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This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

All Animation Is Disney
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All Animation Is Disney (trope)
No amount of dreams could make this work.

"But in animation, everyone is expected to come as close as they can to Walt Disney. That's not a rap on Disney. He was a genius, an innovator... his stuff was so terrific that people came to believe that that was all there was to animation."
— Ralph Bakshi, in the notes for the DVD release of American Pop

Ah, the Disney Animated Canon. Such wonderful movies to be found in it: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, The Swan Princess...

Wait, what do you mean that last one doesn't belong? It's not Disney? Don't be ridiculous, only Disney could produce animation of that quality!

Sadly, many people in Real Life believe that, if it's a quality animated feature film, it was made by Disney. This is possibly a side effect of the Animation Age Ghetto, as people are led to believe that not only are all cartoons for kids, but they're all made by the same kid-friendly company. Who (aside from fans of animation) wants to tell these people that there's more than one animation studio out there? Small Reference Pools might play a role here, as well. Some people go so far as to believe that Disney invented animation, which isn't true either: Walt was still in junior high school when Gertie the Dinosaur was released (though he did release the first feature-length hand-drawn cartoon, namely Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs).

Remember, though, that Disney is the market leader in animated movies, and so it's understandable that rival animation studios follow trends set by the Disney Animated Canon (including Disneyfication). One critical reason is Don Bluth, responsible for taking that style with him when he left Disney, using it in his films with other studios and making that line more blurred if you're not paying closer attention than looking and assuming. Disney also releases films not made by a Disney animation studio, such as The Brave Little Toaster, and handles international distribution of some bigger-name foreign animators, most notably the works of Studio Ghibli (prior to GKids buying out the distribution rights to the majority of the latter's backlog).

Though it seems easy to distinguish when doing the bare minimum of research, Disney uses Vanity Plates on its work, and so do the other big-name animation studios. However, this can be muddied somewhat when studios strike up unanticipated strange licensing agreements - for example, Disney having the broadcast rights for Thomas & Friends in Asia, and between 2009 and 2016, somehow also ended up with the distribution and broadcast rights for DreamWorks movies in certain regions, creating a very bizarre scenario where Shrek 1 and Over the Hedge were screened on Disney Channel Asia (and in the case of Japan, a double whammy where The Penguins of Madagascar screened on Disney Channel Japan because they no longer have a Nickelodeon feed in the country, in addition to DreamWorks' said agreement with Disney).

Since Disney's most famous movies are traditionally animated films, this usually applies to traditionally animated movies. On the CGI front, DreamWorks has become a big enough name in its own right that their films rarely get mistaken for Pixar's anymore. The other guys (such as Blue Sky Studios, Illumination Entertainment or Sony Pictures Animation)... not so much. If it shares DreamWorks' tendency towards subversive or referential humor, chances are it'll get mistaken for one of their films. So a sub-trope of this could be "All CG Animation is Pixar or DreamWorks".

As being an animation fan as an adult becomes less stigmatised, this trope is beginning to die off. This is also due to many films such as The Secret of NIMH and The Iron Giant gaining cult followings and being recognized as some of the best animated films, largely even considered contenders to Disney in quality. However, because of Don Bluth becoming a household name in the animation community, it's still common for people to believe that all non-Disney 2D-animated films were made by him instead. Just make sure not to make this mistake around animation fans. At the very least, you'll get eye-rolls from them.

Subtrope of Wrongfully Attributed. Compare/Contrast All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles and Disney Owns This Trope. Misattributed Song is the variant of this trope for music. When official sources mix up the studios, it's usually because the writer pulled a Cowboy BeBop at His Computer.

Not to be confused with Disneyesque or Disneyfication. Of course, sometimes the confusion goes the other way and a film really is by Disney, but it's hard to convince people of this because it's so "un-Disneylike" (Pretty Woman or The Sixth Sense, among many, many others).

Animated mockbusters often play on this trope deliberately to make unwary customers think their cheap knockoff is the original.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

Works regularly mistaken for Disney:

    Anime & Manga 
  • This article about a Maho Girls PreCure! event has an image with "Copyright Disney" in the corner, when Toei Animation actually made the show.
  • This listing for a Kurama keychain from Naruto calls it a "Disney keychain", when Studio Pierrot made the show, and Shueisha owns the rights to the manga.

