The Straight Dope always
unearths all sorts of fun stuff

http://www.maximonline.com/entertainment/articles/article_3899.html

Copy Rats

Is plagiarism rampant in one Mickey Mouse organization?

Maxim, December 2000

by David Jacobson

In the most disturbing news since our presidential election, a jury
found the ultrahuggable Walt Disney Co. guilty of stealing ideas for
its Wide World of Sports complex from a former baseball umpire in
Buffalo and an architect from Canada. Though Disney reportedly will
appeal the $240 million verdict, the case is a reminder of the many
brilliant ideas that Disney has swiped from other sources over the
years:

The original concept for 101 Dalmatians was lifted from a low-budget
Italian horror flick, Notte dei Cani di Spotti (Night of the Spotted
Dogs), in which a crazy woman skins stray puppies to make a coat. In
a final act of revenge, the hyperactive hounds rise from the grave
and tear her apart like a rawhide chew toy.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, the word supposedly coined by
Mary Poppins to make kids sound �precocious,� was actually invented
by turn-of-the-century Scottish coal miners. It was used to request
�the works� from prostitutes by men too shy to recite specific acts.

Lumi�re, the anthropomorphic candle in 1991�s Beauty and the Beast,
draws his inspiration from the Buddhist monks who set themselves
afire to protest America�s involvement in the Vietnam War. Ignoring
the advice of their legal counsel, the even-tempered Buddhists
elected not to sue Disney over the matter.

Flubber, the �flying rubber� in The Absent-minded Professor (and the
heartwarming Robin Williams remake), was in fact a real product
created by DuPont in the late 1950s. It was never marketed because
of problems with the shipping and shelving of levitating inventory.

Woody, the action-figure hero of Toy Story, is a rip-off of the
cowboy from The Village People. Check out the way he moves; it�s
pretty obvious.

Cinderella�s Castle at Disney�s Magic Kingdom is an exact copy of
one built by the Marquis de Sade in 18th-century France. Duplicating
the features of the sadomasochist�s lair was an inside joke among
park designers that wasn�t noticed until it was too late.

�It�s a Small World (After All),� the song chanted by hundreds of
mechanical dolls on the classic Disneyworld boat ride, was penned in
1948 and intended to be the United Nations anthem. But the
psychotically sweet refrain only inflamed international tensions and
caused the United Nations to quickly drop it.


From the Langalist:

"Investment strategy for today's market:"

If you had bought $1000.00 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have $16.50 of the original $1,000.00. With Worldcom, you would have less than $5.00 left.

If you had bought $1,000.00 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the 10 cent deposit, you would have $214.00.

Based on the above, my current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.


Ooo, GPS Drawing!


I swear the E-learning centre somehow blocks Blogger. Or rather it blocks all ways of transferring data over the web - both adding attachments in Hotmail and Yahoo, and Geocities Easy Upload don't work either.