Most people’s origins follow a standard template: The vast majority of the time, it starts with a woman and a man having sex. But when you shift your attention to fictional people, things get a lot more varied and interesting. Many of your favorite characters started out in ways nothing like you’d imagine …
1. Cigarette Smoking Man
The big villain in The X-Files (otherwise known as Cancer Man) appeared in the very opening shot of the pilot. Seems like clever foreshadowing. But he was just there as an extra. That’s why he’s called “cigarette-smoking man” — that’s the sort of descriptive title given to so many nameless characters played by extras.
2. Boba Fett
Did you know Boba Fett appeared in The Star Wars Holiday Special before The Empire Strikes Back? Cool, that’s some basic Star Wars trivia. Now, did you know he actually first appeared at a county fair parade?
3. Greedo
Watch Star Wars, and you’d assume Han shoots Greedo over some kind of money dispute. You’d be wrong. Greedo’s backstory says he and Han were caught in a love triangle.
4. Scrooge McDuck
Fittingly, Scrooge McDuck was created as a parody of Ebenezer Scrooge for a Disney Christmas Carol pastiche. More surprisingly, Scrooge made his money by murdering everyone in an African village then converting the land to a rubber plantation.
5. Popeye
Popeye wasn’t originally the star of his comic. The comic was called Thimble Theater, and it was about Olive Oyl and her brother Castor. 10 years into the run, they traveled to an island, which meant the debut of a sailor character.
6. Wolverine
7. Ernest
Ernest, star of nine kids’ movies (Ernest Goes To Camp, Ernest Goes To Jail, etc.), was created by an ad agency to promote a Kentucky amusement park.
8. Miss Piggy
We don’t know why Miss Piggy needs a back story, but she has one. Frank Oz decided her father died when she was young, so her mother neglected her, and mother and daughter remained not on speaking terms for the rest of their lives.
9. Kermit the Frog
Kermit started out as a killer. In his earliest form, he popped up in ads for Wilkins Instant Coffee, where he shoots everyone who doesn’t like the brand.
10. Gonzo
Gonzo started out as a villain. He appeared as a henchman trapped in a cigar box in the Christmas special The Great Santa Claus Switch.
11. Marion Ravenwood
If you do the math, Indiana Jones and Marion first got together when she was 17, which is the sort of thing that’s frowned upon. But that’s better than the affair as originally conceived. The idea was that he was 25 and she was 12 or 11. “She came on to him,” Spielberg proposed.
12. Mr. Magoo
Mr. Magoo was originally supposed to be paranoid about communism, his nearsightedness part of a political allegory. But the joke of a guy who can’t see outlived the premise.
13. Winnie The Pooh
14. Snake Eyes
G.I. Joe’s Snake Eyes wears a costume that’s completely black. That was just so they could make the toy using unpainted black plastic, saving money.
15. Super Saiyans
Know what else saves ink? Drawing characters blond when you’re doing a manga and dark hair means a whole lot of coloring by hand.
16. The Wild Things
The adorable monsters in Where The Wild Things Are are based on Maurice Sendak’s heavy-drinking aunts and uncles, who terrified him as a kid.
17. Frasier Crane
You surely know that Frasier started on Cheers before getting his own massively successful show, but you have to watch those first episodes to see how minor a character he was supposed to be, a brief romantic rival to Sam. Kelsey Grammar says the writers only kept him around because he annoyed Shelley Long so much.
18. Peter Pan
Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie’s brother died as a child. Barrie pretended to be the dead boy, dressing in his clothes, and he took some comfort in knowing the dead child would never grow up.
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