    Films — Animation 
  • Poor Don Bluth. This might happen to him the most. Then again, he did get his start at Disney and ended up pitted against them during The Renaissance Age of Animation.
    • Warner Bros. tried to play this trope to its advantage during test screenings of Thumbelina. When they played the film with the Warner logo, audiences gave it a mediocre score. When they played it with the Disney logo, the scores were much higher. Bluth reported the same thing was employed by 20th Century Fox with Anastasia (1997). With the Disney logo, some sequences even met with applause! And the marketing of Anastasia heavily played up the Disneyesque elements. Funnily enough, thanks to Disney's purchase of Fox, the film is now owned by Disney.
    • It's not uncommon to find screencaps from the film with a "copyright Disney" watermark on the corner still floating around on the internet due to this.
    • The Disney Channel aired almost every Bluth film in the mid-1990s to add to that confusion. They even aired films that neither they nor Bluth made, like FernGully: The Last Rainforest.
    • Several websites of song lyrics file Bluth film lyrics under Disney films instead.
    • This video about Toy Story 3 makes a joke during a Disney medley about Bluth's films being Disney!
    • This site points to alleged political messages hidden in Disney movies, including in its list The Secret of NIMH and All Dogs Go to Heaven.
    • This Uncyclopedia page about Herbie jokingly implies that The Land Before Time (1988) is a Disney film.
  • Once Upon a Forest is frequently mistaken for a Disney movie, also sometimes mistaken for a Don Bluth movie, when it was in fact produced by Hanna-Barbera. The film was distributed by Fox, which is now owned by Disney.
  • The Iron Giant is frequently misidentified as Disney, even on This Very Wiki. It was actually made by the Warner Bros. animation studio and directed by Brad Bird… who would soon after make films for Pixar.
  • Thomas and the Magic Railroad:
    • One reviewer was under the impression that Thomas had been produced by Disney. Then again, the review itself was poking fun at fundamentalist Christians who think all movies are the work of the devil.
    • Muddying the issue is that the movie actually aired on Playhouse Disney regularly in Asian markets. Heck, it seems that HiT Entertainment had an alliance with Disney in Asia (Barney & Friends actually aired on Playhouse Disney in the region) up until when they launched their own channel, JimJam.
    • Japanese confectionery Furuta used to call Thomas a Disney show on one of its products from the show, but when they lost the Disney license, the mistake was fixed.
  • Magic Adventures of Mumfie, Thomas' sister show, is not alone in this trope either. However, it isn't surprising as the art style of the movie Mumfie's Quest can easily be mistaken for Disney's, as well as the presence of multiple musical numbers. Britt Allcroft adapted the movie from Katharine Tozer's books, and Phoenix Animation Studios animated it. However, some episodes of the TV series following the episodes the movie was made from avert this trope when it's animated by D'Ocon, as they look different.
    • This website calls the show "Walt Disney at its' [sic] finest!" Oddly enough, D'Ocon animated the episodes on this particular VHS tape.
    • Similar to its sister show, the Italian Disney Channel played Mumfie in the early 2000's on Playhouse Disney, right before Bear in the Big Blue House.
    • It also doesn't help that Pinkey looks very similar to Hen Wen, but with wings. In fact, a few people who want to remember this movie often mistake it for The Black Cauldron due to this.
  • Most of the output of 20th Century Fox (which was almost entirely the work of Bluth) and much later, their 3D studio Blue Sky Studios, gets mistaken for Disney… or DreamWorks in the case of their CGI films. At least one customer review for the soundtrack for the Blue Sky Studios film Robots calls it a Disney film, for example. (Thanks to Disney's purchase of Fox, they technically wouldn't be wrong about that now.)
  • This video calls the DreamWorks film The Prince of Egypt a Disney film. They did fix the description after several commentators pointed it out, though.
  • In the heyday of Disney's Renaissance of the late '80s/early '90s, many many low-budget animation houses lived off this trope like kings. They made (or more likely scrounged up) the most incredibly cheap knockoffs of every Disney film of the era and released them on video around the same time the films had been in theaters for a while. They took advantage of the sad fact that some parents didn't realize the difference. "The Little Mermaid is The Little Mermaid, right? It says so on the cover!"note  Fortunately, the majority of parents could tell the difference between the beloved Disney films and, say, this. Said films are still floating around out there and have proved to be a rich well of YouTube Poop. GoodTimes Entertainment counts itself among these companies; whenever a Disney movie hits theatres or video, GoodTimes is there with a based-on-the-same-public-domain-property direct-to-video cartoon.
    • Bonus points go the one company that also shamelessly based their logo off the Warner Bros. shield.
  • Shrek:
    • This parody site claims that this movie, as well as Ice Age (2002) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang are Disney films.
    • Since Disney signed a distribution agreement with DreamWorks in 2009, they've screened Shrek on The Disney Channel several times in some markets. Understandably, this has raised a lot of confusion for those who know the differences between DreamWorks, Disney and Pixar. The agreement expired in late 2016 though, and while DreamWorks did not renew it, their new parent company NBCUniversal would sign a contract that led to the films appearing on the U.S. feed.
    • In the book I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai mentions at one point watching Disney movies while recovering from her injuries, specifically the first three Shrek films and "A Shark's Tale". Justified, as Pakistani have a very narrow perception of Western culture, including animation, thus any major film is perceived as "Disney". Additionally, Pakistan could very well be covered under Disney’s abovementioned deal with DreamWorks In Asia.
    • In this book about Latin dance, there is a reference to "2001 Disney Shrek film", in a topic about the presence of the Macarena in the cinema.
    • This article calls Fiona a Disney Princess.
    • This article about the 2007 Pester Power awards calls Shrek a Disney movie.
    • This Not Always Right story has a man who claims to be (in the submitter's words) "some kind of important Disney person" absolutely enraged that the staff of a Disney Store at Disneyland Paris are trying to tell him they don't do Shrek toys.
  • The work of Richard Rich, who made The Swan Princess movies, The King and I (1999), The Scarecrow (2000) and The Trumpet of the Swan, is often credited to Disney. Look closely during the Saturday Night Live "Saturday TV Funhouse" sketch "Journey To the Disney Vault", and you might find some Swan Princess DVDs sitting in the eponymous Vault.
  • The Nutcracker Prince. Fans of this movie mistook most of the animation (save for the flashback sequences) as similar to the Disney era. It doesn't help that there's also a Disney Villain Death within this movie.
  • Balto is another one that's frequently mistaken as a Disney film and as a Don Bluth film. It was in fact the product of the short-lived Amblimation, which would evolve into the 2D animation arm of DreamWorks (and was a semi-spinoff of Bluth's studio).
  • Cats Don't Dance was distributed by Warner Bros. (and was originally going to have the Looney Tunes as its cast), but many think it's Disney. It was in fact from Turner Feature Animation, a short-lived outgrowth of Hanna-Barbera created after Turner Broadcasting bought them.
  • Felidae is a 1994 animated film that had Disney-esque style but also showed cats getting decapitated, having sex, and being thrown around like puppets by a 90ft Gregor Mendel.
  • El Tiempo newspaper, in a 1996 article, referred to the German animation The Fearless Four as if it were from Disney.
  • The Wild, made by C.O.R.E. Animation, is a weird case. Technically speaking, it is a Disney film in the sense that they distributed it and it even carries the Disney logo. However, this often leads to people thinking the film was made by Disney themselves. Make that mistake in front of hardcore Disney fans, and they'll eat you alive. Made even worse by the fact that in the UK, The Wild is featured as the 46th film in the Disney Animated Canon, while the 39th film Dinosaur is excluded.
  • A woman complaining about The Lorax (2012)'s discrimination keeps mistaking it for Disney when it's really Illumination.
  • Roger Ebert's otherwise flawless review of Monsters vs. Aliens has one instance of it being called a Disney film (it's actually DreamWorks).
