As far as our top five list of attractive dictators goes, Hitler’s not even on it. You know who is though? General Mao. Sure he was mean, but he had the jaw-line of a god. Adolf was ugly alright – but don’t tell that to Eva Braun. She used to lick sugar off his greasy cheek bones (Germans think that’s an exfoliator). Imagine how dumb she’d feel once she found out he was ugly.

Hideous as he was, though, Hitler apparently had good taste in globes. And that, through a series of strange events, now has Tom Cruise hovering on the brink of a huge gaping lawsuit.

As vile as he was, there were still two admirable traits clearly owned by Adolf Hitler. The first is that he was a real patriot, at least that’s what our great aunt Adolpha told us through what we suspect is a Spanish accent. The second is he owned a really nice globe – nice enough that Tom Cruise went way out of his way to include a replica of it in his recent German one-eyed romantic comedy, whatever it was called. We haven’t seen it yet.

The problem there is the actual physical look of Adolf’s globe was copyrighted by what must be a very lonely fellow. That’s right, the globe itself is a full-fledge copyrighted item, and Cruise and company approached nobody about using it in a film. Page Six can get you up to speed:

“Robert Pritikin – who penned such jingles as “Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat” and has a $40 million art collection – owns several Hitler artifacts, including the Fuehrer’s notorious globe, which he used to plan U-boat attacks from his compound in the Bavarian Alps.

“The globe was replicated and prominently featured in “Valkyrie,” the thriller about a real-life plot to assassinate Hitler – and that has Pritikin mulling legal action. In 2007, Pritikin paid $100,000 for the globe and had its likeness copyrighted to keep it from being used in propaganda by sick neo-Nazi groups.”

A solution the Rice-A-Roni guy has in mind is that Tommy-boy could buy all of his Hitler related paraphernalia and then donate it to a museum or something. Other items Pritikin may have in mind for quick sale include Hitler’s crusty inside-out underpants, the actual withered portion of Hitler’s lip that his tiny mustache used to call home, and a montage of several German puppies. That last one we’re told is quite cute.

If any of that is true it sounds absolutely terrible – but not that all of the Rice-A-Roni guy’s ideas are bad. For instance we’re really thinking about copyrighting all flat maps made during the greater WWII era. And if that works we’re also gonna reserve the image rights to Abraham Lincoln’s stove pipe hat and the white horse that’s always in the background whenever George Washington posed for a prayer painting.

Then we’re just gonna sit back and let the inevitable cash flow in. Thanks for that, Hitler-rice guy, from the bottom of our pocket book.

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