A Not-So-Funny Look at 6 Comedians Accused of Plagiarism

It's an immutable law of comedy—under no circumstances may a comic use another performer's material. Naturally, with so many comics making observations about the world around them, similarities are bound to exist between one guy's airplane food joke and another's. Allegations of joke lifting are common, with top-tier talent like Conan O'Brien and Amy Schumer often having accusations thrown their way (Schumer, for her part, vehemently denies any thievery). But throughout standup's history, some similarities have been too close to ignore.

1. MILTON BERLE

The late, great star of stage, screen, radio and TV was once the nation's most popular comedian, earning him a 30-year television contract with NBC and the endearing nickname Uncle Miltie.

But to many of his fellow performers, Berle became known by the much less affectionate nickname "The Thief of Bad Gag" for his legendary penchant for joke lifting. Fellow legend and occasional enemy Bob Hope once remarked that Berle "never heard a joke he didn't steal." In another instance, Jack Benny defended his own practice of using Berle's material by saying: "When you take a joke away from Milton Berle, it's not stealing, it's repossessing."

Unlike many other accused bit-thieves, Berle never went out of his way to dispel the reputation, once joking to Larry King: "I don't steal people's jokes. I just find them before they're lost."

2. CARLOS MENCIA

The former star of Comedy Central's Mind of Mencia has been accused of plagiarism by everyone from George Lopez—who once claimed he roughed-up Mencia over a supposedly stolen set—to South Park. However, the most famous example was shared with the world thanks to a viral video posted by comedian Joe Rogan. In the footage, Rogan is shown running onstage to confront Mencia during a 2007 performance at the Comedy Store in L.A. Among other, more colorful names, Rogan refers to Mencia as "Men-Steal-ia."

3. DANE COOK

Dane Cook reached the pinnacle of stand-up comedy success in 2005 when his album Retaliation went all the way to #4 on the Billboard chart. Sold-out large-arena gigs, movie flops, and tabloid coverage quickly followed—and all served to fuel a rabid anti-Dane movement within the comedy world. With that came an intense microscope on Cook's material and, predictably, a rash of joke swiping charges. The most well-known example includes a Cook bit that bears a suspicious resemblance to an earlier one by Louis C.K.—one of the most revered comics working today. Although compilations seem to confirm that Cook has used at least three of his bits, Louis C.K. has mostly downplayed it—"I'm not going to do anything about this. I'm not going to court over a bit called 'Itchy A**hole,'" he once joked. Just for good measure and consistency, Joe Rogan has also accused Cook of lifting jokes.

4. ROBIN WILLIAMS

Long before he was an Oscar winner, Robin Williams was known to comics as a major material thief. He was even alleged to have used other comedians' material on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. One well-traveled anecdote claims that when fellow comics spotted Williams in the audience of a comedy club, they would immediately stop their act to prevent him from writing down their best jokes. According to Richard Zoglin's book Comedy at the Edge, David Brenner once asked Williams' agent to "Tell Robin if he ever takes one more line from me, I'll rip his leg off and shove it up his [bleep]!" Williams discussed his younger days in comedy and of not understanding the consequences of borrowing material with Marc Maron in 2010; he once playfully referred to the practice as "joke sampling."

5. JAY MOHR

The former host of Last Comic Standing is an admitted comedy plagiarist. In his 2004 book Gasping For Airtime, which recounts his tumultuous two-season stint on Saturday Night Live, Mohr details an infamous incident in which he took a New York comedian's joke and turned it into a sketch. NBC was forced to settle with the joke's originator, but Mohr himself escaped any serious repercussions.

6. DENIS LEARY

The former star of Rescue Me has been accused of stealing not only some material but his entire stage persona from the late cult comic Bill Hicks. He's also been accused of lifting material from former stand-up and Hollywood heavyweight Judd Apatow and Louis C.K. But Hicks himself, who was close friends with Leary, severed his friendship with him over the number of lifted jokes used on Leary's No Cure for Cancer album. "I have a scoop for you. I stole his act," Hicks joked with Austin Comedy News in 1993. "I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did." Hicks passed away from cancer the following year.

This piece originally ran in 2010.

Years before Bryan Fuller created the visually stunning Hannibal, there was the equally pretty and just plain strange world of Pushing Daisies. Lee Pace starred as Ned, a pie-maker who could bring the dead back to life with a simple touch—and back to the dead again with a second touch.

After the love of his life, Chuck (Anna Friel), is murdered, Ned brings her back to life and develops a romance with her, though the two can never touch. Chi McBride played Emerson Cod, a private investigator who enlists Ned’s help in solving cases. In a touch of irony mentioned many times by now, Pushing Daisies had the misfortune of being pronounced dead by ABC in 2008, right before it became standard practice for cult shows to be resurrected. Here are some facts about the beloved series, which premiered 10 years ago today.

1. IT WAS ORIGINALLY INTENDED TO BE A SPINOFF OF DEAD LIKE ME.

Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller left his former creation, Dead Like Me, before its second season, during which he planned to introduce Ned as an adversary for George's grim reaper. Ned would have revived dead bodies before George could claim them, and a romance would have transpired.

2. ADAM BRODY TURNED DOWN PLAYING NED.

Fuller wanted Lee Pace for the role of Ned, but was told by Pace’s agents that he was only interested in movies. So he approached Adam Brody, who said he wasn’t ready to do another series so soon after The O.C. had ended. Then Pace’s manager went around his agents and got Pace the pilot script, which the actor loved.