  • Bridgit Mendler, who voiced the title character of the American dub of Studio Ghibli's The Secret World of Arrietty, refers to the film as a Disney movie in one of the bonus features on the DVD, since Disney commissioned the American dub.
  • An increasing number of American consumers actually believe that Studio Ghibli movies are owned by Disney, while Disney only had the rights to distribute some of the movies in North America. Some even go as far as to believe that Studio Ghibli is "the Japanese Disney".
    • Certainly contributing to the confusion is the fact that Toy Story 3 brought a cameo of Totoro, the iconic character of Studio Ghibli.
  • This video of The Road to El Dorado brings the warning: "Disclaimer: Rights belong to Disney and respective creators." And this video in Portuguese accuses supposed subliminal messages in this movie, claiming, when talking about the famous and controversial romantic scene between Chel and Tulio, to be a film made by Disney.
  • This article describes Disney as 'An Animal Rights Activist In Disguise', citing as examples 101 Dalmatians, Finding Nemo, Finding Dory and... Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, which is from DreamWorks.
  • This site offers "The Croods disney dvd wholesale". However, the director of the film is Chris Sanders, who also directed Lilo & Stitch (2002).
  • Benedict Cumberbatch, speaking on the Graham Norton Show about his dubbing work on The Penguins of Madagascar (DreamWorks) said: “Well, I’ve had a word with Disney. I need to check that I have said [penguin] correctly in the film.”
  • This video appoints "10 Disney KUNG FU PANDA Movie MISTAKES That Slipped Through Editing". In fact, Kung Fu Panda is DreamWorks.
  • This site sells the DVD of Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (DreamWorks), indicating Walt Disney as 'Author'. And this review of the movie begins with: 'High seas, swashbuckling adventure, a sassy stowaway and several giant gruesome creatures provide non-stop action in Disney's animated version of the Sinbad story.'
  • This site lists "6 incredible life lessons we can learn from famous Disney movies quotes". The last quote is from DreamWorks' Megamind.
  • This blog points to supposed sexual subliminal messages in Disney movies, including Open Season, made by Sony.
  • This site talks about the French-Canadian animation Ballerina, as if it were made by Disney. In their defense, however, Disney did make an unrelated Danish live-action film by that name half a century before, for their anthology series.
  • Despicable Me is occasionally confused for a Disney film series, as the Disney Channel once had a habit of playing the first film a couple of times each month.
    • A video depicts a family making homemade Minion-themed Twinkies. The video refers to the movie as a Disney movie, when it’s really an Illumination film.
  • The first question that shows up on the Google results for Sherlock Gnomes is "Is Sherlock Gnomes a Disney movie?" The film is distributed by Paramount, but it's understandable considering that the film it's a sequel to was distributed by Touchstone, a division of Disney.
  • Aversion: With its 95% Rotten Tomatoes score, nobody would ever have (and for that matter, has ever) mistaken Yellow Submarine as being a Disney product. King Features produced it and TVC London animated it. The success of Submarine prompted Disney to re-release Fantasia in early 1969 as "The ultimate sight and sound experience." Disney did have plans to make a motion-capture redeux of Submarine in 2012 with Robert Zemeckis directing it, but Disney yanked it after the Zemeckis-produced Mars Needs Moms tanked.
  • This article claims that Antz was made by Disney. Not helping manners is that Pixar, whose works Disney distributed at the time, also made a movie about insects that same year.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Wind in the Willows (1996) is mistaken as a Disney film because Disney distributed the film in the U.S. and also because it was released on home video as "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride", a name shared by a particularly famous Disneyland ride that was based off of their adaptation of the story.
  • Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is frequently mistaken to be a Disney film because it's a 1960s fantasy musical that stars Dick Van Dyke, similar to Mary Poppins, and had songs written by The Sherman Brothers, who wrote many famous Disney songs such as "It's A Small World" and the Winnie the Pooh theme.
    • One TV station in Malaysia, TV3, actually aired Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as one of the films on their Wonderful World of Disney movie slot back in the turn of the millenium.note 
    • The official Disney cover of the Goldo song "Boom Da Boom" still mentions Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. When the song was used on House of Mouse, that verse was skipped.
    • Behold, a clueless ride operator refits a Pooh kiddie ride with a music box that plays the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang theme.
  • This Facebook post had a comment asking Disney Live! to include Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) in their shows. While Disney has owned the film rights to the Chipmunks since 2019 (and distributed the franchise on videocassette in the early-to-mid '90s), the overall rights to the characters are owned by Bagdasarian Productions.
  • Occasionally you'll come across some naive person or group of people who have lumped The Wizard of Oz (1939) in with the Disney animated oeuvre. Nobody ever explicitly calls The Wizard of Oz a Disney film (it's well known that it was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and that Warner Brothers currently owns the rights to it), but school plays doing a salute to Disney will often include scenes from Oz alongside the likes of Aladdin. They must think the kids are stupid ("It's got fanciful characters and musical numbers, so it must be Disney!"), or else they might genuinely consider Oz a Disney film in all but name. On the other hand, Disney did a storybook published in 1978 in book, vinyl and cassette formats, produce the sequel, Return to Oz, as well as the "unofficial" prequel, Oz the Great and Powerful, both of which are probably the root cause of this confusion. What may also add even more to the confusion is the fact that The Wizard of Oz was among the many films featured in The Great Movie Ride (a former attraction at Walt Disney World), which was allowed due to a licensing agreement between Disney and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Warner Bros. In 1954, Disney purchased the rights to thirteen Oz books.
    • A notable example of this was the commentary track for Ghostbusters (2016): after Jillian sings "Come out, come out, wherever you are..." to try and find Rowan, Paul Feig mentions that the joke cost several thousand dollars, because it was from "some Disney movie". Even Mr. Plinkett pointed out how clueless they were in his review of the movie as an example of how the director doesn't understand movies:
      "You know that’s in your movie now, right? And you don’t even know what it’s from?"
  • While The Sound of Music is owned by Disney as of March 2019, it was made by 20th Century Fox. A character in Addams Family Values saying "It's Disney" just before The Sound of Music comes on undoubtedly contributes to the confusion. Also, the association with Julie Andrews (of Mary Poppins fame) in a similar role, and just one year after Poppins no less, probably added to the confusion.
    • In addition to "The Sound of Music", the very same episode used "The Brady Bunch" theme from Paramount 1969-74 series and "Tomorrow" from "Annie" (either Broadway musical or 1982 Columbia Pictures film).
  • This newspaper article calls the Warner Brothers film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory a Disney film. It doesn't help matters that NBC aired the anthology series The Wonderful World Of Disney at the time it was published.
  • Stuart Little also tends to get confused for a Disney movie from time to time. The film was made by Columbia Pictures.
  • 2018's The Little Mermaid caused some confusion. The Disney live-action remake had been announced but hadn't even entered production at the time.
  • Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme is often mistaken for a Disney movie because it frequently aired on the Disney Channel in the late 1980s to early 1990s, and there's even been requests for the film to be added to Disney+. However, despite airing on their channel, the rights are not owned by Disney, as the film was made by Hi-Tops Video (the kids arm of Media Home Entertainment), known for distributing VHS tapes of the Peanuts specials, Pee-wee's Playhouse, Baby Songs, Barbie and the Rockers: Out of This World, and The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin. The film would later be owned by Lyrick Studios, who distributed Barney & Friends and VeggieTales.
  • The 2001 remake of Brian's Song is mistaken to be produced by Disney due to it airing under The Wonderful World of Disney on the Disney-owned ABC network, when in reality, it was produced by Columbia TriStar Television.

