So This Manatee Walks Into the Internet
On 4 December’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” there was a skit about an “absurdist college sports mascots that the host and his writers would like to see someday”. At the end of the skit O’Brien adlibbed and that the voyeur (a member of the show’s band) was watching www.hornymanatee.com. At the end of the show though, no website existed so NBC were presented with a quandry – “If a viewer were somehow to acquire the license to use that Internet domain name, then put something inappropriate on the site, the network could potentially be held liable for appearing to promote it. So as the New York Times reports “In a pre-emptive strike inspired as much by the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission as by the laws of comedy, NBC bought the license to hornymanatee.com, for $159, after the taping of the Dec. 4 show but before it was broadcast.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/arts/television/12mana.html
So This Manatee Walks Into the Internet
On 4 December’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” there was a skit about an “absurdist college sports mascots that the host and his writers would like to see someday”. At the end of the skit O’Brien adlibbed and that the voyeur (a member of the show’s band) was watching www.hornymanatee.com. At the end of the show though, no website existed so NBC were presented with a quandry – “If a viewer were somehow to acquire the license to use that Internet domain name, then put something inappropriate on the site, the network could potentially be held liable for appearing to promote it. So as the New York Times reports “In a pre-emptive strike inspired as much by the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission as by the laws of comedy, NBC bought the license to hornymanatee.com, for $159, after the taping of the Dec. 4 show but before it was broadcast.”