10 Times Disney Blatantly Stole From Other Movies

It's becoming increasingly apparent that Disney is basically taking over the world, at least as far as pop-culture and entertainment are concerned.

With their insanely lucrative ownership of both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars franchise, not to mention their litany of classic self-created animated and live-action properties, their subsidiaries such as Pixar and their impending acquisition of Fox, they're basically a money-printing factory at this point.

They didn't get there without a whole lot of effort, ingenuity, business sense and, yes, a healthy sprinkling of "inspiration", though. Perhaps more than any other major creative entity in Hollywood, the Mouse House has been accused of liberally lifting ideas from other sources - be they prior animations or live-action movies - and not even giving due, decent credit.

These 10 Disney movies, most of them solid gold, undeniable classics, owe a wealth of their success to less-esteemed properties that arguably deserve some recognition for the A-list hits they helped create.

Naturally, the parties involved with the creation of these projects typically aren't too fond to admit their cribbing from existing works, but regardless of what they or a court of law says, the evidence itself is overwhelming...

10. Aladdin (The Thief & The Cobbler)

Disney's 1992 classic Aladdin remains a key entry into the much-ballyhooed Disney Renaissance, and with damn good reason: it's one of the company's most visually stunning and charmingly performed efforts to date.

However, Aladdin bears a remarkable similarity to The Thief and the Cobbler, an unfinished animated film which was in development for almost 30 years starting in the 1960s. Various cut-to-shreds versions of the incomplete project were eventually released in a few territories, and it's clear from even these piecemeal versions that Aladdin owes a great debt to it.

The story, the animation style and especially the characters of The Thief and the Cobbler had an obvious influence on Aladdin, namely antagonist Zigzag, whose pencil-thin moustache and angular jar immediately resemble Aladdin's Jafar, and whose blue face clearly influenced Disney's design of the Genie.

It's not terribly surprising that many of the personnel working on The Thief and the Cobbler's complex animation eventually wound up hired for Aladdin, making the plagiarism even more blatant.

Though the former movie was initially intended to release long before Aladdin, ultimately the over-schedule and over-budget production caused the insurance company to panic at the competition posed by Aladdin and take the film away from director Richard Williams.

Ironically, many might view The Thief and the Cobbler as a low-rent Aladdin rip-off at first glance, but the truth is actually far more unfortunate and depressing than that. It doesn't really take much away from Aladdin's brilliance, but it's just a shame that its direct progenitor was never fully completed or appreciated.

9. Coco (The Book Of Life)

Last year's Coco is a vibrant and respectful celebration of Mexican culture, taking inspiration from the Day of the Dead to tell a visually stunning and poignant story about life, death, love and music.

However, before Coco was even released, many noted a distinct similarity between it and the 2014 Guillermo del Toro-produced animation The Book of Life.

The common elements are countless, from the Day of the Dead theme, to both movies featuring musician protagonists whose families forbid them to perform, similarly emotive stories that help explain death to children, quirky twin side characters, and a not-dissimilar emphasis on peppy guitar music.

The Book of Life was originally conceived by director Jorge R. Gutierrez in the early 2000s, while Coco director Lee Unkrich didn't come up with his movie until 2010.

Though you can argue that Coco ultimately pulled off a similar idea better - albeit with a much larger budget - it unmistakably feels like Pixar took a number of thematic and stylistic cues from its forebear.

8. Up (Above Then Beyond)

Pixar's majestic 2009 adventure dramedy about a cranky old man attaching balloons to his house and flying off to greener pastures is one of the company's most emotional and gorgeously-wrought tales. It's also totally unoriginal.

The 2006 French short Above Then Beyond, produced by student Yannick Banchereau during his time at the ESRA film school, follows a similarly lonesome elderly person (this time a woman) who also decides to send her house into the air in order to avoid it being demolished.

Sadly, however, the twist ending reveals that this fantastical sequence is in fact the old lady's dying dream, in stark contrast to Up's more literal, hopeful ending.

