David Wise - Self Plagiarist

[pferreira]

Originally Posted by neatoman

The keyword here is improvement. Virtually nothing that came from the Fred Wolf cartoon (or let's be honest, the toyline) and ended up in the IDW comic did so unaltered. If characters and concepts did not change from iteration to iteration, then the Fred Wolf cartoon itself would be an extremely different show.

So in other words my subjective opinion means the IDW is flawless when it comes to its FW elements.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by pferreira

Welcome to my world. I have to deal with people like you on forums all the time.

"If you meet an asshole in the morning, that's okay, you met an asshole. If everyone you meet all day long is an asshole, then maybe it's you."

Food for thought, pally.

[pferreira]

Originally Posted by Leo656

"If you meet an asshole in the morning, that's okay, you met an asshole. If everyone you meet all day long is an asshole, then maybe it's you."

Food for thought, pally.

Thankfully that hasn't happened and won't likely to. Move along.

[Jester]

I know it's a bit of a necropost I was watching the Nicolas Cage movie Willy's Wonderland which is meant to cash in on the Five Nights at Freddy's craze.
It also reminded me of the Fred Wolf episode featuring Willy Wombat and his pizza restaurant. Then I begin to wonder two things: 1. Was this one of the first times somebody made a piece of media parodying Chuck-E-Cheese and it's animatronic characters and making them evil? And 2. Who wrote the episode that featured Willy Wombat?
A quick internet search led me to David Wise as the author of the episode Phantom of the Sewers. Which makes me wonder if David Wise would have at one point claimed to have created Five Nights at Freddy's.

[Leo656]

You have to wonder?

If he were still alive, Wise and Chris Jericho could have an "I Invented _____!" contest that would break the goddamn internet.

[Jester]

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Jester

I know it's a bit of a necropost I was watching the Nicolas Cage movie Willy's Wonderland which is meant to cash in on the Five Nights at Freddy's craze.
It also reminded me of the Fred Wolf episode featuring Willy Wombat and his pizza restaurant. Then I begin to wonder two things: 1. Was this one of the first times somebody made a piece of media parodying Chuck-E-Cheese and it's animatronic characters and making them evil? And 2. Who wrote the episode that featured Willy Wombat?
A quick internet search led me to David Wise as the author of the episode Phantom of the Sewers. Which makes me wonder if David Wise would have at one point claimed to have created Five Nights at Freddy's.

Every time I see anything related to 5 Nights, I have always immediately thought of "Phantom of the Sewers."

[Galactus]

Remember when Dave Wise suggested that the first Avengers movie took it's plot and final act from the first season of the '87 show? Other than villains coming through a portal they are not similar at all.

I can imagine Age of Ultron lifting the idea of the characters recovering off the grid on a farm from the Mirage books, 1990 movie and the '03 show much more than them being influenced by the Fred Wolf series for the first movie.

[Leo656]

He really said that? Jesus Christ.

That's some Hulk Hogan "George Foreman only got to endorse that grill because I was taking my kids to school and missed the phone call by five minutes...and also, I was almost in Metallica!"-level nonsense right there.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Leo656

He really said that? Jesus Christ.

Yes, he did and it's pretty sad. While it is true that both feature a plot about aliens trying to come through a portal in New York, that movie movie was based on a comic book that had been running for almost 25 years by the time FW started airing. Even if there weren't any Avengers stories with a similar plot before 1987 (which is absurd by default, "Stop the aliens from invading" is one of the most cliché superhero plots I can imagine), the Avengers consist of characters who mostly have their own books which just raises the odds of a similar plot happening with these characters outside of the Avengers (again, it's a cliché).

It is far more likely David Wise copied the plot of some other story, quite possibly an Avengers comic (which would be hilarious), for FW season 1 than the 2012 Avengers movie directly copying any of his work. Hell, we know the man liked to take credit for ideas from a comic book, even when it's obvious he didn't come up with them ("April would just be Baxter's lab assistant if it weren't for me, I made her a major character"). So it's not exactly out of character for him...

[Leo656]

Yeah but did he ever try to claim the George Foreman grill?

"I'm the guy who told Terry that 'Sterling Golden' was a stupid name and that he'd make a lot more money as 'Hulk Hogan', brother!"
- David Wise (probably)

[Jester]

But how much did Hogan have to pay Marvel for the name Hulk...

Heck, I'm surprised they never tried to hit him for taking Hogan from Crusher Hogan as well.

[Leo656]

Actually someone out there probably has a definitive answer to that question, as there was a settlement in place between the two parties for years after 1985 or so, until Terry purchased all rights to the name outright around 2003 or thereabouts.