    Live-Action TV 

    Other 
  • Among the many flaws of The New Yorker's satirization of Epic Mickey and its darker, yet retro, reboot of Mickey, they call Porky Pig a Disney character.
  • From the website "Letters of Note" comes this adorable exchange. In 1964, a girl who was a fan of Woody Woodpecker attempted to write a letter to his creator, Walter Lantz, but addressed it to Walt Disney instead, who was nice enough to reply to the girl and forward it along. Disney seemed to anticipate this trope in his note to Lantz, joking, "I get blamed for everything that happens in Hollywood!" Another common mistake made by many people, given the similar first names and the fact that they both were involved in the animation industry (although Disney owned his own studios while Lantz worked for Universal).
  • On March 22, 2011, Disney's ABC TV network presented a two-hour special titled "Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time", which presented the best moments or films in various categories. In the animation category, four of the choices were made by Walt Disney Pictures: 1. The Lion King, 3. Beauty and the Beast, 4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and 5. Fantasia. Number 2? Toy Story 1 — made by Pixar, but nevertheless distributed by Disney, and Disney had owned Pixar since 2006.
  • In a similar vein, this is committed in large part by the lists published by the American Film Institute. They do tend to have animated films appear on lists every so often, but most of those films are Disney. On their 100 Years... series, Disney films appear in the low places like Passions, Cheers, and Musicals, with two Disney films listed on the Top 100 overall (Toy Story 1 was #99, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was #29). This is amplified on their Top 10's when in the Animation Category, eight of the listed films were Disney and two were PIXAR, with Shrek at #8 the only non-Disney movie present.
    • For their annual awards series (where they list the ten best films and TV programs of that year), the film section tends to list one animated film per year most years. From 2007-2010, and in 2003 and 2004, it was always a PIXAR film. By 2015, Animation returned with Inside Out and Zootopia the following year. The only non-Disney films to make that list are Shrek 1 (2001), Happy Feet (2006) and Coraline (2009, shared with Disney/PIXAR's own Up.
  • Looking up "Dingo Pictures" on Wikipedia used to lead to the site saying "Did you mean Disney Pictures?" This is probably just the search software picking the closest match in the database, but given Dingo's business model it's kind of apt, really. (Now, looking up "Dingo Pictures" on Wikipedia redirects to the article on "Mockbuster".) In the episode I Take On Dingo from iCarly, Dingo Channel is a television channel clearly inspired by the Disney Channel.
  • Inverted with the comic Blacksad - Guarnido, the illustrator, actually was a Disney animator, animating Hades in Hercules (1997), Sabor in Tarzan (1999), and Helga in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, among other work, but the only evidence of this is in the characters' facial expressions. It might be because Blacksad is a gritty, violent, sexual, political noir comic (populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals, no less) and going for an entirely Disneyfied look wouldn't fit.
  • This picture from a tumblr blog shows Looney Tunes and Peanuts snowglobes being sold as "Disney Snowglobes".
  • A screenwriting book called "Your Screenplay Sucks" called The Prince of Egypt a Disney film (it's actually DreamWorks). However, the author admitted later that it was a mistake here.
  • One ESL worksheet uses Disney characters, but four of the characters – Snoopy, Superman, Garfield, and Tom the cat) – are not Disney! However, in the United States, ABC airs the Peanuts specialsnote , Garfield and Friends reran on Toon Disneynote , Garfield Gets Real aired on Disney Channel Asia, and the second live-action Garfield movie aired on Disney Cinemagic Portugal.
  • This Facebook post calls Thing 1 and Thing 2 Disney characters.
  • The common slang word for animation in Greece is "mickey mouses", since that's all they know of it.
  • The freeware picture font Disney family 1 includes Tweety in the capital A and lowercase a positions. From the same designer, Pixar family 2 includes Shrek and Turbo, both of whom are DreamWorks characters (as well as Disney's Wreck-It Ralph).
  • Not even TweenComs and Kid Coms are safe from this. This complaint about Nickelodeon's Henry Danger calls it a Disney show.
  • Mike Mozart's video on people who were arrested for file-sharing claimed that the Nickelodeon series iCarly was made by Disney.
  • When Ashanti was interviewed on CNN in 2005 concerning her participation in an event at Walt Disney World, she said that her favorite Disney character was Daffy Duck.
  • In Anansi Boys Fat Charlie is stuck on an airplane full of tourists from Britain to Florida Disney World who sing all the songs from Disney animations, including "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" (which is actually from MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939)).

    Theme Parks 
  • Exploited in a rather famous experiment on false memories: People were shown fake ads for Disneyland that included Bugs Bunny (who belongs at Six Flags), and they ended up telling the researchers that they'd seen Bugs Bunny when they went to Disneyland as children. (Though they may have been confusing him with Roger Rabbit, who has a ride at Disneyland's Toon Town. Not helping matters is that Roger Rabbit actually was a huge cross-company collaboration project between Disney and WB which resulted in Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes characters appearing in the movie, which already caused tons of confusion in it's time).
  • Not even the Disney Parks are safe from this. For guests who still wear diapers, a store at the Disneyland hotel sells Huggies diapers and wipes (justified, since they have Disney characters on them) and Care Bears baby wipes. This might seem nice, until you know that Care Bears isn't a Disney property, even though it aired on Disney Channel from the mid-1980s up through the mid-1990s, and it also appeared on Toon Disney.
  • It is not unusual for the trope to be both played straight and inverted with regard to the theme parks themselves. Many a guest have lamented that "for some reason, Disney makes you buy a separate ticket to go to Universal", or ask "where is the Harry Potter ride?", believing that Universal Orlando Resort is a part of Walt Disney World. At the same time, many other guests, when planning out their vacation, will claim that they are going to Epcot Monday, and "to Disney" on Tuesday, apparently under the belief that only the Magic Kingdom is a Disney park, and the other three are their own entities.
  • The Little Mermaid ride at Disney California Adventure has The Incredible Mr. Limpet as a background character, causing confusion; This is a nod to Limpet cameoing as a background character in "Under the Sea" in a crowd shot.
  • This Daily Mail news story misidentifies two family photos taken at Universal Studios, including one with costumed Barney & Friends characters, as being taken at Disney World.

    Web Original 

    Toys 
  • Many people believe that Teddy Ruxpin was made by Disney, with several listings on Mercari saying the brand of the toy is "Disney". While the creator, Ken Forsse, did formerly work for Disney and voice actors Will Ryan and Phil Baron did several Disney-related works, the toy was made by Alchemy II and Worlds of Wonder. It doesn't help that Worlds of Wonder would later create a Mickey Mouse toy that was similar to Teddy Ruxpin.

    Video Games 
  • The description from this archived listing for a Hakan action figure from Street Fighter as being from the "Disney franchise" and "perfect for collectors of contemporary Disney figurines", when Capcom is actually the creator and owner of the Street Fighter franchise.
  • The description from this archived listing of a Kirby plush says it's "part of the Disney franchise". HAL Laboratory is the creator of the games with Nintendo owning the rights to Kirby.
  • An archived listing for a Sonic the Hedgehog figure labels it as "Disney" and says it's based off "Disney's live action adaptation". First off, Sonic is owned and created by Sega while Paramount Pictures owns the rights to the movies, and second, the figure is based off his game design, not his live action design.
  • The description from a archived listing for a Yoshi plush keychain says that it's "perfect for fans of the Disney franchise", when Nintendo is the creator and owner of the Yoshi character while Universal and Illumination own the rights to the Mario movies.
    • The same situation again happened in another archived listing, this time for a set of Yoshi beanbag toys, with the description saying stuff like "must-have for any Disney or Nintendo 64 collector", "the Yoshi character is a beloved member of the Disney franchise", and "don't miss out on the opportunity to own this rare and unique piece of Disneyana history". Once again, Yoshi is not a Disney character as he's created and owned by Nintendo.

