5 Dumbest Things on Wall Street: May 22

Woody's Big Win (or Dov's Dumb Defeat)

Thanks to a CEO gone Bananas putting up a silly Annie Hall billboard, the director of Take the Money and Run is doing exactly that.

American Apparel (Stock Quote: APP) agreed to pay Woody Allen $5 million to settle a lawsuit over the company's use of his image on advertisements, Allen said on Monday. Allen sued the U.S. clothing company over a year ago seeking more than $10 million in damages after his image was featured without his consent on billboards in New York and Los Angeles. The case was set for trial this week with Allen expected to testify.

The billboards, which were taken down after a week's viewing in 2007, used a frame from Allen's film "Annie Hall" depicting the actor and director as a Hasidic Jew, complete with long beard, side curls and black hat. Allen's lawyers called the ads a "blatant misappropriation" and commercial use of his image. American Apparel's renegade CEO Dov Charney, however, argued the billboards were intended as a parody.

How that parody would help Charney's sell more racy clothing, we aren't exactly sure. But Charney remained defiant even in defeat telling reporters he was "not sorry for expressing myself" and that the case was about "the dignity of ideas."

Sorry Dov. There was not a lick of dignity involved in this charade, just a bad idea followed by a ton of legal fees and an even bigger bill footed by your insurance company and shareholders.

Not that Charney minds showering his lawyers with shareholder dollars. Aside from this quixotic free speech crusade, Charney has kept his legal team busy for years fending off sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuits.

To his lawyers -- and now to Woody -- Charney means only one thing: Ka-ching!.

Dumb-o-meter score: 95 -- Sad to say, Charney's $5 million payout probably outgrossed Woody's last five movies.