History Main / HumbleBeginnings

** The [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros64 first]] ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game started out as a side-project that Creator/MasahiroSakurai and other staff at Creator/HALLaboratory worked on during weekends in an attempt to create an easy-to-pick-up fighting game. The game wasn't even conceived as a crossover at first; the idea of using pre-established Nintendo characters was introduced midway through development due to Sakurai's fears that the game wouldn't standout in the crowded fighting game market without an already familiar cast of characters. The combination of the recognizable characters and accessible gameplay turned the game into a SleeperHit in spite of its lack of budget. Thanks to better hardware and proper budgets, subsequent ''Smash'' games would go on to become even more successful, becoming {{Killer App}}s for future Nintendo systems and giving rise to yet another CashCowFranchise for Nintendo.

** The [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros64 first]] ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game started out as a side-project that Creator/MasahiroSakurai and other staff at Creator/HALLaboratory worked on during weekends in an attempt to create an easy-to-pick-up fighting game. The idea of using pre-established Nintendo characters was introduced midway through development, and the combination of the recognizable characters and accessible gameplay turned the game into a SleeperHit in spite of its lack of budget. Thanks to better hardware and proper budgets, subsequent ''Smash'' games would go on to become even more successful, becoming {{Killer App}}s for future Nintendo systems and giving rise to yet another CashCowFranchise for Nintendo.

** The first ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game started out as a side-project that Creator/MasahiroSakurai and other staff at Creator/HALLaboratory worked on during weekends in an attempt to create an easy-to-pick-up fighting game. The idea of using pre-established Nintendo characters was introduced midway through development, and the combination of the recognizable characters and accessible gameplay turned the game into a SleeperHit in spite of its lack of budget. Thanks to better hardware and proper budgets, subsequent ''Smash'' games would go on to become even more successful, becoming {{Killer App}}s for future Nintendo systems and giving rise to yet another CashCowFranchise for Nintendo.

These may be considered a SpiritualSuccessor, SurprisinglyImprovedSequel, AdaptationExpansion or MorePopularSpinoff, and cause AdaptationDisplacement or SequelDisplacement, depending on what you consider a sequel, successor, adaptation, and original. A lot of people tend to assume that ItWillNeverCatchOn.

** The first ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game started out as a side-project that Creator/MasahiroSakurai and other staff at Creator/HALLaboratory worked on during weekends in an attempt to create an easy-to-pick-up fighting game. The idea of using pre-established Nintendo characters was introduced midway through development, and the combination of the recognizable characters and accessible gameplay turned the game into a SleeperHit in spite of its lack of budget. Thanks to better hardware and proper budgets, subsequent ''Smash'' games would go on to become even more successful, giving rise to yet another CashCowFranchise for Nintendo.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' was a one-off trailer [[Creator/RoosterTeeth a bunch of drunk college friends]] put together inspired by early ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' {{Machinima}} and their obsession with a new game they were playing called ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved''. When some fans on the very early internet liked it, demand grew for a proper series, which they eventually started in 2003 using rough capture footage from their consoles filming the popular multi-player game of capture the flag. What started as a nonsensical sitcom with Halo characters swearing and [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] the video game logic eventually grew into a surprisingly complex and ever-growing plot with dozens of developed characters, semi-professional and professional actors, custom CGI animated sequences, an indie rock band to perform the background music, and interconnected epic of war, betrayal, the ethics and morality of artificial intelligence, and comrades in battle while maintaining the witty humor and hilarious banter between ''Halo'' characters.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' had its roots in ''WesternAnimation/TinToy'', a 5-minute short film about toys hiding from, and then wanting to be played with, a baby named Billy. A half-hour ''Tin Toy'' Christmas special was in the works as a testing ground to see if Pixar could manage a production that was closer to that of a feature-length film. In it, Tinny would have accidentally been sold to a toy store where he would discover he was part of a set of toy musicians that sold poorly. Another version of the story involved him being left behind on a family road trip where he'd team up with an abandoned ventriloquist dummy, and the two of them would make their way to a daycare center, where they'd be loved and played with forever. Disney wasn't interested and the studio couldn't afford to produce it independently, so Disney did the next best thing: they told the studio to start work on an honest-to-goodness feature film, which eventually became ''Toy Story''.

