Felix the Cat Pulls Suit Out of His Bag

An awful affair . . . No “Tutti Frutti” . . . Drunken magic . . . Save the aisle seat for Judge Starr.

Hey, fellow boomers, remember Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat? Whenever he’d get in a fix, he’d reach into his bag of tricks. So said his theme song, anyway. In real life, Felix calls in the lawyers, just like everybody else.

Felix the Cat Productions, based in New York, is suing New Line Cinema in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleging that its trademarked cartoon boy genius, Poindexter, made an unauthorized cameo appearance in the 1998 film “Pleasantville.”

We don’t specifically remember this, but apparently Poindexter pops up in a clip shown on one of the Pleasantville television sets.

According to the suit by Pasadena attorneys Jeffrey and Samantha Grogin and Janis Abrams, New Line approached Felix about using Poindexter in the movie. But the studio went away after Felix began asking pointed questions about whether the film was meant for children or adults. Poindexter, according to the suit, appears only in kids shows.

Lo and behold, the suit says, a faux Poindexter appeared in the film anyway. Felix seeks more than $1 million in damages and is considering suing each of the 2,000 movie theaters that showed “Pleasantville,” court papers say.

No comment from New Line.

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AFFAIR TO REMEMBER: Before you even think about having that little office fling, consider the affair of Clifford and Elisabeth. It will make you cringe.

He was a 41-year-old partner at a top Los Angeles law firm, married with teenage children. She was a 30-year-old paralegal unhappily wed to a man twice her age. Their 1992 office romance resulted in a child, two tattered careers and a sequence of events a state appeals court called “a real-life tragedy similar to the movie ‘Fatal Attraction.’ ”

True, nobody’s bunny got boiled. But in many ways, the facts of “this dreadful case,” as laid out in Justice John Zebrowski’s 2nd District Court of Appeal opinion, are far creepier than anything Hollywood could conjure.

Elisabeth got pregnant. Clifford broke up with her and went back to his wife. Elisabeth got transferred, but she never got over Clifford.

She burst unannounced into his office. He locked her out. She followed him into the men’s room. He commuted to the Riverside office to avoid her. She let her fingers do the walking, phoning him repeatedly, 36 times in one day.

At home, he changed the number four times. Still, she kept calling, talking to his wife, his kids.

He lost 30 pounds. His muscles began to twitch. He grew severely depressed. The other partners asked him to step down, which cut his income in half. Unable to concentrate, he went on disability. He lost his house.

She sued. It backfired.

In the end, the Court of Appeal upheld a Los Angeles Superior Court verdict against the love-struck paralegal, Elisabeth Saret-Cook, saying she must pay $1.3 million in damages and legal fees to her former law firm--Gilbert, Kelly, Crowley & Jennett--and her erstwhile lover, lawyer Clifford Woolsey.

Still want to have that fling?

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GOOD GOLLY: Rock ‘n’ roll legend Little Richard is suing a British music production company for allegedly backing out of a verbal agreement to pay him $210,000 to perform seven concerts across the pond.

The performer, who was born Richard Wayne Penniman, contends in his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that he agreed in March to perform in England, but the Flying Music Co. backed out before the deal could be put in writing. Nonetheless, the self-described “architect of rock ‘n’ roll” wants his payday. An ordained minister, Little Richard is known for his pompadour, eyeliner and 1950s classics such as “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Tutti Frutti.”

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DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? Longtime magician Tony Giorgio is suing the Academy of Magical Arts, the Hollywood Magic Castle and its board of directors for allegedly ruining his April 1996 comeback performance by letting “noisy, belligerent drunks” sit in the audience.

Giorgio claims in his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that board members lied to him for three years, denying that they had planted drunks in the audience. But two toasted middle-age women heckled him and physically assaulted him, Giorgio claims.

One of the board members told Giorgio that 14 people canceled their dinner reservations because he was rude, the suit says. Later, Giorgio contends, he found out that was not true.

They told him they wouldn’t rehire him because he “couldn’t cut it,” court papers say. Giorgio denies he was rude.

He is seeking compensation for embarrassment, mental anguish, emotional distress, illness and “loss of ambition.”

Will the Magic Castle’s lawyers be able to pull a rabbit out of their hats? Whatever, so long as they don’t boil it.

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QUOTABLE: “I hate ‘Wag the Dog.’ I especially hated the end of ‘Wag the Dog.’ Nobody wants to see Dustin [Hoffman] taken out . . . especially by government officials.”

--Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, discussing politics and the movies with Los Angeles Times editors.