    Western Animation 
  • The Trope Namer is obvious. Got its start during The Golden Age of Animation, and it only got worse from there...
    • It could probably be traced back to all of the Silly Symphonies clones that just about every animation studio was producing in the 1930's, to cash in on the success of Disney's shorts. Most of the time you could hardly tell the difference between them enough to realize which studio was producing it.
    • Also, up until Don Bluth launched his own studio in 1980, Disney had very little competition in the realm of feature-length animation (Ralph Bakshi does not count), so two whole generations grew up in a time where virtually all animated movies were Disney.
  • The Disney parody in the Family Guy episode "Road to the Multiverse" is sometimes believed by others that it WAS made by Disney due to realistically mimicking the animation style and throwing in some Disney references (such as a musical sequence about pies, making Brian and Stewie look cute, Lois like a princess, Adam West as a mouse, etc.) But to be fair, this sequence was outsourced to a smaller, lesser-known animation studio (it wasn't even animated in South Korea like the show usually is.)
    • The fact that Disney now owns the rights to the parody as a result of their acquisition of Fox makes it Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • An Iranian scholar ranting about how Tom and Jerry is part of a "Jewish conspiracy" repeatedly says that Tom and Jerry is a "creation by Walt Disney", which only further discredits his already-ridiculous argument.
  • The 1936 Fleischer cartoon Somewhere In Dreamland was strangely aired as a short in the 1990s Disney Channel animation compilation show Donald's Quack Attack, and because of this is sometimes called a Disney cartoon.
  • A possibly apocryphal tale states that Harry Warner (not Jack L. Warner as is commonly believed), clueless with regards to his own animation house, once said this: "All I know is that we make Mickey Mouse." If it's true, then it goes a long way to explaining how the "Termite Terrace" gang were able to get away with so much.
  • Nicely inverted by a story from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. When Gene Kelly was making Anchors Aweigh (1945), he suggested that he could perform a dancing duet with Mickey. His producers reportedly looked dubious and asked, "And what's wrong with our Jerry?" And Jerry it became.
    • The story exists in several variant forms. In some versions, Kelly wanted to use Donald Duck (in keeping with the film's nautical theme) rather than Mickey; in one version, Kelly's producers at MGM were willing, until William Hanna and Joseph Barbera heard about it and persuaded them to use Jerry; in another version, Walt Disney refused to loan Mickey out; in still another (thought to be the most likely) version, Walt was willing, but his brother Roy pointed out that their studio was in debt at the time and could not afford "to be making cartoons for other people."
  • Disney Sing-Along Songs potentially invoked this trope on a Christmas-themed video. Apparently, they couldn't find any fitting Disney clips for the "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" segment, so instead they used public domain footage from Max Fleischer's Animated Adaptation. This might be the result of the fact that Disney did distribute Fleischer cartoons on home video in the 1980s. Disney must have taken advantage of the fact the cartoons were public domain and released them for their own profit. This becomes especially amusing if you can recall that Walt Disney and the Fleischer Brothers considered themselves rivals during The Golden Age of Animation.
  • This Yahoo! Answers inquiry questions if there are any SpongeBob SquarePants rides at Disney Theme Parks.
    • A bootleg DVD of the series from China came in a cardboard sleeve with the Disney logo on it, amongst 25 or so different logos, of which only four were correct (Nickelodeon, Viacom, Paramount and MTVnote ).
  • An Amazon listing for a piece of merchandise based on PAW Patrol calls it Disney, when it actually airs on Nick Jr. and was created by TV Ontario.
    • This Pinterest pin says that the show was created by Disney Pixar, when the Nickelodeon logo used for the US licensing of the show is clearly visible in the image.
  • This often tends to happen if Disney Channel imports a show from another country and airs it on their channel, with people often claiming Disney made the show when that's not the case. Under the Umbrella Tree, Rolie Polie Olie (These two are Canadian shows made for CBC.), The Koala Brothers (a show from Australia's ABC4Kids block, not to be confused with former the American ABC Kids Saturday morning block) The Octonauts, Kate & Mim-Mim (both of these are originally from CBeebies), PJ Masks (made by Entertainment One, the same company behind Peppa Pig, and is currently owned by Hasbro) and Bluey (much like Koala Brothers above, it originated on ABC4Kids and is distributed by The BBC).
    • To add even more confusion, Disney distributed merchandise and DVDs of Rolie Polie Olie under their name until they lost the rights, though as of 2021, the show is now streaming on Disney+.
    • An Party City listing for Bluey Halloween costumes listed them as Disney, while the series is distributed by Disney in the United States, Bluey isn't created by Disney themselves.
    • A listing for a Bluey easter basket also calls it Disney.
    • A listing for a women's shirt based on Bluey said that Bluey was at Disneyland and made by Disney.
    • People often assume that Bluey was created by Disney+, with reviews even calls the show a service's show, actually, the show is created by Ludo Studio.
    • Disney Store's website adds Bluey in the category, despite the show is actually created by Ludo Studio.
  • A listing on eBay for a storybook adapting an episode of Dragon Tales called it a Disney show. The series was actually made by Sesame Workshop together with Sony Pictures Television and aired on PBS Kids.
  • One Amazon review of Butterbean's Cafe was under the impression that it was a Disney show, when in reality, it airs on Nick Jr., not Disney Junior.
  • This USA Today article about LGBTQ+ representation in kids' shows claims that My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a Disney show. That is incorrect, as the show airs on Discovery Family, although it did air on Disney Channel in Spain, France, Germany, and Japan.
  • Disney Channel airs The Penguins of Madagascar in Japan because they no longer have a dedicated Nickelodeon feed. Viacom and DreamWorks worked out a deal with Disney where Disney would air the show in that one country only. Understandably, tourists who've seen the Japanese merchandise are perplexed by the presence of the Disney Channel logo.
  • This New York Post article has a copyright notice claiming the image of Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) is owned by Disney Channel. To be fair, reruns of its sister series were aired on Toon Disney for several years.
  • In Latin America, The Fairly OddParents! is commonly believed to be made by Disney due to it airing on Jetix and Disney XD, although they didn't air anything beyond the first half of season 5. This is because of Nelvana holding the rights of those seasons (they still hold the rights as of today), as further seasons were aired by Nickelodeon in Latin American countries.
  • A listing for Ben 10 action figures calls it "Disney". Ben 10 is a Cartoon Network show, not a Disney show.
  • This article about smear frames refers to The Dover Boys as a Disney cartoon. It was actually a Looney Tunes cartoon. Bizarrely, the article later identifies Warner Bros. as the studio (which is correct). It's possible that the author of the article found out too late and forgot to correct their mistake earlier into the post.
  • During the Perestroika era, many pieces of foreign media were being imported over to the USSR. The most well-known of these were Disney features, and as a result, just about any non-Disney cartoon such as 'Tom and Jerry', 'Looney Tunes', and even 'The Smurfs (1981)' were labelled as Disney by Soviet people.
  • Dish TV claimed that DC Super Hero Girls (2019) and Clarence aired on Disney Junior. That's not true, these shows aren't appropriate for preschoolers nor made by Disney Junior. Instead, these both shows are actually intended for slightly older children and aired on Cartoon Network.
  • This common belief might be the reason why Fox's Peter Pan & the Pirates and Saban's Adventures of the Little Mermaid have the names of their respective production companies in their titles, as Disney's versions of the tales are by far the most well-known adaptations (in America, at least), and usually the first to come to mind when thinking of animated adaptations of them. Therefore, Fox Kids and Saban Entertainment felt the need to stress that it's not Disney's version of the story, especially since Disney would premiere a The Little Mermaid TV series of their own just two years after Saban came out with theirs.

