6

Marvel Comics' Thanos Is Editorially-Approved Plagiarism

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

5

DC Comics' Swamp Thing Is A Ripoff Of A Ripoff

DC Comics

DC is busy throwing every character they have in their hero catalog at the screen for Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice and the presumably inevitable Justice League followup. But there's still one character whom we can be reasonably sure still won't make an appearance: Swamp Thing.

He's a super ... hero? Sort of? ... made completely out of plant matter who uses his plant-based powers to protect nature and the swamp he lives in from swamp-related evil threats. So, kind of like if Shrek hooked up with Poison Ivy and had a freak baby.

DC Comics
"I am the Lorax, and I kill for the trees."

It's a laughable concept for a character that somehow took off and managed to get its own franchise, but Marvel wasn't laughing. Swamp Thing shambled onto the comic store shelves only a month after Marvel introduced their own swamp-based character, hilariously named "Man-Thing."

Marvel Comics
"You know what they say about guys with long face tendrils ..."

4

The Cabbage Patch Kids Were Stolen From A Doll Maker

William McKeehan

For those too young to remember Cabbage Patch Kids: It was a line of sort of freaky-looking soft dolls popular in the '80s and '90s. Their mythology held that they were babies who were born in a cabbage patch somewhere deep within the Uncanny Valley.

Bryn Colton/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
"I fucked all the cabbage moms myself."

3

The Wayans Brothers' Little Man Was Ripped Off From An Old Bugs Bunny Cartoon

Columbia Pictures

The Wayans Brothers are writers and directors who brought us the Scary Movie franchise, and are thus responsible for the entire genre of terrible parody trash which stank up our cinemas for years to come. The umbrella covers brothers Shawn, Marlon, and Keenan Ivory (while usually excluding the fourth brother, Major Payne star Damon, who kind of likes to distance himself from the family trade).

In 2006, the Wayans, fresh off the "success" of White Chicks, brought us another "original" concept with Little Man, starring Marlon Wayans as a CGI dwarf who plots to steal the world's largest diamond by pretending to be a baby, in spite of his fully proportionate adult features and five o'clock shadow.

Though the entire concept is, let's face it, downright insulting to little people on every level imaginable, the very least we can say is that the idea is fresh. Unless you count that time Looney Tunes did the exact same story, minus the sexually explicit jokes, in a 1954 short called Baby Buggy Bunny.

In case you're still inclined to chalk this up to coincidence to defend the Wayans Brothers' creative talent, the similarities don't begin and end with a diminutive bank robber stealing back his treasure by wearing a diaper. Both Little Man and the Bugs Bunny cartoon share several of the same specific jokes, including a game of "upsy-daisy" in which the man-baby strikes his head on the ceiling, a running gag in which the man-baby hits people with a frying pan when they turn out the light, and a scene in which the man-baby is caught shaving with a tattoo on his shoulder.

Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers
Some writer's salary was justified entirely by the decision to include puppy slippers.

2

Foghorn Leghorn Was A Cartoon Version Of An Old Comedy Character

Warner Brothers

Let's be frank: The characters created during the 20th century's golden age of cartoons had hardly a single original idea between them. Pretty much everything back then was written as a caricature of some already-famous human: Bugs Bunny is a carrot-smoking Groucho Marx, The Flintstones are a prehistoric version of The Honeymooners, and Snagglepuss was riffing on the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard Of Oz. There were plenty of moments of genius once the series got going, but the character concepts really did seem like they were frantically slapped together at 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.

So you shouldn't be surprised that the entire personality of Looney Tunes' own loudmouthed rooster, Foghorn Leghorn, was I-say-I-say-I-say totally ripped off from someone else's original creation.

Warner Brothers
Nice chicken, but about as novel as a baby book written by a blind baby.

Claghorn, that is. Senator, that is. Pay attention, now, boy: The entire basis of Foghorn Leghorn was a character created by comedian Kenny Delmar for the popular radio program The Fred Allen Show. Senator Beauregard Claghorn was a parody of your typical Southern politician of the time, and his schtick was accentuating the regional lingo and making gags at the expense of the North, such as "When I got the chicken pox, they were southern fried!" That's a joke, son.

1

Mega Man Is A Redesigned Astro Boy

Capcom

Mega Man stands among Mario, Sonic, and Hand Holding A Gun as one of gaming's most iconic characters. Debuting in 1987, the character has starred in about a billion sequels and spinoffs. Which is quite impressive, considering how his entire existence began as a last-minute, slapped-together take on another classic character. This guy:

Dark Horse Comics
Want to draw a schoolboy in his underwear but not risk going to jail? Make him a robot!

The original Mega Man began life as a game adaptation of Astro Boy, the Japanese cartoon and manga character that was at the height of his popularity at the time. The Capcom company put together plans to create a video game based on Japan's favorite prepubescent android, but they failed to secure the license to the character.

Again, if that were to occur today, we like to think they'd go back to the drawing board with a brand-new original character. But by this point in the article, you know that only one option remained on the table for Capcom: Change it juuuuust enough to give them a plausible argument should it go to court. This basically means they colored him blue, gave him a hat, and renamed him "Mega Man."

Discotek Media, Capcom
"They're nothing alike! Our guy's hand cannon is totally on the other ... shit."

The rest they kept. Both characters were created in a lab by a mad scientist in the image of the scientist's dead son, and both have a rival in the form of an older "brother," an original prototype created and rejected by their mutual creator -- for Mega Man, it's Proto Man, and for Astro Boy, it's Cobalt.

Of course, the game series went on to sell 30 million copies across multiple platforms, and the Astro Boy roots are long forgotten. And that, kids, is our lesson for today: The key to ripping something off and getting away with it is making sure your version is more successful.

If you have any ideas you'd like B.T. Doran to rip off from you, you can let him know here.

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For more famous characters that were straight stolen, check out 6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Ripoffs and 5 Iconic Characters You Didn't Know Were Ripoffs.

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