Comedians and former MTV network personalities Nikki Glaser and Sara Schaefer are pissed at E! for allegedly stealing one of their jokes. Last April, in an attempt to make light of red carpet coverage, Glaser and Schaefer tried to touch as many celebrities as they could at the MTV Movie Awards. They then cut all of those awkward invasions of personal space into a package, complete with dinging bell sound effect counting down each touch, for their (since-canceled) talk show Nikki & Sara Live.
This past weekend, E! News ran a remarkably similar segment making fun of correspondent Giuliana Rancic’s own tendency to pat celebrities—the exact sort of thing Nikki and Sara were mocking . As seen in the video below, E! used the exact same bell sound effect as well as a counter tallying all of her pats, just like the one in Glaser and Schafer’s piece.
Schaefer called out the similarity on Twitter:
So, how does it work? When your TV show gets cancelled, other shows can just use your bits? http://t.co/xXlHyaO5q4
— Sara Schaefer (@saraschaefer1) January 29, 2014
While using a bell and a counter isn’t the most unique of ideas, E! News’ piece still seems a little suspiciously familiar. Couldn’t they at least have used a siren and some pop-ups?