From the title through to the design of the protagonists' houses, the presence of soulless businessmen looking to cause trouble and the sheer similarity of many shots, it's hard not to conclude that Disney-Pixar knowingly ripped it off. Not convinced? Check out the short for yourself.

Matters became further complicated when it was later revealed that ESRA had a working relationship with Pixar, making it possible that someone high-up at Pixar was able to view the short and borrow from it.

Though The Art of Up book reveals that director Pete Docter first conceived the Carl Fredrickson character back in 2004, there's nothing to indicate that the floating house concept predates the production of Above Then Beyond.

It might only be circumstantial evidence at the end of the day, but it's pretty damning all the same. If Pixar didn't have a connection to ESRA then it might be easier to dismiss this as an improbable coincidence, but given Pixar's direct line to the filmmakers, it becomes decidedly tougher to accept.

7. Treasure Planet (Titan A.E.)

Though Disney's Treasure Planet released more than two years after Fox's Titan A.E., both movies were in production together for several years, with some not-so-friendly competition being fostered between the tonally and aesthetically kindred projects.

Where to begin? They're both ambitious, big-budget animated sci-fi adventure movies which employed a combination of traditional 2D animation and cutting-edge CGI animation, both featured fatherless rogue protagonists sent on a journey through space with a ragtag team, and touted similar surrogate father plotlines, turncoat subplots, technological trinkets and so on.

It's staggering, honestly, and though they're both around the same middling quality of movie, the chances of these two projects emerging organically are virtually nil.

Not merely content to copy Titan A.E. conceptually, however, Disney went one step further by also having Treasure Planet bomb colossally at the box office, although not nearly as catastrophically as their competition (Titan didn't even crack half its $90 million budget).

6. Cars (Doc Hollywood)

Though all of the aforementioned animated movies ripped off other animations, Cars was bold enough to crib from a hit live-action movie, serving as a retelling of the 1991 cult classic Michael J. Fox-starring comedy Doc Hollywood.

The core narrative is almost exactly the same in both movies: a douchebag protagonist is sentenced to community service for reckless vehicular behaviour, placing them in a fish-out-of-water small town setting where a quirky cast of locals teach them the value of love and friendship.

Even more precise details like the arc of the reluctant love interest, the cantankerous old mentor character and the protagonist's ultimate decision to stick around in their new locale feel pretty much identical.

The "influence" is so blatant here that there's definitely good grounds for a lawsuit, yet over a decade later, it just doesn't seem like it's happening.

5. The Little Mermaid (Little Shop Of Horrors)

This is a rare feat of blatant cinematic plagiarism that's actually been fully admitted by its perpetrators, because they inadvertently lifted from their own prior work.

1986's classic horror-comedy musical Little Shop of Horrors is not a Disney movie, but the songs were composed and written by the legendary team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who later worked on a number of iconic Renaissance-Era Disney movies.

Menken and Ashman's "Part of Your World" is widely accepted to be the most iconic and memorable song from 1989's The Little Mermaid, but while the pair were conceiving the song, they realised it bore a considerable similarity to Little Shop of Horrors' own cracker "Something That's Green."

In addition to both being quintessential "I want" songs in which the protagonist yearns for something greater, the structures, melodies and general themes are practically identical.

Granted it's not some deep, dark secret and there are far worse things than to self-plagiarise, which at worst could be deemed a bit lazy. They're both terrific songs regardless, and despite its inherent unoriginality, Part of Your World remains a smash-hit show-stopper from Disney's back catalogue.

4. WALL-E (Short Circuit)

WALL-E may be an absolutely adorable and endlessly charming movie, but it also wears the influences of its protagonist's design a little too eagerly on its sleeve.

The titular robot is clearly influenced by his mechanical equivalent, Johnny 5, from the 1986 sci-fi comedy Short Circuit, and one suspects Pixar hoped fans would either appreciate the pilfering as "homage" or, in the case of younger viewers, not even notice.

From the bulging eyes to the tank-like treads both robots use to move around, WALL-E clearly represents an attempt to slyly recycle Johnny 5's easy appeal, and to Pixar's credit, they did a great job with it. Above all else, the movie as a whole is far better than either Short Circuit movie (especially the also-ran sequel).