3. CHI MCBRIDE PITCHED EMERSON’S BACKSTORY HIMSELF.

ABC Television

Chi McBride suggested to Fuller that his character became a private investigator to find his daughter, who disappeared after his ex ran off with her. According to the actor, Fuller initially had a “completely different” story in mind for Emerson.

4. ANNA FRIEL HAD A LITTLE RITUAL BEFORE SHOOTING A SCENE.

Dubbed “The Anna” by director Barry Sonnenfeld, Anna Friel would pump her arms rapidly, like someone running in place, before each scene to keep her energy up. Eventually, Pace, Swoosie Kurtz, and Ellen Greene (who played her aunts) did it, too.

5. FRIEL USED AN AMERICAN ACCENT ALL DAY ON SET.

The English actresses only slipped back to her British accent when her mother called (Mrs. Friel didn’t like the American accent). Jim Dale, the show's narrator, didn’t even realize that Friel was British "until I heard her being interviewed."

6. LEE PACE STAYED IN CHARACTER WHENEVER FRIEL TRIED TO HUG HIM.

ABC Television

Since Ned and Chuck could never touch, Pace and Friel attempted to not make physical contact with one another for a week, and failed repeatedly. Friel once tried to give Pace a hug, and Pace instinctively flinched. "It's just playing Ned," Pace explained. "I shouldn't be flinching when a beautiful girl like Anna Friel gives me a hug, but I flinched! That's weird, that's odd, that's not normal."

7. THERE WAS A NOTED AMÉLIE INFLUENCE.

Cinematographer Michael Weaver said that Fuller, Barry Sonnenfeld (who directed the first two episodes of Pushing Daisies), an executive producer for the series, and he all agreed to give the show a feel “somewhere between Amélie and a Tim Burton film—something big, bright, and bigger than life.” Pushing Daisies music composer and arranger Jim Dooley described his score as “having an Amélie type of sound.”

8. BARRY SONNENFELD HAD A "NO BLUES" RULE.

Production designer Michael Wylie’s instruction from Sonnenfeld was “virtually no blues.” Friel told ITV, “there’s no blue at all. The director hated blue,” before revealing another big influence for the show was the work of Nighthawks artist Edward Hopper.

9. KRISTIN CHENOWETH MADE A VERY SPECIFIC SONG REQUEST.

Kristin Chenoweth told Fuller that she wanted to sing "Eternal Flame" on the show. Fuller granted her wish, and Chenoweth's Olive sang her heart out in the episode “Comfort Food.” Had the show continued, there would have been an all-musical episode.

10. THE VIEW OF THE TOWN FROM THE PIE HOLE WAS A 180-FOOT LONG, 18-FOOT HIGH ‘TRANSLIGHT.'

It was created from photographs of a series of matte paintings.

11. THE VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR WAS SO GOOD, SOMETIMES HIS JOB WASN’T RECOGNIZED.

Because there wasn’t enough in the budget to get permission to shoot in the classic Bradbury building, which was used for movies like Double Indemnity and Blade Runner, William Powloski was tasked with recreating it. He went to the building, took 2000 digital photos, and created a digital version of the building.

"Our crew saw the result and asked, 'When did you go shoot the Bradbury building? Because the footage cuts right in with our set,'" Powloski recalled. "I hear this from colleagues, too, 'Hey, great shot inside the Bradbury.' And you really can't see the difference between the physical set and the very specific extension of one of the city's most well-known interiors. You know what, I know where to look and I don't see the seams either. I just love that!"

12. IT HAD MORE EMMY NOMINATIONS THAN EPISODES AFTER ITS FIRST SEASON.

Because of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Pushing Daisies's first season was only nine episodes long. The show was nominated for 12 Emmys, and won three (including awards for Sonnenfeld and Dooley in their respective categories). In 2009, a year after Fuller had confirmed the series' cancellation, Pushing Daisies won four more Emmys, including one for Chenoweth as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.

13. FULLER NEVER WANTED TO REVEAL HOW NED GOT HIS POWERS.

ABC Television

Fuller said that if that part of the mythology was ever revealed, “then all the fun goes out the window.”

14. HAD THE SERIES CONTINUED, THE NARRATOR WOULD HAVE APPEARED, AND THE CORONER WOULD HAVE HAD A CRUSH ON EMERSON.

Fuller intended to put Jim Dale in front of the camera. He also later revealed that Sy Richardon’s coroner character was gay, and his infatuation with Emerson would have been introduced if Daisies had not been cancelled.

15. A FUTURE MOVIE AND/OR MUSICAL ISN’T OUT OF THE QUESTION.

In 2014, Fuller claimed he had met with Sonnenfeld about finding financing for a musical, and talked to Netflix about a “lost season.” Though that was a few years ago, fans are still hoping that Pushing Daisies will rise again.

The little pinprick spots on apples, pears, and potatoes are called lenticels (LEN-tih-sells), and they’re very important.

Mleprince, Wikimedia Commons // SD-BY-CC 3.0

Plants need a constant stream of fresh air, just like people, and that “fresh air” means carbon dioxide. Flowers, trees, and fruit all take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. But unlike people, plants don’t have nostrils.

That's where a plant's lenticels come in. Each little speck is an opening in the fruit or tuber’s skin or the tree’s bark. Carbon dioxide goes in, and oxygen comes out. Through these minuscule snorkels, a plant is able to “breathe.”

Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Like any opening, lenticels are vulnerable to infection and sickness. In an apple disease called lenticel breakdown, a nutrient deficiency causes the apples’ spots to darken and turn into brown pits. This doesn’t hurt the inside of the fruit, but it does make the apple look pretty unattractive. In the equally appealing “lenticel blotch pit,” the skin around the apple’s lenticels gets patchy and dark, like a weird rash. 

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