Fox Bullied Firefly Fans Over The Show’s Best Prop
Remember when Fox decided to start sending out cease-and-desist notices to the various folks on the internet who were making and selling “Jayne hats,” based on the chapeau sported by Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin) in Firefly? Yeah, it happened just because some folks were trying to make a small buck over a relatively harmless piece of costume work.
See, an outfit called Ripple Junction purchased the licensing rights to make “official” Firefly Jayne hats, so Fox went and got legal on all the crafty who had been selling homemade versions of the cap for years now.
Sure, Fox and Ripple Junction are certainly within their legal rights, but given that Fox also aired Firefly out of order and then canceled it, many Browncoats were more than a little disdainful of the studio’s sudden interest in the property. Thankfully, Broancoats are a cunning lot, so some were already trying to find gaps in Fox’s legal armor.
Take Amanda Harris-Matthews of Griffith, Indiana. Sadly, she had no Firefly Jayne hat to sell you. But she does have this other hat, see? It’s a controversial hat, one with a very interesting backstory involving a simple girl named Jane, and a cruel and malicious fox. In an effort to subvert the Fox letters, she crafted a full story about Jayne and the hat. It didn’t totally work.
The Firefly tale goes on from there. It’s a tragic tale, and it’ll make you wish somebody would teach that mean old fox a lesson or two about appreciating the fans — er, farmers of the world.
The Fox cease-and-desist letters regarding the Firefly Jayne hats did mostly “work” on a high level. Some fans had their Etsy stores shut down after receiving the cease-and-desist notices from Fox for selling the unlicensed Jayne hats.
Fox didn’t actually file any lawsuits against Firefly fans over the Jayne hat sales, but their message was overwhelmingly clear.
For the uninitiated, the Firefly Jayne hat is a floppy, oversized knitted cap with dangly earflaps and a pom-pom on top. It was made “famous” by the character Jayne Cobb, played by Adam Baldwin in the series. In Firefly, it was established that the ramshackle-looking but durable hat was a handmade gift from Jayne’s mother.
Adam Baldwin being such a goofy and loveable character in the show made the Firefly Jayne hat recognizable to fans. It’s a shame Fox wouldn’t just let folks send some out of their own.
