SNL Accused of Stealing Adult Swim Skit

Fans accuse late-night comedy writers of ripping off Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! "Tiny Hats" sketch

By Josh Grossberg Sep 28, 2010 3:15 PMTags

Tiny controversy this is not.

Fans of Adult Swim's Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! are crying foul on Twitter about a SNL sketch—featuring guest Amy Poehler about a pair of high-society gals using fashionable tiny hats to one-up each other—that they say copies a skit performed on the Cartoon Network series.

After seeing the sketch on SNL's season premiere Saturday night, Tim and Eric fans immediately recalled a similar gag in a skit that had previously aired on Adult Swim's comedy block in December 2007.

So they took to the Web to analyze the differences. And while both sketches utilize different stories for the joke's setup, at their core each plays off of the absurdist idea of characters sporting silly little hats for laughs.

But did Saturday Night Live's writing staff plagiarize?

A rep for the show isn't commenting, but it's worth noting a number of SNL castmembers have appeared on Tim and Eric in the past, including Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg and Will Forte.

For his part, Tim and Eric's Eric Wareheim didn't make too much hay about the hat war other than to point them out by posting a link via Twitter to their sketch which showed two men discussing where to buy "tiny hats" for one of the men's dolls before he goes on a big date.

"Just randomly wanna show y'all this vid we made ages ago," Wareheim tweeted.

And in a follow-up, he wrote: "BREAKING NEWS: SNL apologizes to Cinco corp. Asks Tim & Eric to write next weeks episode. . .thx cinco."

Cinco, of course, is a nod to the sketch show's fictional company.

His partner, Tim Heidecker, called the kerfuffle "very interesting" but didn't lob any accusations. Instead, he took it in stride and noted that often fellow comedians find inspiration in one another's work.

"We understand that we've created something that a lot of people in comedy watch and like, and influences are totally fine," the funnyman told New York magazine. "We draw influences from people all the time."

Though he did jokingly ask: "Will there by a 'betty white' sized online movement demanding public apology?"

Heidecker was referring to the massive Facebook campaign that managed to get the Golden Girl star a hosting gig on venerable Peacock show.

Well, SNL?

What do you think? Sound off in the comments.

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Watch SNL's hilarious spoof of Katy Perry's Sesame Street controversy here.