Some characters are so bizarre, improbable, or flat-out impossible that you have to wonder how their creators ever came up with them. In a surprising amount of cases, the answer is that they didn't: They just copied a real person and called it a day. Like ...

8 Kramer (Seinfeld)

NBC/Kenny Kramer

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Cosmo Kramer was the most far-fetched character in a show that included a woman who died after licking too many wedding invitations and a guy who talked like Jerry Seinfeld and had sex with a different woman every week. For the entire duration of the series, Kramer never had a real job and was always trying to make money from his ridiculous schemes -- like that time he rented a bus and charged people $37.50 to take them on a "reality tour" of his life. Who the hell would do that?

The Real-Life Inspiration: Kenny Kramer

Kenny Kramer

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Pennypacker!

Meet Kenny Kramer, the real-life former neighbor of Seinfeld co-creator Larry David who does exactly what we just described, right down to the price of the tour. Like Cosmo, Kenny enjoys cigars, golf, and, more importantly, trying to make money in ridiculous ways. In his case, this actually worked: During the disco years, Kenny came up with electronic jewelry that sold like hotcakes, allowing him to live a life of leisure.

In a Season 5 episode, Cosmo wants to play himself on the show-within-the-show, but Jerry says no. That actually happened with Kenny and David, who didn't even let him play the guy who plays Kramer playing Kramer on Seinfeld.

Kenny Kramer

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This is getting rather Inception-y.

Eventually, Kenny figured out how to profit from his connection to the show anyway thanks to his reality tour, which apparently is going way better than Michael Richards' career.