NEW YORK — CBS' "The Late Show" aired a comedy segment last night where host Stephen Colbert listed puns connecting the Beatles with sex toys, riffing off of the recent legal settlement between drummer Ringo Starr and Screaming O over the distribution of the RingO (now “Ring O”) penis rings.
Colbert’s joke products included “The Paul McCart-knob,” “The Butt-ish Invasion,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Dildo,” “Back in the A.S.S.A.hhh,” “Eleanor’s Big D,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Always Hard Club Band,” “Norwegian Wood,” “Bang Bang Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Come Together.”
As is typical in prudish U.S. network television, even late at night, images of the pretend sex toys were digitally blurred, even though the host and the audience kept laughing at increasingly ribald wordplay involving anal sex and erections.
As XBIZ reported last Friday, Starr recently dropped a U.S. trademark case against Screaming O’s parent companies Pacific Holdings and Momentum Management over their RingO product line, after a settlement was reached.
Pacific Holdings and Momentum Management have agreed to "avoid any activity likely to lead to confusion" between the penis rings and the musician, to add a space between "Ring" and "O," and to use the name only for adult sex aids and desensitizing sprays.
Starr had “challenged the RingO trademark, saying it's too similar to his name and might cause confusion,” the BBC reported.
Starr’s lawyers argued that “his reputation would be damaged if the RingO name was registered as a trademark with US authorities.”
