26 Characters & Performances That Were Ripoffs

Know what’s original? Nothing, as it turns out.
26 Characters & Performances That Were Ripoffs

Insufferable people love to point out that there's nothing original in the world, and that everything's derivative. The thing is, not only are they right -- they're actually understating the problem. It turns out a lot of famous characters, movies, and even complete personas are ripped off in their entirety from someone or something else.

We'd like to think it's inadvertent, but it's pretty hard to ignore the incredible similarities between things like ...

26 Characters & Performances That Were Ripoffs
CRACKED COM Zorro had a 20-year head start on the whole rich playboy who is a masked vigilante at night and keeps his stuff in a cave under his mansi
THE XENOMORPH WASN'T THE FIRST PARASITIC BREEDER. THE VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE A.E. van Vogt A. E. Van Voght sued Fox over Alien's similarities to h
26 Characters & Performances That Were Ripoffs
CRACKED.COM A young FBI agent infiltrates a gang of extreme sports enthusiasts to investigate a string of robberies. If you've ATCK KEANU NEEVES seen
26 Characters & Performances That Were Ripoffs
26 Characters & Performances That Were Ripoffs

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AVATAR WAS FIRST PUBLISHED BY MARVEL. Timespirits is a very obscure comic from the '80s that only ran for a few issues, but it certainly looks enough
CARS IS DOC HOLLYWOOD WITH... WELL, CARS. ROUITE Rustere In 1991, an arrogant young man was sentenced to community service in a small town after destr
X-MEN IS PRETTY MUCH DOOM PATROL. (DC) HE WORL LOSMST AQA HFROESA (20 DOOM ATAOIL DC'S Doom Patrol is about a group of super-powered freaks shunned by
26 Characters & Performances That Were Ripoffs
26 Characters & Performances That Were Ripoffs
SUPERMAN CRACKEDCON IS A RIP- OFF OF A PULP NOVEL. CLADIATOR Hugo Danner, protagonist of Gladiator, has super strength, bulletproof skin, and the abil
CRACKED COM Ralph Kramden is a loud- mouthed family man, has a dim-witted best friend, enjoys bowling, and is a member of a lodge. Exactly like Fred F
MONSTERS, INC HAD ALREADY BEEN MADE. In 1989's Little Monsters, a boy follows a blue monster under his bed into a secret world connected to every chil
GREEN LANTERNS ARE LENSMEN. Aard E Smith PERD Any space police force is ripping off the Lensman saga, which started one year before Green Lantern. Bot

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THE JETSONS IS A FUTURISTIC BLONDIE. Meet a father with a thankless job, his wife, their two children, and their grey dog. When The Jetsons came BLOND
COBRA IS HYDRA. When Marvel was commissioned for a G.I. Joe comic in the early '80s, they recycled an old pitch about elite S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers figh

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POLTERGEIST WAS INSPIRED BY THE TWILIGHT ZONE. The TWILGHT ZONE The 1960s episode Little Girl Lost follows a plot almost identical to the 1982 mov
THE LIon Simba's story is KING suspiciously LOOKS similar to Kimba the White Lion, up to A LOT LIKE and including the shaman monkey, A 1960s comic rel
IIGS PRESENTS GE No.1 $1.00 CAN L2S DD ROBOCOP IS A JUDGE DREDD MOVIE. Both director Paul Verhoeven and scriptwriter Ed Neumeier admit that the Britis
CRACKEDGOM THE HUNGER GAMES IS IDENTICAL TO A JAPANESE MOVIE. The author of The Hunger Games claims she wasn't aware of Battle Royale. Still, the main
OLAF WAS (MAYBE) STOLEN FROM AN INDIE CARTOON. Frozen's teaser trailer looks suspiciously like the short The Snowman, released three years earlier- SO
WOLVERINE STOLE TIMBER WOLF'S SCHTICK. Both Wolvie and DC Comics' Wolfie, who debuted ten years earlier, are short-tempered members of superhero teams
CRACKED CO COM TED'S PREMISE IS IDENTICAL TO IMAGINE THIS. While there's no evidence that Seth MacFarlane was influenced by the comic strip, created f
An adventurer races against the enemy to retrieve an ancient artifact in 1954's Secret of the Incas, and again in 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. HARR
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