Courteney Cox’s ABC show has a lot of explaining to do, says Port Richmond hoagie shop owner Dennis Slack.
ABC’s “Cougar Town” stole Slack’s Hoagie Shack logo, and changed the name to “Mel’s Hoagie Hut” for one of its recent episodes, says Slack.
“Customers, especially female customers, were coming in and saying, ‘I think I saw your logo on television last night,” Slack tells NBC Philadelphia.
When Slack got home, he found the “Cougar Town” clip on YouTube and became frozen in front of the computer.
“Why did they use it without calling me,” Slack says. “And they changed the name! And what I was upset about was the missed nation-wide exposure for Slack’s Hoagie Shack.”
The “Cougar Town” episode with Slack’s logo aired in April. ABC representatives told Slack that the logo was done in-house and any similarities were an accident.
Then Slack e-mailed the network a side-by-side comparison of what it aired and what he personally created 22 years ago and hangs on all 15 of his chain restaurants.
Slack says that his logo has been trademarked since 1988.
“They asked me, ‘What would make you happy,’” Slack tells NBC Philadelphia. “What would make me happy is to do what should’ve been done up front. Give me that one to one-and-a-half national exposure on prime time TV.”
And after a month of back-and-forth with ABC, Slack says the network thinks it has won.
“They’re just going to do what they want…and I’m stuck out in the cold,” Slack says.
