Identical Faces, Identical Faces Everywhere 02-Sex Change, Blatant Carbon Copies, and Personality Theft

This is a continuation of my Identical Faces Post from January 2 2024 so if you haven't seen that post yet, I suggest you read that before you go to this one.

But here's the truncated version of what I was talking about:

The problem that permeates art is how artists often recycle designs from one character and turns it into another. Usually a result of budget problems or a designer's laziness and the reactions from artist to artist can vary. I also stated that despite criticisms, there's nothing we can do about it. We recycle character designs no matter what.

What I did tease is that recycling character designs is not just limited to the face, hair, or skin tone. It can actually happen with gender too.

That's right. Some characters are just nothing but taking an existing character and changing their sex so it's a completely original character despite the visual similarities.

I first knew about this design issue way back in 2014 when I did some studies on Shinji from Evangelion and I was surprised to see that he's a carbon copy of Nadia from FUSHIGI NO UMI NO NADIA. The image below is a good example of the similarities.

(By the way, the Mangaka caricature on the bottom left is Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.)

But the trope is much older than one would imagine.

(Warning: Some text may be a little NSFW so if you're squeamish, don't read this post.)

John K. wrote on his blog about his distaste of recycling character designs and he used both Mowgli from Jungle Book and Ariel from Little Mermaid as examples.

He described Ariel as taking Mowgli's design, giving him a sex change, let hair grow, dye it red, and presto: Fresh PROTAGONIST OF 1989.

Uh.... They don't look alike but I can see where this semi-resemblance is coming from.

The thing is, these are protagonists who are in their respective original novels who's depiction is far from family friendly to show on screen and therefore necessitated changes to make things family friendly.... or in HAYS CODE friendly for adaptions before 1968.

Mowgli is stark naked in the original novel but due to the HAYS CODE still being in effect in the mid-60s when Jungle Book was in production as well as the Shirly Mill's CHILDBRIDE controversy of the late 30s and early 40s, Mowgli was required to wear a loincloth but unlike in the 40's film starring SABU, Mowgli looked like he's wearing underpants.

Ariel on the other hand is a mermaid but even after the HAYS Code was long gone, Disney wasn't going to let Ariel bare her chest on screen in animation even after SPLASH was released by TOUCHSTONE in 1984. So she has sea shells for a Bra.

And unlike the film where magic plays a role in losing her voice, Ariel's tongue was actually mutilated in the original novel but we wouldn't show a tongue wound on children's film would we?

But the comparisons between the two may have inspired some R34 artists to pair the two but I have a hunch the inspirations may have risen as early as 1990 but certainly not on bulletin board systems of the time.

That's just the icing on the cake when you explore the topic of Identical designs. Gender change is one thing but Carbon Copy is another.

And Yes, I mean Carbon Copy... also known as CLONING GARFIELD.

I was inspired by this joke from Garfield and Friends where Garfield roasts Heathcliff in the intro FRIENDS ARE THERE... By saying to Heathcliff to eat his heart out.

I never even seen an episode of Heathcliff to begin with and frankly though, I don't plan to. Not just because his adventures aren't that interesting but it's because his design is almost an exact carbon copy of Garfield.

Well sort of. Heathcliff came out 5 years before Garfield in comic form but Garfield is 10x better than Heathcliff would ever be.

And this is not limited only to competing works but can also happen to the home cartoon as well.... well soft of.

We all know Krusty the Clown right? Well I have had my share of THE SIMPSONS since 1999 but back then, Toddler me was really confused why there's a clown who looks like Homer Simpson.

The idea with Krusty looking like Homer was because Krusty at one point was going to be Homer in disguise but Matt Groening and some writers were not on board with that so they separated the two characters. 

The closest we had to the original concept is HOMIE THE CLOWN broadcast in 1995. In that episode, Homer attends Clown College and takes advantage of his facial similarity to Krusty, which gets him into trouble with the Mob.

If you want to see the episode yourself, go find a Season 6 DVD or watch the episode on DISNEY+. Just remember to set the aspect ratio to 4:3.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid has an example of what I call PERSONALITY THEFT.

But before I get into that, I admit that I should have had a Wimpy Kid reference to the early post about identical faces but that was limited to the middle school girls as explained in the movie diary.

Back to topic.

What is PERSONALITY THEFT?

It's where you create an original character but unbeknownst to you, you may have stolen the personality of an existing character without realizing it until someone tells you otherwise.

I was into DIARY OF A WIMPY KID during my middle school years but stopped at Book 7 for some reason. 

Then I got into DOUG and suddenly, things started to make a little sense:

GREG HEFFLEY STOLE DOUG FUNNIE'S PERSONALITY.

Doug is not amused that both Nickelodeon and Disney didn't copyright his personality before 1998.

And this is considering that DOUG came out in 1991 as one of the 3 original Nicktoons while Wimpy Kid started as we Webcomic back in 1998. But I realize the part of Greg preferring to call his diary a JOURNAL is the exact same thing that Doug Funnie has been doing. 

As a matter of fact, it was the plotline for an episode way back in 1991.

I never realized this but the more and more I look into things such as identical outfits, identical faces, identical personalities, etc,

the more I want to explain it further and further.

Speaking about Carbon Copy Characters,  I was going to compare Mickey Mouse to the early 30s copycats of his day such as FOXY from Merrie Melodies, especially in the light of STEAMBOAT WILLIE having entered the Public Domain back in January 1 2024 I but decided to leave that for another time. 

And as for comparing Greg Heffley to Doug Funnie, it's only the JOURNAL thing that I was comparing the two.

The two actually have differing personalities.

Doug himself is far more likeable than Greg will be.

"You saying I'm better than Greg? Why thank you Mr. Maverick on the Razer Keyboard."

Sure Doug may be angst-ridden but he's more likeable due to his abundance of friends and his wild imagination as well as having both Nickelodeon and Disney in his resume.

Greg on the other hand is a narcissist who thinks he can make it big despite the harsh reality he's faced with.

And that's book Greg. The movie Greg as portrayed by Zachary Gordon is made to be far more likeable than the original book iteration would ever be.

Turns out I've got more ideas in my head to discuss other things such as camera, game controllers, Toon Boom Nodes, etc.

There is no more Writers Block for me so I've got a crap-ton of topics to cover on this blog so stay tuned for more.