John Oliver ended Sunday night’s Last Week Tonight by daring Texas gas station giant Buc-ee’s to pick on a company its own size—and putting the dare on T-shirts, mugs, underwear, and more.
The chain of supersized travel centers has developed a cult following across the South, with its smiling cartoon beaver appearing on seemingly endless varieties of snacks and merchandise.
But as Oliver explained, Buc-ee’s has taken protection of its cartoon beaver trademark to extremes, repeatedly suing smaller businesses whose logos feature cartoon animals—even when they bear little or no resemblance to its beaver.
The company has argued that various alligators, bears, moose, and rodents share elements with its mascot design, citing their circular backgrounds, bright colors, hats, wide eyes and smiling side profiles.
Buc-ee’s has prevailed in nearly all of the cases it has brought, Oliver noted, usually because the other companies settled, redesigned their logos or folded completely. But he also quoted one legal expert’s warning that the chain could eventually encounter someone with both the means and the will to fight back.
“Which is where we come in,” Oliver said.
To make his point, Oliver brought back Mr. Nutterbutter, the seven-foot squirrel mascot whose 2017 Last Week Tonight appearance helped provoke coal executive Bob Murray’s unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against Oliver and HBO.
The show gave Mr. Nutterbutter a new “Buck Off” logo incorporating nearly every characteristic Buc-ee’s has objected to elsewhere: a smiling cartoon animal facing right, a red tongue, a black circle, a yellow background and an arbitrarily selected hat.
Then it turned the logo into an actual product line.
For a limited time, the show is selling “Buck Off” tumblers, hats, shirts, onesies, mugs, pajamas, umbrellas, stickers, socks, and underwear through Buc-Off.com, with all profits going to Hunger Free America.
“If any prominent gas station chain out there has an issue with our new logo and products and wants to get lawyers involved, then you know what? Bring it the f*ck on,” Oliver said.
The stunt puts Last Week Tonight in a somewhat different legal position than the smaller businesses Buc-ee’s has targeted. The “Buck Off” logo is an explicit parody commenting on Buc-ee’s trademark practices, which gives HBO unique legal cover—though selling the image on merchandise means parody would not necessarily provide automatic protection.
Oliver closed the show by walking over to a replica Buc-ee’s exterior refashioned with the “Buck Off” branding, where Mr. Nutterbutter joined him wearing his legally provocative hat.
“The beaver nugget is in your court,” Oliver told Buc-ee’s. “The next move is yours.”
