You know that moment where Phoenix Wright, apparently an ace attorney, decided to cross-examine a parrot in the first Ace Attorney game? Or the time where he accepted a case that would lead to him defending an orca in court? You know how everyone, from the players to the in-game characters themselves, noted how extremely silly all of that was?
Well, the Epic v Apple trial is continuing, with all sorts of ludicrous revelations about the games industry and how lawyers work, and we’re starting to think that Phoenix Wright wasn’t that weird at all.
On the stand today was Matthew Weissinger, Epic’s head of marketing, and part of his cross-examination involved speaking about Peely, the banana man from Fortnite. We have absolutely no idea why the banana man was considered important to the case, but here we are anyway.
“We have a large yellow banana here in a tuxedo,” said Epic’s lawyer, describing Peely for the benefit of the audience both in the court and on the call, where anyone can listen in.
“Yes,” Weissinger replied. “That is Peely.”
“And in fact, in the tuxedo, he’s known as Agent Peely, correct?”
“That’s correct,” said Weissinger.
This is where it begins to take a turn for the weird, if “lawyer talking about a banana in court” isn’t weird enough. The lawyer stated, on the record, that they “thought it better to go with the suit than the naked banana, since we are in federal court this morning,” perhaps referencing the furore over Apple calling indie game store itch.io “offensive” last week
Later on in the court, after a short recess, the lawyer called back to the weird naked banana reference.
“There might have been an implication that to show Peely without a suit would have been inappropriate, do you recall that?” she asked Weissinger, who answered in the affirmative. “Is there anything inappropriate about Peely without clothes?”
Weissinger’s reply is iconic; we don’t doubt that it’ll make it into Fortnite if the team have any sense of humour about this whole weird thing.
“It’s just a banana, ma’am.”
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