* [[Wiki/TVTropes This Very Wiki]] started out on Website/BuffistasOrg, a ''Franchise/{{Buffyverse}}'' fan-site.

* Before becoming the FlagshipFranchise that [[CashCowFranchise earned millions of dollars]] for Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}, ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' started life as Bob the Sponge in a pamphlet comic made by Steven Hillenburg called ''ComicBook/TheIntertidalZone'' for children visiting the Orange County Marine Institute where he worked at. About a decade later, he revamped the concept to make a pitch for Nickelodeon, and the rest was history.

* ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'' started out at around 1985 when Creator/ChrisSanders drew a picture of a grotesque alien creature for a failed children's book pitch. He kept the creature, called "Stitch", in his mind as he worked on several [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney animated films]] during the Disney Renaissance for years up to the mid-90s when Creator/{{Disney}}, who was looking to produce an animated film with a smaller budget than their big blockbusters, approached him to come up with a pitch for a new original film. After some tweaking to the story and character design, Sanders got to use his character for an animated film that would become Disney animation's one combined critical and commercial saving grace during their low period in the first half of the 2000s, even spawning [[Franchise/LiloAndStitch a successful franchise]] shortly thereafter.

[[folder:Film]]
* Creator/RobertRodriguez's ''Film/{{Desperado}}'', which was the remake/sequel of ''Film/ElMariachi'' which he made on a budget.
* ''Film/ShredderOrpheus'' started as a short 13-minute movie called ''Orpheus and Eurydice'' in 1983, was expanded into a 27-minute film in 1987 under the current title, and finally became a full-length feature in 1989.

* ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'' started out at around 1985 when Creator/ChrisSanders drew a picture of a grotesque alien creature for a failed children's book pitch. He kept the creature, called "Stitch", in his mind as he worked on several [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney animated films]] during the Disney Renaissance for years up to the mid-90s when Creator/{{Disney}}, who was looking to produce an animated film with a smaller budget than their big blockbusters, approached him to come up with a pitch for a new original film. After some tweaking to the story and character design, Sanders got to use his character for an animated film that would become Disney animation's one combined critical and commercial saving grace during their low period in the first half of the 2000s, even spawning [[Franchise/LiloAndStitch a successful franchise]] shortly thereafter.

* Gigi DG publicized ''Webcomic/CucumberQuest'''s humble origins as part of an AprilFoolsDay gag in 2014. For the day, she revamped the site as ''Kukobu Quest'', featuring her own art and writing from ten years prior.

-> ''"InAWorld where a bankrupt comic book company sold the film rights of its best characters for peanuts, because they thought movies would be a good way to sell more comics, [[Creator/KevinFeige a young executive]] will do what he can with the rejects no one wanted, and do so well they get bought out by {{Creator/Disney}}... before it was cool."''
-->-- '''WebVideo/HonestTrailers''' for the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse[[note]]except for ''Film/AvengersEndgame''[[/note]]

* ''Webcomic/AxeCop'' is written by a six-year-old, but drawn by a professional.

* ''VideoGame/ShiningInTheDarkness'' was developed on NoBudget (as the developer admitted in a 2009 interview; despite being a first-party in-house title they were only given the bare minimum budget offered to 3rd-party developers) solely to pad out the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis' then-threadbare library of [=JRPGs=]. When Sega decided they wanted to create their own strategy RPG series to rival Nintendo's ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', they chose to revisit the world of ''Shining in the Darkness'' and [[Franchise/ShiningSeries the rest was history]].

* [[Wiki/TVTropes This Very Wiki]] started out as Website/BuffistasOrg, a ''Franchise/{{Buffyverse}}'' fan-site.

-> ''"InAWorld where a bankrupt comic book company sold the film rights of its best characters for peanuts, because they thought movies would be a good way to sell more comics, [[Creator/KevinFeige a young executive]] will do what he can with the rejects no one wanted, and do so well they get bought out by {{Creator/Disney}} ... before it was cool."''

