In a case of processed meat versus pure ham, a federal judge in New York City ruled that Hormel Foods Corp., which makes Spam, cannot bar Jim Hen-son Productions, Miss Piggy's parent company, from including a feral pig named Spa'am in their film Muppet Treasure Island, due this February. Hormel argued that Spa'am is "evil in porcine form," not the image it wants for its similarly named meat product. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood found the character "childish rather than evil," and said moviegoers are able to distinguish between a puppet and a lunch meat....
The rock group Spin Doctors sued Miller Brewing Co. on Sept. 21 in Los Angeles, claiming that music used in a commercial for Miller Lite Ice beer is too similar to the band's song "Two Princes." The group seeks $25 million and an injunction against Miller's use of its music....
Ex-daredevil Evel Knievel, 56, pleaded no contest in a San Jose, Calif., court on Sept. 22 to weapons possession charges involving the stashing of three guns and two knives in his car trunk. He was sentenced to 200 hours of teaching kids about bicycle safety. Police found the arms last October when Knievel was arrested for allegedly battering his girlfriend Krystal Kennedy, 25. She and Knievel later reconciled and the charges were dropped.
Engagement revealed: NYPD Blue alum David Caruso, 39, and former flight attendant Margaret Buckley, twentysomething, got engaged in the spring. The couple, who met last year on a crosscountry flight, have yet to announce the date of the wedding. Caruso has a daughter Greta, 10, with his second wife, actress Rachel Ticotin. In July, Caruso settled the palimony suit brought by his ex-girlfriend Paris Papiro.
On Sept 20, rocker Eddie Money, 46, and his wife, Laurie, 30, welcomed their fifth child, Matthew Julian (6 lbs., 15 ozs.), in Westlake Village, Calif.
Retired CBS newsman Charles Kuralt, 61, was released on Sept. 26 from Cornell Medical Center in New York City, after two days of tests to determine the cause of chest pains. His doctors recommended he return for heart bypass surgery.
Singer Gladys Knight, 51, wed motivational speaker Les Brown, 50, in Las Vegas last month after a three-year engagement. Knight has three children from two previous marriages and Brown has seven children, also from two earlier marriages....
Palm Beach lady of letters Roxanne Pulitzer, 44, is embarking on marriage No. 4. She said "I do" on Sept. 19 to businessman Harold Dude, 51, in Nassau, Bahamas. Pulitzer was last wed to socialite John Haggin Jr., for a total of 57 days, in 1992. She has twin teenage sons from her second marriage, to heir Peter Pulitzer.
Nobel Prize-winning writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's talk show career has proved even shorter than Pat Sajak's. A year after his debut as the host of Russian TV's A Meeting with Solzhenitsyn, the program was axed on Sept. 25 because of low ratings. Meeting was originally a gabfest with guests, but Solzhenitsyn, who returned to his native land in 1994 after 18 years in the U.S., soon began devoting the show to solo rants about contemporary Russia's shameful moral state.
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