Works mistaken for something else other than Disney:

    Anime & Manga 
  • World Masterpiece Theater never adapted Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but that doesn't prevent many people from thinking Huckleberry no Bōken (1976) and Huckleberry Finn Monogatari (1994) were part of it. Doesn't help that those were made in the same timeframe as World Masterpiece Theater series and had some similar animation (the main character looks markedly different compared to his counterpart in WMT's version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that said).
  • Fairy Tail is often mistaken as a Shonen Jump manga, even though it's published in Shōnen Magazine. Not only are there people demanding FT characters to appear in Jump crossover video games, there's even fanart of "Jump heroes", including Goku, Luffy, Naruto, Ichigo and… Natsu, a main character of FT.
  • A lot of people tend to assume that any 80s or very early 90s Magical Girl anime is made by Studio Pierrot. Magical Princess Minky Momo and Magical Angel Sweet Mint tend to get this the hardest.
  • Kokoro Connect can be easily mistaken as a production by Kyoto Animation, as the studio's employee Yukiko Horiguchi worked as the illustrator of the light novel.
  • Anime fans who were too young (or weren't even born) when Sailor Moon first aired in the USA often blame 4Kids instead of DiC, because they associate all obtrusive editing and censorship with the now-defunct company. Similar misconceptions have also been aimed towards Digimon, which was actually done by Saban Entertainment.
  • Shorts HD, a premium channel dedicated to short films technically calls Gintama a Funimation anime when acquired the broadcasting rights for the said anime and Sentai Filmworks has the licensing rights. Shorts HD does have the broadcasting rights for most of the title FUNimation licensed.
  • Some people think the Fire Force anime was created by Kyoto Animation when it's actually by David Production. It doesn't help matters that one episode of the first season had to be changed due to a tragedy at the studio in question.
  • Some people tend to think that Naruto was animated/created by Toei Animation, when it was actually animated/created by Studio Pierrot.
  • Some Mercari listings for Anpanman merchandise claim that it's a NHK show, since the majority of Japanese preschool shows air on that network. The channel it actually airs on is Nippon TV.
  • There's the assumption that all kawaii mascots are made by Sanrio. San-x properties like Sumikkogurashi and Rilakkuma tends to get this the hardest, but even Miffy who isn't even Japanese gets mistaken for a Sanrio character.

    Eastern European Animation 

    Films — Animation 
  • Movies from Blue Sky Studios, Sony Pictures Animationnote  or Illumination Entertainment are extremely likely to be mistaken for each other, since the vast majority of their filmography are quite similar in terms of writing, comedy and visuals.
  • All Family-Oriented Anime films are Studio Ghibli.
  • All Computer Animation is Pixar or DreamWorks.
    • This came in full circle and bit Disney in the behind, because now when Disney makes CG movies independently of Pixar, people still assume it was Pixar. Doesn't help that the new renaissance of the Disney Animated Canon that started with Tangled was kicked off after well known Pixar veteran John Lasseter became CCO of Disney's animation studios.
      • Chicken Little (2005) was the first to fall under this as it was the first non-Pixar computer animated film from them.
      • Paperman fell under this hard when the award-winning short was uploaded to YouTube for a limited time, with several viewers insisting only Pixar could have produced the short. Many attempted to correct this mistake and were widely ignored.
      • Inner Workings, because of the stylised artstyle, the Inside Out-esque premise, female character designs that got lumped into the "Pixar Mom bod" meme, and the fact that the main character looks like Carl, is frequently mistaken for Pixar's work.
      • Most learning videos called Encanto a Pixar movie, due to the fact that its animation and the character designs look similar to Coco.
      • Strange World has very "chunky," bulbous character designs that make it look similar to Soul, Luca and Turning Red, resulting in it being mistaken for a Pixar movie. Strange World was actually made by Walt Disney Animation Studios.
    • This list of "award-winning" Pixar short films is a prime example - while the list mostly consists of actual Pixar shorts, including test footage for WALL•E, it also includes seven independent short films (including Blender's Big Buck Bunny) and the teaser trailer for Despicable Me 2.
    • Although otherwise very accurate in its behind-the-scenes information, this article from Glamour also calls Wreck-It Ralph a Pixar film, as does Charlie Brooker in Channel 4's How Videogames Changed the World.
    • And this review of Wreck-It Ralph says that Kung Fu Panda 1 was produced by Pixar, prior to its acquisition by Disney.
    • DisneyToon Studios' Planes is often confused as a Pixar movie due to being set in the same universe as Cars. However, John Lasseter is the executive producer of the film and is responsible for the concept.
    • An officially-licensed Zootopia 2017 wall calendar made by DayDream carried a copyright notice for "Disney/Pixar", despite Disney making the film themselves without any involvement from Pixar.
  • Bootleg video tapes of Rock & Rule distributed at comic book conventions incorrectly claimed it was directed by Ralph Bakshi, when it actually was made by Nelvana in Canada, apparently because Bakshi was the only well-known creator of adult-oriented animation in The '80s, despite Rock & Rule having nothing in common with his style.
  • Spill.com's review for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs listed the distributor as Universal Studios, not 20th Century Fox or Blue Sky Studios, who are actually the ones responsible.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is often mistaken for a Paramount Animation production, since it's findable on their website. In truth, they actually had no involvement in the film at all.
  • The Angry Birds Movie is often mistaken for a Sony Pictures Animation production since two of the studio's sister companies were both involved with the film (it was actually mainly produced by original Angry Birds creators Rovio Entertainment via their Rovio Animation division), and the humor and character designs are similar to those found in some of their other films. The sequel averts this thanks to Rovio and SPA jointly producing it. This also applies to Storks and Smallfoot (which were both produced by the Warner Animation Group) for three of the same reasons.
  • Laika seems to be having issues with "All Macabre/Horror-Themed Stop Motion Animation is Tim Burton" in the wake of Coraline and ParaNorman. It also doesn't help that the advertisements for the former said "From the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas", which led people to believe that they were Tim Burton movies, even though Burton wasn't the director of Nightmare Before Christmas — he was the producer, Henry Selick directed.
    • Especially since ParaNorman came around the same time as Frankenweenie, which was an actual horror-themed Stop Motion animated film directed by Tim Burton.
    • And Coraline came out not too long after the Burton (and Mike Johnson)-directed Corpse Bride, besides.
    • Their distributors are likely doing this on purpose. Look on the DVD case for Coraline and try to spot Henry Selick's name anywhere. It's buried in those super-skinny all-caps credits on the back that nobody bothers to read.
  • Advertising for the film Once Upon a Forest seemed to hope that audiences would mistake it for a Don Bluth film by saying it was "From the creator of An American Tail" (the film was produced by David Kirschner, who came up with the concept of the latter film). It fooled many, but didn't do much to help its box office take. It being 1993, well after Bluth's fall from grace, it was perhaps too late for this ploy to work anyway.
    • Some people are unaware that Don Bluth had no involvement in Fievel Goes West.
    • Balto and We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story are also often mistaken for Don Bluth films, in no small part for being Universal productions (which also distributed Bluth's more beloved works) and actual similarities in character design.
    • This site says The Swan Princess is a Don Bluth film.
    • The author of this fanart of The Nutcracker Prince thought this was a Don Bluth film.
    • Indeed, "All Non-Disney 2D Animation is Don Bluth" could be considered a subtrope.
    • The 2D animated films from A. Film, such as Help! I'm a Fish, are occasionally mistaken for Don Bluth pictures, since their character designs are pretty obviously inspired by his work.
  • Igor tends to be mistaken for a DreamWorks film because of its design and humor.
  • Some sellers of Inside Out merchandise call it a DreamWorks film.
    • A "related article" that appears as a sort of ad on some websites had the heading "Get To See The Inside Out DreamWorks Didn't Want You To Know".
  • This Cracked.com list article calls Rio a DreamWorks film. Evidently all Disney-esque animation that isn't Disney is DreamWorks.
  • One Wild Mass Guess of Robots calls it a DreamWorks film.
  • Target's website claims that Dreamworks' Trolls (2016) was created by Nickelodeon. They also did the same thing with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