* The {{recurring fanon character}} JustForFun/{{Bowsette}} came from a simple {{webcomic|s}} {{parody}}ing the mechanics and events of ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' games[[note]]Specifically, it was parodying a new power-up added to the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version of ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosU''[[/note]], as most Website/DeviantArt comics do. Somehow, this one depiction of Bowser as a HotterAndSexier Peach lookalike with CuteMonsterGirl MorphicResonance ''really'' caught on with fans, inspiring oodles of FanArt all over the world. Bowsette's UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese name "Kuppa-Hime" (Princess Koopa) became a top-trending tag on Website/{{Pixiv}}, with ''7,000 drawings in less than a month, compared to Bowser (3,000) and Peach (5,000) since the site's beginning''. Even professional {{manga}} artists (such as the mangaka behind ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'', ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'', and ''Manga/PopTeamEpic'', just to name a few) have drawn Bowsette fan-art, Wiki/TheOtherWiki [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowsette has an article on her]], and less savvy fans regularly mistake Bowsette for an official ''Mario'' character.
-->--'''[=Ayyk92=]:''' [[https://twitter.com/ayyk92/status/1043855759904202752?s=19 What the hell is happening, I'm flattered but also a bit scared now]]

-> ''"InAWorld where a bankrupt comic book company sold the film rights of its best characters for peanuts, because they thought movies would be a good way to sell more comics, [[Creator/KevinFeige a young executive]] will do what he can with the rejects no one wanted, and do so well they get bought out by {{Creator/Disney}} before it was cool."''

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Simpsons_on_Tracey_Ullman.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow The original incarnation]] of what is now [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons a multi-billion-dollar multimedia franchise juggernaut]].]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow The original incarnation]] [[Franchise/TheSimpsons of what is now]] [[CashCowFranchise a multi-billion-dollar multimedia franchise juggernaut]].]]

* The idea for ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'' began as a one-off joke on an {{omake}} page of a manga. Later, some people saw it on an {{Imageboard|s}} and decided to take a serious crack at making a VisualNovel featuring girls with disabilities.

* ''Madballs in Babo Invasion'' was the sequel to the one-man freeware program ''Babo Violent 2'', which was itself the formalized version of a ''networking test''.

* The game that preceded ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'', ''VideoGame/NarbacularDrop'', was a school project at {{DigiPen}}.

* The idea for ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'' began as a one-off joke on an {{omake}} page of a manga. Later, some people saw it on an {{Imageboard}} and decided to take a serious crack at making a VisualNovel featuring girls with disabilities.

* ''WebComic/AxeCop'' is written by a six-year-old, but drawn by a professional.

* ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'', a ''VideoGame/{{WarCraft}} III'' [[AbridgedArenaArray map]] with ''its own work page'', has inspired a ''top ten single charting theme song'', quite a few popular games, among them ''VideoGame/{{Demigod}}'', ''VideoGame/HeroesOfNewerth'', and ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', and arguably its own ''genre'', and scored its developer a position at Valve Software (they seem to have a thing for AscendedFanboy developers).

* The {{recurring fanon character}} JustForFun/{{Bowsette}} came from a simple {{webcomic|s}} {{parody}}ing the mechanics and events of ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' games, as most Website/DeviantArt comics do. Somehow, this one depiction of Bowser as a HotterAndSexier Peach lookalike with CuteMonsterGirl MorphicResonance ''really'' caught on with fans, inspiring oodles of FanArt all over the world. Bowsette's UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese name "Kuppa-Hime" (Princess Koopa) became a top-trending tag on Website/{{Pixiv}}, with ''7,000 drawings in less than a month, compared to Bowser (3,000) and Peach (5,000) since the site's beginning''. Even professional {{manga}} artists (such as the mangaka behind ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'', ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'', and ''Manga/PopTeamEpic'', just to name a few) have drawn Bowsette fan-art, Wiki/TheOtherWiki [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowsette has an article on her]], and less savvy fans regularly mistake Bowsette for an official ''Mario'' character.