infringement, it would not have likely been a criminal issue. Snot’s mom would have been facing years of civil litigation, but not jail time. Admittedly, that doesn’t make for as good of television.
Furthermore, reading the ingredients off the bottle, as Francine did, isn’t going to help Snot’s mom much. First, you aren’t likely to have those ingredients in your kitchen. Second, though it tells you what ingredients are in the product and in what order, it doesn’t tell you how it was made. It’s literally just a list of chemicals and turning that into a working recipe is going to require a great deal of work.
The one thing we’ve learned without a doubt is that Snot’s mom must be a wizard in the kitchen.
Bottom Line
The episode starts out with Steve having a perfectly legitimate grievance against Snot and his mom. That said, he did look patently stupid when the obvious truth was revealed.
What I liked about the episode wasn’t that it did anything particularly new. Recipe theft is an established trope (The Simpsons did it), as is passing off a commercial product as your own (The Simpsons did it) and is overaggressive copyright enforcement (The Simpsons did it). But the episode combined the three in a way that felt fresh and even more absurd. (And gave me an excuse to reference South Park)
Still, it would have been nice if the episode hadn’t tried to hinge Newman’s Own’s enforcement on copyright law. Copyright simply doesn’t apply here and that could have opened the doors to even more outrageous enforcement scenarios. Though no one should be getting their IP information from American Dad, I know that someone will.
Still, as I’ve said before, sometimes facts and accuracy are necessary sacrifices to the gods of story. To that end, I’m willing to give some slack. As a show as absurd as American Dad, trying to pull anything factual or practical out of an episode is a fool’s errand.
I personally would have preferred if the show had left copyright out of it. We all know that Newman’s Own limits their militarized brand enforcement to trademark infringement anyway…
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