TV - Movies
The Scandal
On The Big
Bang Theory
You Didn't
Know About
By MELISSA LEMIEUX
"The Big Bang Theory" was an enormous hit during its twelve-season run on CBS but very few viewers of the show were privy to a secret scandal lurking just beneath the surface. The scandal stems from the Season 1 episode "The Pancake Anomaly," when Penny sings a song called "Soft Kitty" to Sheldon in an attempt to soothe him while he's sick.
The song became a staple on the show and was sung several times throughout its run, but it did cause legal problems for the series. In 2015, Ellen Newlin Chase and Margaret Chase Perry sued CBS for copyright infringement because their mother, Edith Newlin published a poem called "Warm Kitty" in a 1937 book titled "Songs for the Nursery School,” that had remarkably similar phrasing.
Willis Music who owns the copyright for the book, claimed at the time that it had hammered out an agreement to use the poem with CBS before the episode aired. The daughter’s lawsuit made its way through the legal system for two more years before being dismissed in 2017 after it was determined that Chase and Perry had failed to prove they owned their mother's copyright on "Warm Kitty."