    Films — Live Action 
  • Some people think that Daddy Day Care was made by Nickelodeon due to the film featuring Product Placement for several Nickelodeon properties. It's actually made by Columbia Pictures.
  • Just as all animation is Disney, All British Horror Is Hammer Horror. Hammer's main rival Amicus Productions in particular gets this a lot. That both studio shared some actors and actresses such as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Ingrid Pitt didn't exactly help.
  • Similarly, with comedies, all British comedies made in the 1950s are Ealing Studios. Particularly the films of Alec Guinness not made there like Father Brown, but also many of the films of Alastair Sim, who only made one true Ealing comedy - Hue and Cry, but appeared in many films in the same vein from Launder and Gilliat. Perhaps also owes to the fact that The Ladykillers (1955) was intended as a vehicle for Sim, and Guinness deliberately modelled his performance on Sim, to the point that a Mandela Effect has occurred, with people believing it a Sim movie.
  • Some tend to think that all old school Japanese samurai films are Akira Kurosawa. One of the most acclaimed films of the genre, Harakiri, is actually by Masaki Kobayashi.

    Literature 
  • In Ancient Greece, there was a tendency to attribute a lot of epic poems to Homer, including Batrachomyomachia, which was written in the Hellenic times at the earliest, and possibly even during the Roman Empire.
  • Many people think that all Bright and Early and Beginner books are Dr. Seuss because The Cat in the Hat is on the logo for both of these series. The most common victims of this Are You My Mother?, Go, Dog, Go! (both by P.D. Eastman), The Nose Book, Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb (both by Al Perkins) and Put Me In The Zoo (by Robert Lopshire).
  • No, not all Gamebooks are Choose Your Own Adventure books; that's just the most successful gamebook series. The confusion is widespread enough, though, that even the TVTropes pages have banners at the top clearing things up.
  • "Destiny of the Daleks" is often stated to be inspired by a short story which Graham Williams and Douglas Adams said was apparently by Isaac Asimov. From the description, it was most likely "Fool's Mate" by Robert Sheckley.
  • In Russia, there is a tendency to attribute all obscene poems to Ivan Barkov. The most famous one of those, Luka Mudishchev, was written somewhere in the middle of the 19th century. Other poems are as recent as 20th Century. Barkov died in 1768.
  • When it comes to Beast Fables, Russians tend to attribute all the Russian ones to Ivan Krylov. In reality, any number of other poets published their own translations and original fables around his time. For example, a proverb originating from one fable, "We've been plowing", is often attributed to him, but it was made famous by Ivan Dmitriev.
  • The Discreet Princess was often attributed to Charles Perrault, because of course there is no way such a work could belong to a woman, Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier de Villandon.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Many people who live outside of Canada assume that all Canadian Kid Coms are produced by YTV due to their huge slate of live-action original programming, when other networks in the country also create these types of programs as well.
  • There was once a perception since The Sopranos that all prestige series/miniseries was from HBO (sorry AMC). Though this is much less of a thing since Netflix threw its hat in that game with strong branding.
  • Many assume all Italian prestige television (and biopic movies) is made by Paolo Sorrentino.
  • Due to his huge popularity, many people assume any nature documentary with a British-sounding narrator is by David Attenborough.
  • Due to his huge influence before his departure, many people assume any Nickelodeon Kid Com is made by Dan Schneider when in fact a lot of them (Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, The Thundermans, etc) are made by other people.
  • Many people believe that all shows that employ marionette-puppet hybrids are produced by The Jim Henson Company. This is especially egregious if they heavily resemble Muppets which is due to the puppet builders having previously worked with Jim Henson. Examples include St. Bear's Dolls Hospital and Wimzie's House, the latter of which actually got sued by the company for that reason.

    Music 
  • Any form of classical music will often be attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart regardless of the time period or style in which it was written. Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach are possible exceptions given that they are the other two most famous composers, but even they are prone to being misattributed onto other works.
  • Pretty much anything in the 1960s soul music genre will tend to get misattributed to Motown. Possible exceptions are Ray Charles and James Brown, both of whom were well established before Motown appeared on the scene, but the likes of Aretha Franklin and the entire Phil Spector stable will almost invariably be misidentified as Motown by the general public.
  • French Hardcore Hip-Hop of The '90s will very often be attributed solely to Suprême NTM. There's a belief that they participated to the soundtrack of La Haine, but the only thing from them in it is a lyric of JoeyStarr (which amounts to "Fuck the Police!") that was sampled by DJ Cut Killer.
  • All German Industrial Metal is Rammstein for some. Nevermind the likes of Oomph!, Megaherz, Eisbrecher, ASP, Heldmaschine...

