Cracked.com has an article exposing “6 famous characters you didn’t know were shameless rip-offs”. One that surprised me was The Lion King which is pretty obviously a rip off from a Japanese cartoon called Kimba the White Lion.

They copied an incredible amount from the original Kimba cartoon. Several characters including the shaman ape, the hornbill advisor, the comedic hyenas, the evil uncle (it was an aunt in Kimba) were obvious copies.

Many of the scenes are also pretty obvious copies from Kimba. Disney, however, claims that all this is a coincidence. What a load…

Not convinced? Check out the examples below or take a look at this more detailed page.

As the guys from Cracked say:

“Here’s a little experiment. Turn the tables, and try to create a cartoon series about a high-pitch-voiced mouse called “Mikey” and his friend “Ronald Duck.” Start selling merchandise for these characters, and see how long it takes you to hear from Disney’s lawyers.”