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15 Famous Characters With Unexpected Origins

Admittedly, “potato chip monster” doesn’t quite have the same ring.

15 Famous Characters With Unexpected Origins

March 05, 2021

Why is it that so many of our favorite characters, heroes and villains have totally unexpected origins? It's a mystery we can't explain, but we're glad for it. Would life really be as interesting if Abe Lincoln didn't start out as a country bumpkin living in a one a room cabin? Or if Ukrainian President Zelensky didn't get his start as a comic actor?

The thing is, this trend extends to fiction as well. We wanted to explore some famous characters will totally unexpected origins. What we found surprised even us.

For example, did you know the entire gang in Scooby Doo was lifted more or less whole cloth from a live action teen drama called The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis? The only thing missing was a talking stoner dog.

And apparently, Cookie Monster’s story begins with … potato chips.

Want to learn more? Scroll down and check out the full details of that and others:

15

Street Fighter's M. Bison got that name kind of randomly. om The original M. Bison M. Bison The character was originally called Vega In the Japanese version of Street Fighter lI, and M. Bison was the name of a boxer character who was a pretty clear homage to Mike Tyson. — Source: Kotaku

14

Scooby-Doo

The Scooby Gang was based on the characters in a 1960s TV show. It was called The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and it was a teen sitcom that the creators of Scooby-Doo basically just lifted the main characters from. CRACKED.COM — Source: Snopes

13

Geordi LaForge was based on a disabled Star Trek superfan. His name was George LaForge, he'd suffered from muscular dystrophy, and he showed up all the time at fan conventions. He made friends with Gene Roddenberry, and Roddenberry remembered him when he was creating characters for The Next Generation. — Source: To Boldly Go: Essays on Gender and Identity in the Star Trek Universe

12

Mario

Mario was only created because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye. When Shigeru Miyamoto was making Donkey Kong, Nintendo tried to license the Popeye characters, but that fell through, so he came up with new onesc. including Mario, the player character. CRACKEDGOM — Source: New Yorker

11

Les Grossman

Tropic Thunder''s Les Grossman was Tom Cruise's creation. The character wasn't in the script, but Cruise said I think you need another villain other than just the 12-year-old drug king, and suggested somebody who embodies the sleaziest, seamiest side of Hollywood. CRACKED.COM — Source: Grantland

10

Jack Kirby came up with The Hulk after seeing a woman lift a car. Her baby got caught underneath it, and in her desperation, Kirby says she lifted the rear of the car to save her baby. He realized that we can all do something like that in desperation or — Source: TCJ

9

Peanuts

Charles Schulz created Franklin because of a fan letter. In 1968, former teacher Harriet Glickman, wrote to Schulz and suggested he add a Black character to peanuts as a small of way of helping change those conditions in our society which led to the assassination of MLK and which contribute — Source: NYTimes

8

Cookie Monster

Cookie Monster was created for an ad for Munchos potato chips. In the ad, he ate up a whole bag of the chips, to the slogan of There's more to a Muncho! Later, he made his way to Sesame Street and found a love of cookies rather than chips. — Source: The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It

7

Aubrey Plaza

They created April Ludgate after a casting director met Aubrey Plaza. The director called Parks & Rec writer Michael Schur and told him I just met the weirdest girl I've ever met in my life. You have to meet her and put her on your show. So Schur met with — Source: AVClub

6

G.. Joe's Snake Eyes is only black to save paint. They made him black so they wouldn't have to put any paint on the action figure c-it's 100% black, the color of the plastic straight from the vat. CRACKEDGOM — Source: 6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

5

Pac-Man was literally inspired by a pizza. When Toru lwatani took a slice from a pizza, he noted that the rest of the pizza now looked like a face with an open mouth, seen from the side. From that, an iconic video game character was born. CRACKED.COM — Source: 6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

4

Harley Quinn was just created for a random gag. The Joker needed a female henchman for a joke in Batman: The Animated Series, so they came up with Harley Quinn. They got rid of the joke but kept her in the background, and viewers really liked her. CRACKED.COM — Source: 6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

3

Wonder Girl

Wonder Girl was the result of the writer not reading Wonder Woman comics. When DC writer Bob Hanes was putting together Teen Titans, a comic book about superhero sidekicks teaming up, he included Wonder Girl as Wonder Woman's sidekick- but she was actually a young Wonder Woman, and the two — Source: 6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

2

The monsters in Where the Wild Things Are were supposed to be horses. The original title of the book was Where The Wild Horses Are, but Maurice Sendak couldn't draw horses to save his life. So the title was changed to Where the Wild Things Are, and Sendak could draw — Source: 6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

1

Alan Moore's Constantine was based on Sting. The artists who worked with Moore on Swamp Thing asked him to come up with a character based on Sting for the comic, so he obliged, and created a warlock who looked, well, just like Sting. — Source: 9 Iconic Superheroes Who Were Based On Real People

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