WALL-E director Andrew Stanton has been quizzed about this numerous times over the years and flatly denies consciously copying Short Circuit, admitting that he's only seen the movie once and could perhaps have sub-consciously assimilated part of the design, but denies any ill intent.

Still, Johnny 5's design is singular and unique enough that, consciously or not, it's incredibly difficult to believe that WALL-E was a wholly original creation. Come on.

3. The Waterboy (The Freshman)

Released under Disney's subsidiary label Buena Vista Pictures, 1998's Adam Sandler comedy The Waterboy helped put the funnyman on the map during his 1990s boom period, though shortly after the movie scored $186 million worldwide, a lawsuit alleged that the concept wasn't at all original.

The litigation was filed by the granddaughter of the late silent film star Harold Lloyd, who claimed that The Waterboy ripped off her grandpa's 1925 silent film The Freshman.

The lawsuit cites 56 similarities between the two movies, including, "the lead characters are waterboys, the films are set on college campuses revolving around football, the waterboys are socially inept nerds, and the parents are depicted with deceitful streaks and are kept in the dark about the lead characters' wanting to be football players. Also, in both films, the waterboy becomes not only a football player but also a gridiron hero, and the climactic event is the big game."

The lawsuit also noted a "similarity in plot, action, theme, mood, characters and setting" despite the obvious generational differences between the films. Even though the Lloyd estate appeared to have a pretty solid case, the court ultimately ruled in favour of Disney, though losing to an army of Mickey Mouse's lawyers doesn't exactly mean you were wrong.

Ironically, during his own lifetime Lloyd himself was sued by American satirist H. C. Witwer, who claimed that The Freshman was copied from his own 1915 short story "The Emancipation of Rodney". Witwer died before the end of the lawsuit, and though his widow eventually won a judgement against Lloyd, it was eventually overturned and she received nada.

2. The Lion King (Kimba The White Lion)

There's perhaps no more egregious example of Disney straight-up stealing a concept from an outside source than The Lion King. While it's no secret that the classic animation was heavily influenced by Shakespeare's Hamlet, it's also greatly indebted to the lesser-known Kimba The White Lion, a 1950s manga which was adapted into a hit anime in the 1960s.

Even ignoring the fact that Simba is a pretty lazy knock-off of Kimba, both properties take place in Africa and address the circle of life theme, feature a similar cast of supporting characters, and when Matthew Broderick signed on for The Lion King, he even assumed he would be voicing Kimba, not Simba.

The similarity was blatant enough to be referenced in The Simpsons' season six episode "Round Springfield" released the very next year, and even though many Japanese cartoonists urged Disney to acknowledge the influence, The Lion King's creators stood firm that it was pure coincidence.

Though there are undeniable differences - Kimba's engagement with humans, for one - the conceptual similarity is tough to shake, no matter that The Lion King's creative team won't cop to it.

1. The Pacifier (Mr. Nanny)

Another of Disney's Buena Vista releases, 2005's The Pacifier is a family comedy that mines most of its "humour" from casting Vin Diesel against-type as a Navy SEAL ordered to guard a family of five children.

There's a technical MacGuffin in play, because of course there is, and Diesel's protagonist is placed in a number of undignified, un-macho scenarios as he slowly but surely wins the kids' trust.

The Pacifier was widely mocked upon release for appearing to be a loose remake of the not-so-classic Hulk Hogan-starring 1993 family comedy Mr. Nanny, which similarly placed the WWE superstar in a host of embarrassing situations - namely wearing a tutu - as he dealt with a pair of ill-behaved kids, before finally winning their approval.

Mr. Nanny definitely has a harsher, more adversarial tone between Hogan and the kids, but their shared DNA is undeniable, not to mention both movies starring action heroes ill-advisedly attempting to expand their audience appeal to the family market.

What do you make of these blatant rip-offs by Disney? Got any more to add? Shout them out in the comments!