History OlderThanTheyThink / WesternAnimation

* When ''TheSimpsons'' first aired, some viewers believed certain lines popularized by Bart to have been invented by the show's creators. These include Bart's replacing the words of "Jingle Bells" ("... Batman smells, Robin laid an egg...") in the first episode; "Eat my shorts", first said in ''TheBreakfastClub'' (1985) ; and "Cowabunga, dude!", a surfer slang expression, which had already been popularized on television by ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''.

** And the crazy paranoid Adam West in {{FamilyGuy}} made his first appearance in an episode of {{JohnnyBravo}}.

* The American ''{{Darkstalkers}}'' cartoon featured a bespectacled boy named Harry Grimoire who was studying magic (and happened to have Felicia as a "pet"). This would've been an obvious rip of ''HarryPotter'', if not for the fact that the cartoon came out some years before.

* AdamWest as Catman is a parody of Series/{{Batman}} in ''FairlyOddParents''. However, there actually is a Catman which is a Batman villain created in the 60s.

*** Of course, it you think that is OlderThanTheyThink, you need to take a closer look at the title of episode 7G03 from the first season, ''[[IncrediblyLamePun Homer's]] [[TheOdyssey Odyssey]]''.

* Now and then someone will accuse ThundarrTheBarbarian of being a ripoff of {{He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe}}, despite the fact that Thundarr predates He-Man by several years.
* To this day, there are still fans of the TeenTitans cartoon who are surprised when they find out the cartoon was preceded by the Comicbook/TeenTitans comic book by ''forty one years''. Heck, the fact that the TVTropes page for the cartoon was added to this wiki before the page for the comic book series should tell you something...

* Most Disney fans assume that MickeyMouse is Disney's first cartoon character, and Peg-Leg Pete was created to be his primary enemy. Actually, Pete was the ''very first recurring Disney character'', created in 1925 (before even ''{{Oswald the Lucky Rabbit}}'') for one of Disney's AliceComedies, a series of shorts which mixed live action and animation. Pete was always a villain, but the fact is that he was imported into the earliest Mickey cartoons to give ''Mickey'' an established character to fight, not the other way around.

** Pete's son, PJ, is generally thought to have been created in 1992 for GoofTroop. He was actually created half a century prior, debuting in a DonaldDuck [[ClassicDisneyShorts cartoon]] called "Bellboy Donald", and the character is only seventeen years younger than his father.

** It was significant enough for the ExecutiveMeddling to turn the animation from what would have been a great Stop-Motion film into a CG film... one of the biggest complaints against the film is that the characters "look/move weir.;" Note to Dreamworks: CG does ''not'' play well with characters designed for claymation.

--> '''Scooby-Doo'': (laughs) I don't get it.

* Here's one: ThePollyanna type in a place that is quite clearly {{Hell}}, run by a creature that is quite clearly {{Satan}}, who acts as a CorruptCorporateExecutive. No, not ''{{Jimmy Two-Shoes}}'', but an earlier show called ''TheBaskervilles''.

* The triangular CoolShades worn by Soundwave and Prowl of ''TransformersAnimated'' are often mistaken to be a ShoutOut to the [[MemeticMutation famous]] ones worn by Kamina of ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', but [[WordOfGod Derrick J. Wyatt]] said they were actually a reference to the much older ''ABCWarriors'' of ''2000 AD'' fame. They were also worn by several other characters before Kamina, including [[CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]] (in one strip) and Ash's [[{{Pokémon}} Squirtle]]. Many also thought the ''Lagann'' had some influence on the Headmaster design (both are robots that could become the head of another mecha to boost it's power). However, besides the idea of a robot becoming a Transformer's head dating back to [[TransformersGenerationOne G1]], Wyatt stated that he'd never seen ''Gurren Lagann'' until after the first season was already done with production (though he stated that if he ''had'' seen it before, the design would probably have stubby legs and let Masterson poke his head out the top).

** While Homer Simpson is named after creator Matt Groening's father, he also shares his name with a supporting character in Nathanael West's novella, ''The Day of the Locust'', which was written [[OlderThanTelevision in 1939]]. This has amused more than a few English majors.

*** Of course, it you think that is OlderThanTheyThink, you need to take a closer look at the title of episode 7G03 from the first season, ''Homer's [[TheOdyssey Odyssey]]''.

** While Homer Simpson is named after creator Matt Groening's father, he also shares his name with a supporting character in Nathanael West's novella, ''The Day of the Locust'', which was written [[OlderThanTelevision in 1939]].

** While Homer Simpson is named after Matt Groening's father, he also shares his name with a supporting character in Nathanael West's novella, ''The Day of the Locust'', which was written [[OlderThanTelevision in 1939]].

* Despite it often being claimed that MickeyMouse is Disney's first cartoon character (even by the Disney Company itself), Pete predates him by three years.

** Oswald the Lucky Rabbit predates them by even longer. In fact, were it not over a legal dispute over Oswald's rights, Mickey Mouse would not exist.
*** And even '''before''' that, there was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Comedies Alice Comedies]].

** The DVD subtitles, at least, give "MIMICS THREE STOOGES" rather than "WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP".

* In one episode of ''{{Recess}}'', Gus is involved in a plot against the Ashleys wherein he claims Ashley is also his name - insisting that it's not that unusual in the progressive 1990s. In reality, "Ashley" was almost solely a boy's name until the early 20th century; it was perfectly acceptable for a boy to be named Ashley ''over a hundred years'' before the episode was written or aired.