History OlderThanTheyThink / LiveACtionTV

** Also, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eDaSvRO9xA "Four Yorkshiremen"]] did not originate with Monty Python. It was from ''At Last the 1948 Show'', and the original performers were John Cleese, Graham Chapman, [[TheGoodies Tim Brooke-Taylor]], and Marty Feldman.
*** [[TheGoodies Tim Brooke-Taylor]] has said that people refuse to believe he co-wrote the sketch.

* Warp drive: already occurs in Fredric Borwn's stories from the 1940s (the warp/fabric image of space-time probably dates back even earlier, from the first efforts to explain relativity to people who don't know about tensors).

* Here's a good one: Jon Stewart occasionally does a nasally, weasely voice on TheDailyShow that many young viewers associate with his show (for an in-television example, Britta Perry does so on an episode of {{Community}}). However, older viewers will recognize it as a reference to a [[TheTonightShow Johnny Carson]] voice / character, one that Johnny often went to when a joke fell flat ("Whoa, bomb-o!"). But here's the kicker, even older viewers will know that Johnny's voice was originally a reference to [[TheHoneymooners Jackie Gleason's]] Reginald Van Gleason III character ("Mmmboy are you fat!", as mentioned in an episode of the Sopranos).

* Rod Serling wrote the [[TheTwilightZone Twilight Zone]] episode "The Silence" without knowing that it was virtually the same story as Chekov's "The Bet". (I know that Wikipedia says otherwise, but [[SarcasmMode we all know how reliable they can be]]. There is an interview with Serling in the DVD materials for the series DVD set in which he explicitly explains all about it.)
* For those who may not be aware, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Busters The Ghost Busters]] came almost a full decade before {{Ghostbusters}}. Similarly, the [[FilmationsGhostbusters cartoon version of the 1975 live action show]] debuted before TheRealGhostbusters (if only by a few days).

*** [[OlderThanDirt It probably dates back to the first guards who had to deal with prisoners resisting being taken into custody]].

* Dr. [=McCoy=]'s famous line [[{{ptitletzsppi6i}} "I'm a doctor, not a _____!"]] from ''StarTrek'' actually originates in the 1933 film '' The Kennel Murder Case'', where a coroner insists repeatedly "I'm a doctor, not a ____!" (reporter, detective, etc.).
** Similarly, the Borg's famous line "Resistance is futile" was used earlier in Series/DoctorWho, LostInSpace, and probably other sci-fi. (The variant "Resistance is useless" was used by the Vogon guard in ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy~=]''.)

* In 1969, a new comedy sketch show debuted that completely tore apart the format of traditional sketch comedy, replacing conventional sketches with sketches that simply stopped mid flow, sketches that ran into each other and a whole lot of silliness. It is, of course, SpikeMilligan's Q series which preceeded ''[=~Monty Python's Flying Circus~=]'' by a few months. (To be fair, the Monty Python team were working on their show at roughly the same time).

** Even more hilarious since Kit Pedler's original idea, and in fact the first Cybermen story predates ''the entire Star Trek franchise'' by five years

** Similarly, the Borg's famous line "Resistance is futile" was used earlier in DoctorWho, LostInSpace, and probably other sci-fi. (The variant "Resistance is useless" was used by the Vogon guard in ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy~=]''.)

* The reintroduction of the Cybermen in the new ''DoctorWho'' story "Rise of the Cybermen" prompted some claims that the monsters were a rip-off of ''StarTrek'''s Borg -- in fact, ''DoctorWho'' fans had been making exactly the opposite claim ever since the Borg were first introduced, almost a quarter century after the Cybermen first appeared.

* The concept of a virtual reality called "The Matrix" was first used in ''{{Doctor Who}}'' in the 1976 serial "The Deadly Assassin", twenty three years before its better-known movie namesake.

* ''DoctorWho'' gets this a ''lot'', in-fandom, when new series fans gush over the genius of some ideas and concepts without realising many of then existed in the old series. So horror elements written by Robert Holmes (half of which he stole from old horror movies anyway) and later reused by Russell T. Davies or Steven Moffat are seen as their "genius". Even if the writers have themselves fequently mentioned that some of these elements are tributes to the writers whose stories they grew up with. Of course, the most extreme example of this is when new series fans preface their fanfics [[FanDumb with "Doctor Who belongs to Russell T. Davies and/or Steven Moffat"...]]

* A beautiful, intellectually unremarkable young woman befriends and comes to rely on a group of brilliant-but-awkward geniuses who work at a university, one of which develops a crush on her. ''TheBigBangTheory'', right? Wrong -- it's a movie called ''BallOfFire'', released in 1941 and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. It was apparently popular enough to be remade as a musical seven years later and retitled ''A Song Is Born''.

