dangurewitch:
Well, this is interesting. South Park essentially plagiarized Inception Characters Don’t Understand Inception, a sketch written by me and David Young a few months ago.
I’m conflicted, because I absolutely adore South Park. I admire Trey Parker and Matt Stone more than almost anyone currently working in comedy. To give them the benefit of the doubt, I’d say maybe it’s an homage - I’d be honored - but while our sketch was popular, it wasn’t nearly the national phenomenon it’d have to be for them to parody it. Maybe it was some staff writer, and Matt and Trey aren’t aware of the source material? Or something?
I am VERY careful about accusations like this, because parallel thinking happens all the time in comedy (i.e. the “Tiny Hat” SNL thing, which I didn’t think was an issue at all), but our sketch is lifted almost line by line. For example:
That doesn’t sound so hard. / That doesn’t sound very difficult.
It is. / It is.
Why? / Why?
Aaarrgh! / Aaarrgh!
We don’t have time for this! / We don’t have time for this!
Okay, fine, so next we’re going into Arthur’s dream, and then what? / Okay, fine. So you’re gonna take my son to a dream within the dream, then what?
Then we go into Fisher’s dream. / Then we go into your husband’s dream.
Okay got it / Okay…
But Fisher will think we’re in Browning’s dream / But your husband will think you’re in Hasselback’s dream.
Okay. Wait, who’s Browning? / Okay wait, who’s Hasselback?
…
Sorry that’s my bad. Sometimes my thoughts of my dead wife manifest themselves as trains. / Sometimes thoughts of my dead wife manifest themselves as trains.
I have faith that there’s some explanation, but I still felt like I needed to say something.
UPD
David and I just got off the phone with Matt Stone (coolest sentence I’ve ever written). He was extremely nice and apologetic. He explained that when they couldn’t get a copy of an Inception screener, they used our sketch as source material. They thought that the lines in our sketch were taken directly from Inception (and the joke was that they were arranged in rapid succession), rather than original lines written by us.
All is well, and we’re going to meet up with Matt and Trey when they’re in New York.
Matt spoke to the NY Times about it, as well.
Блин! Не, ну я так и знал, что фильм они не смотрели.
(Хотя, да, конечно, как-то это действительно странно – делать пародию и не знать на что ты вообще ее делаешь.)