Ullman Has a Cow Over ‘Simpsons’ : Lawsuit Alleges She Was Cut Out of Millions in Merchandising Profits

Actress Tracey Ullman, whose one-woman Broadway show “The Big Love” closed a week ago in New York after only 41 performances, opened a new drama this week in Los Angeles Superior Court: a four-count breach-of-contract lawsuit alleging that 20th Century Fox Film Corp. cut her out of millions in merchandising royalties and other profits from Fox Broadcasting’s hit series “The Simpsons.”

In a 14-page suit charging Fox with failure to even give the actress an accounting of the weekly animated series’ profits, Ullman maintained that she and her loan-out corporation, the Mabellino Corp., signed a 1987 agreement with Gracie Films, which produced four seasons of her “The Tracey Ullman Show” for Fox Broadcasting.

That contract provided that she would get 7.5% of the adjusted gross receipts from her series, including residuals and spinoff payments, according to the suit.

Retail sales of “The Simpsons” merchandise and products in 1990 was estimated at $750 million, according to the Licensing Letter, a trade newsletter in Brooklyn. “Simpsons” products placed third that year to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” products, which earned an estimated $850 million to $900 million in sales, and New Kids on the Block, with an estimated $800 million.

Among the spinoff provisions included in the 18-page agreement Ullman made with Gracie Films--the TV production company controlled by producer James L. Brooks--was a contract rider that grants Ullman 5% to 10% of the net receipts of the merchandising and other profits from products or programs based on spinoff characters, including animated characters, even if those characters were originated by others.

At the time that she signed the original agreement with Gracie Films on July 1, 1986, Ullman’s show did not even have a name.

But when it was broadcast by 134 Fox affiliate stations as “The Tracey Ullman Show” the following year, it not only consisted of the British comedian-actress’s own singing, announcing and ensemble comedy skits but also marked the TV debut of artist Matt Groening’s blue-collar animated family, the Simpsons.

According to the suit, the growing popularity of the minute-long vignettes between Ullman skits, featuring Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson, propelled “The Simpsons” into a weekly series. In less than a season, “The Simpsons” became Fox Broadcasting’s single most successful series and created a hugely lucrative secondary licensing industry for Fox. The under-achieving Bart became an unexpected success in the clothing, gift and novelty industry, as products bearing his image--including T-shirts, sweatshirts, refrigerator magnets, key rings, air fresheners, buttons and posters--flooded the market.

Before “The Simpsons” debuted last year as a prime-time series, the oddball cast of characters was familiar to only 14% of Americans, according to a study by Marketing Evaluations Inc. By November of last year, that familiarity quotient had jumped to 85%.

“The Simpsons” has reportedly been picked up by Fox for 24 episodes next season with an option for two more episodes.

A licensing industry survey found that licensors receive an average royalty of 6.79% on sales of their products. Using the Licensing Letter’s estimate of $750 million, Fox’s earnings from the sale of Simpsons products in 1990 are estimated to be about $50.9 million.

Last year Fox’s marketing department was receiving as many as 100 requests a day from potential product licensees, but eventually decided to limit the licensing of products to create a demand. In some respects, that strategy backfired when bootleg Bart T-shirts began cropping up around the country. One source estimated that there are currently about 75 “Simpsons” licensees.

Dennis Petroskey, corporate communications vice president of Fox Broadcasting Corp., told The Times on Thursday that corporate officials had not even been served with the lawsuit, but even after they received it, they would not discuss it.

“It’s company policy not to comment on matters involving litigation,” Petroskey said.

Gracie Films, which struck the original deal to co-produce and air “The Tracey Ullman Show” with 20th Century Fox, is not named as either a plaintiff nor a defendant in the lawsuit. Neither Brooks nor his representatives, who are currently involved in the development of a new comedy series for ABC-TV, could be reached for comment Thursday.

Ullman, who is still in New York following her short-lived stage run as stage mother Florence Aadland in “The Big Love,” also could not be reached for comment.

Industry sources speculated, however, that Ullman did not name Gracie in the legal action and instructed her attorneys to maintain a low profile because she did not want to hurt her professional relationship with Brooks.

Ullman’s original contract for her own fixed compensation per episode of “The Tracey Ullman Show” was only $30,000 with an escalation table that gave her $39,930 per episode in her fourth and final year as the star of her own series, when it was canceled last year.

Her contract also called for 7.5% of the series’ adjusted gross profits and it was under that provision that the merchandising aspect of her compensation was spelled out. According to her contract, Ullman was to receive a percentage of royalties derived from “apparel--including hats; jewelry; cosmetics; products intended for use by animals; animated shows . . . calendars and posters. . . .”

Since 1987, Fox has operated a network of affiliates and wholly owned television stations, including KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, which broadcast “The Tracey Ullman Show” from 1987 to 1990. When it went off the network last year, it was sold into syndication and is now seen over Lifetime cable.

Though the short animated “bumpers” between Ullman skits gave the Simpsons their first national TV exposure, it was a full-length 1989 “Simpsons” Christmas special that launched Groening’s bittersweet satirical cartoon family as a marketing phenomenon. In addition to becoming stars of tank tops and TV, the Simpsons recently became rock and rap stars with a Billboard Top 100 record album. Even though the popularity of the cartoon series has slipped somewhat during the past six months as a result of Fox Broadcasting’s decision to move its time slot from Sunday to Thursday at 8 p.m., opposite NBC’s “The Cosby Show,” “The Simpsons” remain enormously popular.

Reportedly, Groening originally intended to use the characters from his long-running L.A. Weekly cartoon strip “Life in Hell” as the bumpers on Ullman’s show, but opted to invent the Simpsons instead in order to avoid the kind of legal rights dispute that has given rise to the lawsuit.

Following the cancellation of her show, Ullman and her writers received an Emmy for best writing for a variety or music program last fall. In a post-acceptance press conference, Ullman told reporters:

“Maybe I shouldn’t have been so cavalier. Maybe I should have taken those two minutes in the middle of ‘The Simpsons.’ I breast-fed those little devils.”