* A beautiful, intellectually unremarkable young woman befriends and comes to rely on a group of brilliant-but-awkward geniuses who work at a university, one of which develops a crush on her. ''TheBigBangTheory'', right? Wrong -- it's a movie called ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_of_Fire Ball of Fire]]'', released in 1941 and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. It was apparently popular enough to be remade as a musical seven years later and retitled ''A Song Is Born''.

** Ed the Sock was scheduled to appear on ConanOBrien but cancelled at the last minute. Three months later Triumph appeared on the show. When Conan

* Doctor Who gets this a ''lot'', in-fandom, when new series fans gush over the genius of some ideas and concepts without realising many of then existed in the old series. So horror elements written by Robert Holmes (half of which he stole from old horror movies anyway) and later reused by Russell T. Davies or Steven Moffat are seen as their "genius". Even if the writers have themselves fequently mentioned that some of these elements are tributes to the writers whose stories they grew up with. Of course, the most extreme example of this is when new series fans preface their fanfics [[FanDumb with "Doctor Who belongs to Russell T. Davies and/or Steven Moffat"...]]

* With the ''VampireDiaries'' TV adaptation airing in the midst of the ''{{Twilight}}''-craze, many [[FanDumb twitards]] believed ''Vampire Diaries'' stole most of its elements from ''Twilight''. The ''Vampire Diaries'' books were made in the nineties.

*** Khan uses several ''Moby Dick'' lines in the film. However, this is telegraphed at the beginning, when Chekov and Terrill are searching the shelter on Ceti Alpha 5. One of the books on the shelf is ''Moby Dick''. Note also that Cetus is the constellation of the whale.

* When the Canadian show ''Ed's Late Night Party'' aired for a short time in the US on G4, many viewers criticized Ed the Sock for ripping off [[ConanOBrien Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.]] Ed the Sock had actually been around on various Canadian programs since the early-90's and was possibly an inspiration for Triumph.

* Twi-Tards commonly think that the idea of a vampire sneaking into a girl's room at night and watching her, stalking her and generally being a creepy old dude that happens to look 20 and is seen as extremely romantic is an original idea. It's really just ripped off from BuffyTheVampireSlayer. Angel did the exact same thing, only he was badass and later became evil and CrazyAwesome. So, even when ripping off good things, Twilight is still shit. Amazing.

* Here's a good one: Jon Stewart occasionally does a nasally, weasely voice on TheDailyShow that many young viewers associate with his show (for an in-television example, Britta Perry does so on an episode of {{Community}}). However, older viewers will recognize it as a reference to a [[TheTonightShow Johnny Carson]] voice / character, one that Johnny often went to when a joke fell flat ("Whoa, bomb-o!"). But here's the kicker, even older viewers will know that Johnny's voice was originally a reference to [[TheHoneymooners Jackie Gleason's]] Reginald Van Gleason III character ("Mmmboy are you fat!", as mentioned in an episode of the Sopranos).
* Another example from ''StarTrek'': the [[MemeticHandGesture Vulcan salute]], and its accompanying farewells, "Peace and long life" and "Live long and prosper", are both derived from Jewish benediction services.

* Here's a good one: Jon Stewart occasionally does a nasally, weasely voice on TheDailyShow that many young viewers associate with his show (for an in-television example, Britta Perry does so on an episode of {{Community}}). However, older viewers will recognize it as a reference to a [[TheTonightShow Johnny Carson]] voice / character, one that Johnny often went to when a joke fell flat ("Whoa, bomb-o!"). But here's the kicker, even older viewers will know that Johnny's voice was originally a reference to [[TheHoneymooners Jackie Gleason's]] Reginald Van Gleason III character ("Mmmboy are you fat!", as mentioned in an episode of the Sopranos).

* When the series premiere of ''[[Series/TheWalkingDead The Walking Dead]]'' first aired, some viewers immediately accused the show of ripping off the "protagonist wakes up in a hospital after a post-apocalyptic event" scene from ''[[TwentyEightDaysLater 28 Days Later]]''. In fact, not only did the comic book series show this scene a full seven months before ''28 Days'' premiered in theatres, but both of those films copied it from ''TheDayOfTheTriffids'', which was written in 1951 (more than 50 years before either of the two works in questions).

* In 1969, a new comedy sketch show debuted that completely tore apart the format of traditional sketch comedy, replacing conventional sketches with sketches that simply stopped mid flow, sketches that ran into each other and a whole lot of silliness. It is, of course, Spike Milligan's Q series which preceeded ''[=~Monty Python's Flying Circus~=]'' by a few months. (To be fair, the Monty Python team were working on their show at roughly the same time).