At TIC Towers, we know that there is very little new under the sun. Some days, it feels that every song has been sung and that we are facing endless rounds of remixes.
As our columnist Myra DuBois recently put it: “You can’t escape pop culture. It’s entirely natural that other people will be popping up on the scene with similar acts to your own as they will have been exposed to the same influences as yourself. No one is stealing your act.”
Having said all that, there are cases when a homage goes too far, a pastiche becomes a photocopy and a performer not only takes the biscuit but the entire biscuit tin it came in. We’ve all seen this before.
Compare and contrast the following two videos and let us know what you think.
Piff The Magic Dragon attempting to fool Penn & Teller.
An entrant on what is apparently a Russian show on Channel TV3 called Surprise Me.
Well I just go ahead and say what everyone else is ignoring…
Russian Piff is very, very attractive.
That is extremely embarrassing to watch. But did he license the act from Piff or was this really a full on televised rip-off?
From @thepiff: “Wow! Just found out I have a long lost brother in Russia! Andrey Chekanuk!! Which loosely translated means ‘I’ll see you in court MoFo’!”
I have no idea what the court system is like in Russia, but if that is indeed the case, I hope he gets compensation for this.
It’s still so hard to believe. The guy seems like he could be bright. Mind you, I don’t speak a lick (nor drink) of Russian so the guy could have a sack of rocks in his head. If the guy really did rip him off, did he really think that, with the internet being what it is, he’d ever get away with this? And with the same costume???
It’ll be interesting following this story.
That’s just taking the Piff!
Utterly shameless to a stomach-churning degree not to mention completely and utterly inferior in terms of performance..
I wish Piff and his lawyer the best of luck slaying this particular beast!
From Piff: Andrey The Epic Fail Dragon – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNbjlJFDM00&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Wow, beloved Piff this is indeed shameless, good luck sorting it out. Terribly cheeky of the RuskiePiff!