    Professional Wrestling 
  • All professional wrestling is WWE, due to that company's domination of the market for decades. The last major competitor to WWE, WCW, went defunct in 2001.

    Sports 
  • All open-wheel Motorsports is Formula One, despite the fact that IndyCar and especially Formula E use different cars than F1. The former getting the worst of it, as there have been instances where social media influencers attend IndyCar street course races and start looking for the Scuderia Ferrari team. Not helping matters is McLaren having teams in all three leagues.

    Theatre 
  • It's common for many people to assume all plays written during the Renaissance are written by William Shakespeare. It's quite common for people to assume ONLY Shakespeare wrote plays in England at the time. There are many other playwrights at the time such as Ben Johnson, Christopher Marlowe, and John Fletcher.
  • In Japan, there are a few major producers of musicals. There's the Shiki Theatre Company, which has the Disney shows as well as similar licensed and original works. Their casting system is unique, and their musicals almost always feature troupe members. Takarazuka Revue's shows are also distinct. No one's going to mistake them for anyone else. Then there's Creator/Toho, the top producer which produces some of the biggest musicals, such as Les Misérables, Elisabeth, and Mozart!. There's also Horipro, whose shows tend to be either in modern settings (like Kinky Boots or Come from Away) or extremely dark (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street or Frankenstein (2014)) or both (Death Note: The Musical is one of their originals), though of course there are exceptions — they also have a popular musical of Peter Pan. There is also Umeda Theatre Arts, which produces a lot of original (that is, not licensed) musicals, like Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu and The Illusionist (2006), as well as licensed shows such as Phantom and Anastasia (2016), for which they were one of the original co-producers on Broadway. There are other producers who do "Grand" (Broadway-style) musicals from time to time, like Nelke's production of Mozart L'Opera Rock. But plenty of people, in and out of Japan, think all musicals in Japan (that aren't Takarazuka or Shiki) are Toho. It's not uncommon to hear people saying things like "The Toho production of Anastasia", or "the Toho production of Mozart L'opera Rock", and have to remind them that those aren't Toho.

    Video Games 
  • Many newcomers thought Animal Jam is created by the National Geographic Society, thanks to the game formerly being under the brand. WildWorks created the game; they just had National Geographic to partner with them. This has died down after National Geographic ended their partnership in 2018 and thus the branding was removed.
  • All Video Games are Nintendo: Much like Disney to animation, Nintendo reigns as the king of video games, especially kid-friendly ones, so it's not uncommon to mistake a usually kid-oriented game as Nintendo:
    • Some people think that Sonic the Hedgehog is created by Nintendo, due to most of its games following a cartoony and colorful design akin to that of Nintendo, Sonic's status as one of the most famous video game characters (something that many Nintendo characters share), later games appearing on Nintendo consoles (the Wii U's eshop even had a dedicated section for Sonic games), and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Sonic is created by Sega, which has plenty of M-rated games up its belt.
    • One editor on the Disney Wiki reckoned that all cameos in Wreck-It Ralph movie are either Disney or Nintendo. They even gave among the "Nintendo" examples, such as Zangief and M. Bison from Capcom and Pac-Man and Dig Dug from Bandai Namco Entertainment. This edit also ignored the Qix (Taito) and Q*bert (Gottleib), amongst other decidedly not-Nintendo examples. Even better is the fact that Sonic and Dr. Eggman are from a series made by a former competitor of Nintendo's and never appeared on a Nintendo console until the early '00s.
    • Brazilian Preacher Josue Yrion refers to video games as "Nintendos". This includes games such as Resident Evil, Doom or Diablo. The only aversion is in his infamous quote "Nintendos, Segas, Super Nintendos, PlayStations, whatever."
    • Several iconic video game franchises initially got their start on the Nintendo Entertainment System including Mega Man, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest which has contributed to a strong association with Nintendo.
    • Because the series began on Nintendo DS, has most of its games on Nintendo consoles, and is similar in style to some Nintendo franchises, some people believe that Cooking Mama is made by Nintendo. It's actually developed by Office Create and (depending on your region) is published by Majesco Entertainment (North America), 505 Games (PAL regions), or Taito (Japan). Meanwhile, Cooking Mama: Cookstar was developed and published by Planet Entertainment.
  • Any game that is played through a web browser is almost unanimously referred to as a "Flash game". While it's true that many browser games are Flash-based, plenty of other games are written in programs such as JavaScript, Canvas, WebGL, and WebAssembly. That, and Flash largely stopped being used as a gaming platform outside of archival purposes around 2015 in favor of HTML5-based ones that were less resource heavy. Flash itself also ended support in 2020, with most browsers blocking anything Flash-based by default, if not removing their dedicated Flash players altogether.
  • This YouTube video featuring a Pac-Man puppet show claims that the eponymous video is a commercial for Pepsi. It's actually an ad for the now defunct service GameTap. To top it all off, no Pepsi products are ever seen, making you wonder what connection the user made between this ad and Pepsi, aside from the fact that it's a game about food and eating.
    • On the subject of Pac-Man, look closely at this eBay listing for an Inky plush, and the seller claims that he's a character from Angry Birds.
  • During a controversy over the “fatty, fatty, no parents” line from Portal 2, the television station reporting the story complained to Sony because the game was being played on a PlayStation 3. When Sony explained they had nothing to do with the game and tried to direct them to Valve (the developer) instead, they accused them of trying to evade scrutiny.
  • Royal Match is sometimes mistakenly believed to have been developed by Playrix because, much like some of Playrix's other games such as Homescapes, Gardenscapes, Fishdom and Wildscapes, the gameplay is basically the same as that of King's Candy Crush, and the game's ads tend to focus on minigames that are not actually a core part of the gameplay and occur very infrequently. Royal Match is actually developed by Dream Games.
  • If a JRPG has anime-style characters and art that sometimes leans towards realism, it often leads people to shout "Final Fantasy". After all, Final Fantasy is the biggest JRPG franchise, so any game sharing these design features could prompt people to associate it with the series, even if it's not developed by Square Enix.
    • This is particularly noticeable with Kingdom Hearts, where well-known Disney characters join forces with characters that have a distinct Final Fantasy look. Square Enix's collaboration with Disney adds to the confusion, despite Disney holding the rights to the Kingdom Hearts characters. The confusion is further fuelled by the appearance of actual Final Fantasy characters in some of the games.

    Web Animation 

    Western Animation 

Alternative Title(s): All CGI Is Pixar, All CGI Is Dream Works

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