If you caught this Sunday night’s episode of ‘Big Brother,’ you saw that a banner was flown over the house during the Head of Household, which took place last Thursday. Feed-watchers knew all about this bit of drama and have been watching the aftermath of the big, bad banner unfold this week. The ‘Big Brother’ producers are trying to put a stop to the banner-madness and have issued a cease and desist to one of the pilots involved.
In an exclusive report, TMZ.com stated that a cease and desist letter was sent to Jerry Hider of Blue Yonder Aerial Advertising, ordering him not to fly a banner over the ‘Big Brother’ house. Edemol USA, Inc (the producer of ‘Big Brother’) was tipped off that Hider was hired to fly a banner over the Big Brother house revealing the “America’s Player” twist to the rest of the houseguests.
Though TMZ states that Hider was not responsible for the banner shown in this week’s episode, which said, “WE (HEART) NICK! AMBER & ERIC ARE LIARS! LNC IS THE NERD HERD,” he was ordered to take down the use of the show’s name from his website. In Hider’s response letter, which can be viewed from TMZ’s website, he did not admit to having flown banners for ‘Big Brother’ fans in this season or any other season. That said, if he was using the show’s title to advertise his services, one might conclude that he’s flown banners over the house before.
Banners are nothing new to the ‘Big Brother’ show. Since the first season, fans and possibly even friends and family of the houseguests have hired planes to fly messages over the Big Brother compound. As the houseguests are cut off from the outside world, it is really the only way for the fans to communicate with them. Usually the banners are messages to certain houseguests warning them of the betrayals or plans by other houseguests. Generally, when one of the ‘Big Brother’ people spots a banner, the houseguests are ushered inside the house until it passes over. On occasion the houseguests will catch some or all of the message before they get inside and this usually serves to add a bit of mystery and drama inside the Big Brother house.
Whether or not the unknown person who hired the plane to fly the “We love Nick” banner over the Big Brother house knew that the houseguests would be outside for the Head of Household competition is not known. As the competition was an endurance comp, which required the houseguests to stay put for a long period of time, Big Brother would not have been able to get all of the houseguests inside without disrupting the competition. And so, the banner was seen and it’s had a pretty big impact on the house this week.
In the case involving Hider, the cease and desist letter alleges that whoever hired Hider was trying to ruin this season’s big twist by revealing to the other houseguests that Eric is America’s Player. As America’s Player, Eric has to vote to evict whichever nominated houseguest America chooses. He also has to perform some other duties, which have included convincing the Head of Household to nominate someone, pretending to sleepwalk into another houseguest’s bed and vandalizing a houseguest’s belongings.
Whether this legal action will put a permanent stop to the banners is debatable but for the time being, Eric’s secret is safe. This whole thing could turn out to be a non-issue though since Eric is up for elimination and could be sent packing by his fellow houseguests this Thursday night.
Below is the banner shown in last Sunday night’s episode of ‘Big Brother’:
