Pop's Chubby Checker condemns use of Palm to check pocket-chubby

Twist star 'stiffed' by app, sues HP

Yesteryear popstar Chubby Checker is suing HP for selling todger tool The Chubby Checker from its webOS app store.

Checker, who topped the charts in 1960 with The Twist, is taking the tech titan and its subsidiary Palm to task over the software, which claimed to predict a man's penis size from his shoe size. It was available as a webOS application between October 2006 and August 2012.

The app, according to Florida news website TCPalm, claimed to provide a useful service to women:

Any of you ladies out there just start seeing someone new and wondering what the size of there (sic) member is. All you need to do is find out the man's shoe size and plug it in and don't worry where your (sic) from because The Chubby Checker supports shoe measurements of different regions and types. Now with The Chubby Checker there is no need for disappointment or surprise.

Now HP have a surprise as Checker, real name Ernest Evans, alleged that app caused a "tarnishment and blurring" of the Chubby Checker trademark. The lawsuit claimed the software "will diminish and destroy the positive associations the public has of the CHUBBY CHECKER name".

Checker and co-plaintiff The Twist Inc believe the popstar sustained "irreparable injury, including financial injury and lost profits" and is asking all profits from the app, punitive damages for the reputation loss and legal fees.

The profits from the app are not likely to have been large: according to WebOSNation, a Palm blog, the $0.99 app was downloaded only 84 times. The software company who created it, Magic Apps, has been dissolved.

Chubby alleged that Palm had full knowledge of The Chubby Checker when it went on sale in its app store six years ago. ®