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Johnny Carson is still one of most iconic names on TV. As the head of “The Tonight Show,” he was one of the best late night hosts of all time<\/a>. For more than 30 years, “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” set the bar for late night talk shows with monologues filled with timely jokes about current events, an interview style that made celebrities feel like his (and our) best friends, and hilarious in-show ads for products like Alpo dog food.\u00a0The New York Times<\/a> fondly recalled these moments, while explaining how Carson’s showmanship added a new layer to advertising that made audiences pay attention. While Carson welcomed the idea of promoting products on his show, using his famous catchphrase without authorization proved to be no laughing matter for the host.<\/p>\n Of course, no one can mention Carson without hearing his sidekick, Ed McMahon, shout, “Here’s Johnny!” It’s a well-known phrase that one company decided to adopt to create Here’s Johnny Portable Toilets, Inc., according to casebriefs.com.<\/a> While it’s a funny pun for a toilet company, it also allowed them to cash in on Carson’s popularity, which is something the poophouse purveyors admitted to. Carson reacted by suing the company for a violation of his rights as a creator. He won the lawsuit in 1983, because the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that phrases are included in a celebrity’s publicity rights, especially when a company knowingly uses that phrase to profit off of an individual’s popularity. While the court flushed the company’s claim, it didn’t stop the manufacturer from trying again.<\/p>\n