Sure, you’ve been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and watched floats glide by and walked the thronged streets afterward with a Hurricane in your hand and your beads around your neck and stopped in to hear “St. James Infirmary” from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band yet again.
While you may have seen a lot of things in N'awlins, you probably haven’t seen a Mardi Gras parade that has you looking down toward the ground instead of up at the incredible work floating by.
For the last three years, a so-called micro-krewe called 'tit Rex (short for 'Petit Rex,' it's pronounced "tea rex" and a pun on the dinosaur name) has put on a lovely walking parade of gorgeous floats made from shoeboxes that beautifully mimic the full-size ones you’ve seen elsewhere in the city.
The floats' designers and artists walk proudly by their creations to be sure they stay on course and don’t get destroyed.
The humble 'tit Rex Krewe has a problem, though. The Rex Organization, one of the city’s biggest Mardi Gras krewes, has all the rights to the word “Rex” in association with the event — and they're not flattered at having a mini-me using their name.
According to The Times-Picayune, Rex wants the walking krewe to ditch its name pronto, before the next Mardi Gras rolls around.
"The idea came from making shoe boxes in the image of your favorite Mardi Gras crew, like Rex," said Bill Lavender of the smaller krewe, according to WDSU. "We said, 'Gosh, what did we do to merit this much attention? We have 30 floats and, as you know, the floats are the size of shoe boxes.'"
Rex issued a cease-and-desist letter last spring but 'tit Rex would like to try and settle the dispute out of court, WDSU reports.
"We are using the name, which is a legitimate use of the name in parody, and our initial consultation with counsel indicates we have a strong case there," Lavender said, according to the site, though naturally, 'tit Rex doesn’t want to go to court.
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