【Seventeen (2019)】

Winning a copyright infringement case is Seventeen (2019)no joke.

The odds against proving allegations of joke-stealing are longer than a Judd Apatow film, but that hasn't deterred one late-night comedy writer whose case against Conan O'Brien has won the rare privilege of its day in court.

A federal judge in California ruled this week that the 2015 lawsuit by Alex Kaseberg will go before a jury, trial date TBD. Kaseberg -- who's never been staff but says he's sold hundreds of jokes to Jay Leno over 20 years -- cites five times between December 2, 2014 and June 9, 2015, when he posted a joke on his Twitter feed or blog that showed up later that night on the Late Night With Conan O'Brienmonologue.

But the same judge also tossed out two jokes that Kaseberg cited, leaving only three.

Not one of them is any good. One is kind of offensive?

And here they are:

The Tom Brady Joke

Kaseberg: "Tom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. So enjoy that truck, Pete Carroll."

O'Brien: "Tom Brady said he wants to give the truck that he was given as Super Bowl MVP ... to the guy who won the Super Bowl for the Patriots. Which is very nice. I think that’s nice. I do. Yes. So Brady’s giving his truck to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll."

The Washington Monument Joke

Kaseberg: "The Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than previously thought. You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage."

O'Brien: "Yesterday surveyors announced that the Washington Monument is 10 inches shorter than what’s been previously recorded. Yeah. Of course, the monument is blaming the shrinkage on the cold weather. Penis joke."

The Jenner Joke

Kaseberg: "Three towns, two in Texas, one in Tennessee, have streets named after Bruce Jenner and now they have to consider changing them to Caitlyn. And one will have to change from a Cul-De-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless."

O'Brien: "Some cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets’ names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner cul-de-sac it will now be cul-de-nosack."

The two that were thrown out

Here's the first one:

Kaseberg: “The University of Alabama-Birmingham is shutting down its football program. To which the Oakland Raiders said; ‘Wait, so you can do that?’"

O'Brien: “Big news in sports. University of Alabama-Birmingham has decided to discontinue its football team. Yeah. When they heard the news, New York Jets fans said, ‘Wait can you do that? It’s something you can do?’"

And Kaseberg also said Conan ripped off this joke:

“Yesterday, a Delta flight from Cleveland to New York took off with just 2 passengers. Yet somehow, they spent the whole flight fighting over the armrest."

Here's the court filing, obtained by Mashable for your extended reading pleasure.

Kaseberg said he called, wrote and tweeted at the show and its writers in each case, and finally got through to head writer Mike Sweeney after the Washington Monument joke.

It didn't go well. For neither party is this a good look, really.

From the filing:

And although Plaintiff was finally able to reach him, Plaintiff characterized the resulting conversation as an "agonizing" one, where Sweeney "angrily and loudly" denied any suggestion that "his writers would have anything to do with [Plaintiff’s] pathetic blog and it’s [sic] author, [Plaintiff], a no-name failure."

O’Brien's reps have not yet responded to Mashable's request for a statement, but provided one to Vanity Fair, saying "We are very pleased that the court has granted summary judgment and dismissed two of the jokes at issue. We can’t comment further on pending litigation, but we are extremely confident that once the facts are presented to a jury, we will be fully vindicated."

Andy agrees.

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