Jan 14, 2015

Is "The Legend of Lucky Pie" a Chinese copy of "Adventure Time"?

Today, someone posted "The Lucky Pie Legend" on YouTube.1]

Whether this is an authentic imitation or an elaborate hoax, there is no doubt that the people who made it spent considerable time researching "Adventure Time." (See update below.)

Another website points out that a Chinese studio (the same one) created the gumball knockoff to promote a food product called Miracle Star.

Now, why did these two Cartoon Network-inspired creations suddenly appear online today?

UPDATE: Wendy Zhao has solved the mystery of these cartoons. She writes:

"Lucky Pie" is currently one complete episode and debuted around January 1. In these posts introducing the show, they talk about their determination to create this show despite having no funding and no fancy computer or studio setup, and to fight the "lame" and "clichéd" animated shows that are usually shown in the Chinese media.

In this Chinese language thread, the question was posed, "What do people think about the claim that this show ripped off 'Adventure Time'?" to which the answer was, "It feels like that, but not really."

For the second [gumball-style] video, here is the wiki page. It is very unlikely that it was made by the same people as above. The characters in the video appear in commercials for the product, so it seems to have existed before.

(Thanks, Mike Scott)