Kimmel's Alternate 'Beaver' Trailer Similar To Online Parody (VIDEO)

On Monday night's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Kimmel aired a hilarious, alternate trailer for the new Jodie Foster-directed Mel Gibson vehicle "The Beaver." In this new cut, Gibson's infamous rants berating then-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva over the phone are spliced into the lighthearted preview. It was quite funny, but we got an odd sense of deja vu while watching it.

Turns out, it's because we had seen a very similar video only days before. On Sunday, The Daily What featured a video created by YouTube user birthdayboypresents that utilized the exact same joke (although Kimmel's excerpts from Gibson's tapes were more TV friendly). Far from an underground hit, the original video has gotten over 20,000 hits on YouTube since it was posted last Thursday.

Although we have no reason to believe Kimmel's show intentionally ripped anyone off, this unfortunately comes hot on the heels of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"'s cavalier theft of an Internet video last week, when Leno's producers stole a montage from BestWeekEver.tv without properly giving credit until they were caught red-handed.

Considering "Jimmy Kimmel Live" was a pioneer of using reedited videos in a talk show monologue and would hardly need to scour YouTube for material, we certainly don't want equate the two incidents. (Especially as Kimmel himself has made no secret of his distaste for Jay Leno.) Not only that, but a cursory YouTube search reveals several other videos that employ the same joke of inserting Gibson's phone rants into "The Beaver" trailer.

No matter who came up with it first, the joke is funny. Still, no credit appeared to have been given either during the show or in the credits of the episode as it appears on ABC.com. In an age when the Internet makes the proliferation of comedy easier and more accessible than ever, ideas are bound to overlap, but it also means the professionals must be that much more careful.

WATCH: Kimmel's alternate "Beaver" trailer

WATCH: The "Beaver" trailer mash-up from birthdayboypresents

Comments

[HappyMarsden]

10:39 PM on 12/10/2010

Esplain this to me.... WHY does this dooshbag still have a career??

[LMPE]

07:47 PM on 12/09/2010

Sorry Mel, but you made your choice. Live with it.

[Uproar]

05:36 PM on 12/09/2010

If the Youtube video ws posted days before, why play nice-nice to Kimmel? Why "oh, whoever came up with the joke first..." and "We don't have no reason to believe Kimmel ripped it off."

Isn't this a story precisely because Kimmel seems to have ripped off the idea?

[Kiz boy]

03:32 PM on 12/09/2010

I give up.

[ProfWagstaff]

03:16 PM on 12/08/2010

I'm worried about the Beaver.

[DialectDerelict]

11:01 AM on 12/08/2010

Both are funny!

[h23154]

10:27 AM on 12/08/2010

I not would not see any movie with Gibson. I would watch the South Park episode that mocked him, but that's it. I hope the movie fails and that it hurts the wallets of everyone who had a say in putting him on screen.

[freddsky]

03:45 AM on 12/08/2010

The perils of improv. Imagine having to go back and loop a flubbed word. What a nightmare.

[Michael Mouton]

12:48 AM on 12/08/2010

At the very least Gibson deserves to be an object of ridicule.

[ColoradoCool]

08:01 PM on 12/09/2010

Or derision as in these videos. LOL!

[truthupontruth]

12:45 AM on 12/08/2010

What I find disturbing is that they seem to have made an entire movie out of one scene from 'What About Bob?'

[Lairs]

11:34 PM on 12/07/2010

Looks like a really stup id movie.

[mojo filter]

10:38 PM on 12/07/2010

Foster seems like such a smart, sensible person, very together. Kind of the anti Gibson.

Maybe he's not that bad?

[ColoradoCool]

08:02 PM on 12/09/2010

Wanna bet?

[Bruckley]

09:56 PM on 12/07/2010

love it, good stuff

[Leper]

09:10 PM on 12/07/2010

the recut by birthdayboypresents is the better one.

[Jane Stevenson]

09:04 PM on 12/07/2010

I'm no Mel Gibson fan, but this recut is really hateful. I wouldn't have gone to see the movie anyway, but this just makes me sad