John Oliver Doubles Down After Latest Buc-ee’s Trademark Bullying Lawsuit

from the buc-off dept

The Buc-ee’s trademark bullying saga continues! The company, once best known for building ridiculously enormous gas station and convenience store combinations has more recently become nearly as infamous for its bullying and litigious behavior. Buc-ee’s has a habit of suing all kinds of other businesses for trademark infringement, so long as those other businesses use cartoon animals in their logos, or have any kind of reference to beavers in their name and branding. John Oliver and his crew on Last Week Tonight recently caught wind of all of this and decided to poke the beaver in the eye, spinning up their own store featuring clothing with its anthropomorphic squirrel mascot on it and text that reads “Buc Off!”, and closed that segment begging Buc-ee’s to file suit over it all.

The company didn’t do so. Instead, they continued their trademark bullying ways and sued a small convenience store in Beavercreek, Ohio, called Beaver’s Mini Mart. Notably, that store has been doing business for many years and Buc-ee’s only recently opened a location 16 miles or so away.

If you thought this would somehow escape Oliver and his team, you were wrong. Oliver once again closed his latest show with the same topic.

But in Last Week Tonight’s Aug. 9 episode, Oliver doubled down, extending the timeline of Buc-Off merch sales in response to Buc-ee’s suing Beaver’s Mini Mart in Ohio.

“The good news is we’ve raised almost half a million dollars for Hunger Free America so far,” Oliver said. “The bad news is it doesn’t seem Buc-ee’s got the message, because apparently they’re at it again. Yep, turns out, they’re still filing lawsuits,” Oliver continued. “You might be trying to name the Buc-ee’s beaver Mitch McConnell, because it seems this b—h will not quit.”

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You can see the clip below if you have an HBO subscription (the link is for the whole episode, but it should start at the 31 minute mark).

Oliver recounts several details why this latest lawsuit is so stupid. The name of the town. The way the company is pissing off the local residents and causing them to rally around the local convenience store. The bad press. And, lastly, drawing the continued ire of Last Week Tonight, which seems dedicated to continuing to point out just how shitty Buc-ee’s is being in all of this.

Oliver noted that while the Buc-Off online store was supposed to close Sept. 8, it is “staying f–king open” for as long as Buc-ee’s is suing Beaver’s Mini Mart. Chron has reached out to Buc-ee’s legal counsel for comment. 

Before the episode ended, Last Week Tonight mascot Mr. Nutterbutter made an appearance in a Beaver’s Mini Mart T-shirt. When the mascot made a sad gesture, Oliver asked if he was disappointed that the travel stop still hadn’t sued them. When Mr. Nutterbutter said yes, Oliver had words of reassurance for the giant squirrel. 

“It could still happen,” Oliver said. “Especially because our store is still open.”

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I can only hope that Buc-ee’s’ plan to wait for Oliver to get bored of all of this doesn’t work.

Filed Under: john oliver, trademark, trademark bullies

Companies: buc-ee’s