Same Joke, DIfferent Day

Famous Plagiarism Cases


I guess I have to choose here.  I could go the serious music industry route, with Vanilla Ice sampling "under pressure (from the article: "famous coyright infringement plagiarism cases in music")" without really checking to see if it was cool first.  But that would be boring.  Also, I don't care about Vanilla Ice.  I feel like I'm not alone in that, somehow.

No, no.  I needed something hip.  Something the kids these days will get into.  Something catchy--that's it--catchy.  As I thought, a familiar song popped into my head:

 Hmm.  Then another song popped into my head:

A lot of people toss the fact that the Simpsons did something first, when Family Guy makes a similar joke, and it's true--there's just not an infinite amount of humor that can come from an animated family sitcom.  I kinda like this one, though, since it's just so glaringly obvious:

There are other joke similarities like this, but this was almost verbatim from the Simpsons.  Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, claims repeatedly that he doesn't take inspiration from other shows, most notably the Simpsons, but this was a too egregious to ignore.  Carter Pewterschmidt and Marge Simpson are both serendipitously ignorant of the pronunciation of the word "wind," as it refers to blowing air that shakes tree branches?  Not bloody likely.

I used to watch "Family Guy" a lot a few years ago, but as soon as I started watching "The Simpsons" more, it became clear that "Family Guy" is not only less sophisticated in its humor and treatment of situation, but it steals jokes, which were better executed on "The Simpsons!"  I think, while no formal lawsuit has been filed in this matter, that there is at least a distinct lack of interesting material coming from other animated family sitcoms, when compared with "The Simpsons."  I think that the "Family Guy" writing staff are getting lazier as the show continues, and I think that the ultimate mark of a good sitcom is the element of surprise in the dialogue.  That's where the laugh comes from: the unexpected.  And when shows start to borrow from other shows, that's where the element of surprise stops, and the show suffers.

Ultimately, I think plagiarism is wrong.  It's not doing anyone any good to claim someone else's idea or intellectual property as one's own--not only does it cheapen one's credibility, but it robs the world of a potential original thought, which could have been great.  It's tantamount to theft, and it's no way to conduct intellectual business.