10 More Rip Off Brands More Popular Than The Original

10 More Rip-Off Brands More Popular Than the Original

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today were counting down our picks for even more copycat products that outsold the originals.

#10: Hot Wheels

Matchbox cars were all the rage when they first rolled out in the 1950s. Introduced by British company Lesney Products, the toys were literally small enough to fit inside a matchbox hence the name. These tiny vehicles were crafted with love. The engineers used photos, and sometimes even blueprints, of real-life cars to make the Matchbox versions as detailed and realistic as possible. In the 1960s, Mattel co-founder Elliot Handler decided his brand needed to get in on this action. Mattels Hot Wheels were slicker than their British counterparts and designed to be much faster. Lesney then introduced the Superfast line of Matchbox in order to keep up with Mattels sales, but the company was eventually bought out by another toy maker.

#9: VHS & Betamax

In the 1980s, a videotape format war was raging between the two most popular styles of VCR the VHS and the Betamax. But neither of these products was the first home video cassette player. That honor goes to Sonys U-matic. Introduced as a prototype in 1969, the U-matic became commercially available in 1971. The first U-matic VCR model was a beast, measuring two-and-a-half feet long and two feet deep and weighing almost 60 pounds. Priced at around $1,400, or over $10,000 today, it was too expensive for the average consumer, though it did become popular with TV and movie studios. VHS, Betamax, and some less well-known formats were developed later as smaller, more affordable options.

#8: Microsoft Word

Speaking of vintage technology, Word has dominated the word processing software market for so long, you might think its the O.G. But a long line of other programs came before it. The first ever word processing software for home computers was Electric Pencil, which was released in late 1976. WordStar, introduced in 1979, came next, followed quickly by WordPerfect in 1980. Each of these programs was basically a rip-off of the previous one, with a few additional features added. They even shared a similar $500 price tag. Microsoft Word came along in 1983, though it didnt surpass WordPerfect in popularity until the 1990s, when Windows became the operating system of choice.

#7: Wite-Out

Most of us dont do a lot of writing by hand any more, which means the demand for correction fluid isnt what it used to be. But it was an incredibly popular product during the days of the typewriter, before the backspace key was a thing. The first correction fluid was Liquid Paper, which was invented in 1956 by a typist named Bette Nesmith Graham coincidentally, the mother of Monkees guitarist Michael Nesmith. Wite-Out was introduced about 10 years later by Edwin Johanknecht, who was annoyed at Liquid Papers tendency to smudge photostatic copies. Wite-Out is now so ubiquitous that the name is often used to refer to any correction fluid, no matter what brand it is.

#6: Energizer Bunny

If you live in North America, you might be surprised to hear that Energizer is not the only battery company to use a pink bunny in its advertising. Duracell created an ad campaign featuring drumming bunny toys back in 1973. When its trademark on the fuzzy pink mascot lapsed in 1988, Energizer swooped in and released a parody commercial with their own pink bunny. Duracell filed for a new trademark, launching a multi-year dispute that was eventually settled out of court. Energizer was given the rights to use the bunny in the U.S. and Canada, and Duracell was given the rights to the rest of the world.

#5: Diet Coke

The first sugar-free soda on the market was Diet Rite, which was introduced as a medicinal product by the Royal Crown Company in 1955. A few years later, they began marketing it as a beverage for people watching their calorie intake, and it became pretty popular. Coca-Cola decided to jump on that bandwagon, launching a knock-off of Diet Rite in 1963 called Tab. Diet Pepsi soon followed, and it was also a hit. Coke eventually realized that it needed a sugar-free product with a more marketable name, so it created Diet Coke in 1982. The new drink outsold Tab by 1983. After Diet Rite switched to using 100% aspartame as its sweetener in 1987, Coke copied it yet again, adjusting its formula to match.

#4: Google Chrome

Like the VCR wars of the 1980s, an internet browser war between Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer started in the mid-90s. Explorer soon garnered a huge percentage of the market share. As Netscape declined in popularity, it reached out to the Mozilla Foundation to create a new product based on Netscapes code, and Firefox was released in 2004. Google Chrome came out in 2008, and it wasnt just a copycat of earlier browsers. It was literally built with free software components taken from Firefox and Apple Safari. By 2011, Chrome was more popular than Firefox, and today, it commands two-thirds of the market share for internet browsers worldwide.

#3: Monopoly

In 1903, Lizzie Magie created The Landlords Game, which she intended as an educational product to teach people what happens when wealth is concentrated in just a few peoples hands. She got a patent in 1904 and published her game in 1906. In the 1930s, an unemployed salesman named Charles Darrow straight up stole it. He was introduced to the game by some friends, and immediately began selling his own copies under the name Monopoly. He sold it to Parker Brothers in 1935, claiming it was his own invention, for $7,000 plus royalties, which eventually made him a millionaire. When Parker Brothers found out about The Landlords Game, they bought Magies patent for a measly 500 bucks.

#2: Sprite

The Coca-Cola Company seems to like honing in on other beverage brands turf. The lemon-lime flavored soda 7 Up was invented by American businessman Charles Grigg in 1929. For decades, it was the only major lemon-lime soda in the U.S. In 1959, Fanta which is owned by Coca-Cola released a lemon soda for the German market. Seeing an opportunity, the company began distributing the flavor in America, renaming it Sprite. By the 90s, Sprite had surpassed 7 Up in popularity possibly because Coca-Cola played dirty. In 1992, 7 Up sued Coke, claiming that Coke was convincing distributors to switch from 7 Up by using manipulated data showing that Sprite was in higher demand. 7 Up lost that lawsuit, and the appeal.

#1: Barbie

Thats right, even your favorite fashion doll was a brazen rip-off. Prior to the introduction of Barbie, pretty much all toy dolls in the U.S. were babies or children. Ruth Handler, one of the co-founders of Mattel, had toyed with the idea of an adult-shaped doll for years. While travelling in Switzerland, she came across Bild Lilli, a German doll based on a racy comic strip that was typically treated as a gag by adults. Handler bought a bunch of them, brought them home, and retooled them into the first Barbie dolls. They were introduced at the American International Toy Fair in 1959, and the rest is history.

Which of these copycats do you think was the most shameless? Let us know in the comments.