App with a Twist

Published June 24, 2013

Ernest Evans, better known as “Chubby Checker,” had a huge success in the 1960s with the single “The Twist,” which reached number one on the charts in 1960 and again in 1962. Now he has sued Hewlett-Packard over a short-lived smartphone app called “The Chubby Checker,” which HP acquired when it purchased Palm, Inc. in 2010. According to the Huffington Post, “The Chubby Checker” app–ahem!–“estimated the size of a man’s ‘chubby’ based on his shoe size.” (No, we don’t know what that means either, but we guess it must be bad.)

“We cannot sit idly and watch as technology giants or anyone else exploits the name or likeness of an innocent person with the goal of making millions of dollars,” HuffPo quotes Mr. Evans’ lawyer, Willie Gary, as saying, and so he has not sat idly by. Instead, for allegedly associating Mr. Evans’ pseudonym with “obscene, sexual connotations and damaging his professional image,” according to HuffPo, the suit reportedly seeks half-a-million dollars in damages.

The app is no longer available, reports HuffPo, and it was downloaded a total of only 84 times, netting Palm and Hewlett-Packard less than $100.

Source: David Moye, “Chubby Checker Penis Measurement App Lawsuit Latest Twist In A Long Career,” The Huffington Post, 02/15/2013