According to the NY Post, actor Larry Thomas, who portrayed the infamous Soup Nazi in Seinfeld, is not all that happy that his face is appearing on T-shirts produced by a Florida-based gun manufacturer called Serbu in protest of the ban on the sale of defined assault rifles in New York.
The T-shirts, a picture of which can be seen above, bear Thomas's image as the Soup Nazi, along with the phrase, "No Serbu For You!" - a play on this genius scene. Serbu, which was founded by mechanical engineer Mark Serbu, began distributing the shirts after refusing to sell the NYPD the same assault rifles that were recently banned under the NY Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act. "We have a policy of selling to state law-enforcement agencies only what is allowed to be sold to private citizens in that state," Serbu claimed.
Upon seeing the shirts, Thomas contacted Facebook, Serbu, and the T-shirts manufacturer to complain, saying, "I own the rights to my image as the Soup Nazi. Serbu did not ask my permission, and Facebook won’t take the image down. Not only did they do this without my authorization, but also I am an advocate of gun control...I have seen my face on T-shirts, random objects on eBay in the past, but politically this is the most offensive thing I have seen involving me as the Soup Nazi."
It doesn't seem like this is going to end in a lengthy lawsuit of any sort. Serbu, in a statement to the NY Post, did say that would change the shirts - though his comment was definitely on the weird side: "Larry Thomas doesn’t want his face on our shirt...he’s an actor, he doesn’t want to be involved with something as hot-button as guns. We are just going to shoot him. Only joking. We don’t want to get into a lawsuit; we’ll change the shirts." Yikes.
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[via NY Post]
