Joke Stealing UPDATE

Awhile ago I wrote a post about joke stealing. I said that yes, joke stealing goes on, but it's pointless to call people out on it because it's very difficult to tell where joke stealing ends and similar ideas begin. It's better to just do great jokes and let the rest take care of itself.

Recently, a show has come on MTV that is quite similar to the show I work on. A lot of people ask me about it. It's silly to claim that it is copying us or anyone else, because our show is similar to a lot of shows that came before us. Including stuff I've worked on in the past. What I'm saying is, none of this is original shit. A dude standing on a green screen showing clips has been around since the invention of green screens.

What I find interesting though is not that the show on MTV is similar to ours, but that they don't seem to care.

Every show I've ever worked on has been extremely vigilant about not wanting to do jokes that other shows have already done. It's bad form to tell the same joke Letterman did 4 days ago. Comedians have more leeway on stage because they aren't being filmed, so it's harder to bust them. But when you're making a TV show, the evidence is on tape (or hard drives or whatever they use now). And the last thing you want is someone watching to go, "Kimmel already did this".

So it's pretty surprising to me to see a TV show that simply doesn't mind doing things that have already been done. Granted, internet videos are a tough thing. Everyone uses them. The same ones go around and many get played everywhere. It happens and it's no big deal.

But you know you're gonna get compared to us. Especially assholes on Twitter, they live for this kind of stuff. So wouldn't you want to avoid it? We certainly do.

So for those wondering, I don't care about that show. I am very happy that people can watch both and decide for themselves. We don't want to do anything they've done, I just find it amazing that they don't feel the same way.