But as far as I know it actually wasn't a lot of money, and was more "professional courtesy" than anything. And Marvel didn't actually care at all until ring announcers started billing him as "The INCREDIBLE Hulk Hogan" in '84-ish. Names like "Hulk" and "Hogan" are pretty innocuous in and of themselves, and even in the very early days Hogan never shied away from telling the story of how he took the name "Hulk" after he was on a talk show with Lou Ferrigno. Marvel didn't make a peep at that time. But when the WWF tacked on the "Incredible" part in their official marketing, that's when the Marvel guys were like, "Alright, we probably should call someone."

I believe that Hogan sometimes used the "Incredible" tagline even before 1984 when he was working in other territories like the AWA in Minnesota, but the AWA didn't have TV in the Northeast back then so Marvel's NYC-based people wouldn't have noticed or cared. The WWF, however, was very well-known in the Northeast and they were selling videotapes with "The INCREDIBLE Hulk Hogan" all over them, so I'm not surprised that was the last straw for Marvel.

As I understand it, the terms of the deal were roughly as follows:
- Hulk Hogan could never wear any combination of green and purple gear. He never had anyway, but they wanted to make it a rule.

- The "Incredible" nickname was ixnayed. They immediately switched to "The IMMORTAL Hulk Hogan" and everyone agreed that sounded much better anyways, so this was a net win for Hogan.

- The actual monetary compensation varies depending on who you ask, but I think it was something to the effect of, "$100 per appearance and <1% of all merchandise bearing the words Hulk Hogan, Hulkster, or Hulkamania that was sold." Considering that Hogan was getting paid several thousand dollars per appearance AND pulling in several million a year after merchandise, it was "a lot" of money but not "a LOT" of money, if you know what I mean. Like I'm sure they were glad to have it but it didn't break anyone's bank either.

When Hogan jumped to WCW, the licensing agreement went with him. Turner corporate didn't like having to deal with it, and that's part of why they insisted on calling him "Hollywood Hogan" and dropped the "Hulk" part for several years on all merchandise. Hogan's downside guarantee in WCW was already astronomical so they were looking to cut pennies anywhere they could, and Turner Corporate just figured "Marvel Comics can eat a dick, if we call him 'Hollywood' they can't cry about it."

Finally, after his WWF comeback in 2003 Terry had some petty cash and just bought the name outright, so now Marvel gets nothing. But to be fair, they did okay off of him over the years, and it's not like his name was keeping the lights on over there or anything. Their <1% was a pittance, relatively speaking. But I'm sure they were thrilled to have some "free" money coming in every so often.

These things happen. It's like how Sting the singer predates Sting the wrestler by many, many years. Except the singer never bothered to trademark the name, and Steve Borden the wrestler did. In turn, he agreed to license the name to the singer in perpetuity for one dollar, just as a courtesy. Classy!
-----------

I just now realized, someone on "Ask 411" asked the "How much did Marvel earn off of Hulk Hogan?" question a long time ago, and the answer guy did in fact try his best to come up with a figure. I can't find it, but here's another article I found after a quick search, which goes into even GREATER detail about every single way Marvel got paid off of Hogan:
https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-...rRAnq1biFFXS38

I really wish I'd just Googled it before typing All That Above off of memory (although my figures were correct! SCORE! ). But I wrote it so y'all are gonna read it.

Short answer: A few million bucks. It's... complicated.

[Jester]

Funny how it was the addition of Incredible that cause all the rigmarole and then Marvel eventually did Immortal Hulk. I wonder if they had to pay Hogan at that point.

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Jester

Funny how it was the addition of Incredible that cause all the rigmarole and then Marvel eventually did Immortal Hulk. I wonder if they had to pay Hogan at that point.

I think it's more Marvel's thing to launch a new book with cool sounding new adjective than avoiding any conflict with Hulk Hogan. In this case it made sense as it started as more of a horror book that established that the Hulk can't die. Good run btw.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Actually someone out there probably has a definitive answer to that question, as there was a settlement in place between the two parties for years after 1985 or so, until Terry purchased all rights to the name outright around 2003 or thereabouts. . . .But I wrote it so y'all are gonna read it.

Quite informative! I really had no idea.

I get amused everytime I watch anything related to "The Karate Kid" or "Cobra Kai" and see that "Used with permission of DC Comics" tagline on account their completely different "Karate Kid" IP.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

Quite informative! I really had no idea.

I get amused everytime I watch anything related to "The Karate Kid" or "Cobra Kai" and see that "Used with permission of DC Comics" tagline on account their completely different "Karate Kid" IP.

Aw yeah, that's a wacky situation. Like most people, I saw the movies as a kid way before I ever even heard of the comics. Then one day at a comic shop I saw a stack of Karate Kid books and got all excited... then I read them and was like, "...What?" Suffice to say, I would've preferred the continuing adventures of Daniel-san, and not a second-string Legion of Super-Heroes member.