History Expy / LiveACtionTV

* ''Series/KyoryuSentaiZyuranger''/''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'': Daizyuzin/Dino Megazord was based on Anime/{{Golion}}[=/=]Anime/{{Voltron}} (mecha designer admitted his inspiration), while Dragon Caesar/Dragonzord was based on the King of Monsters himself, Franchise/{{Godzilla}}.

* The titular character in ''Series/ParkerLewisCantLose'' was pretty brazenly based on [[Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff Ferris Bueller]]; Wiki/TheOtherWiki even describes the series as "strongly influenced by the feature film ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off."''

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'': More than a few viewers have noticed the resemblance between Glenn and Short Round of ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom''. Both Glenn and Short Round are young Asian male {{Guile Hero}}es who wear baseball caps. They're also the sidekicks to older white badasses who love their distinctive [[NiceHat hats]]. Even [[http://www.backstage.com/interview/walking-dead-star-steven-yeun-resisting-asian-stereotypes/ Steven Yeun]] has noticed this.

* Franchise/StarTrek has a longstanding habit of bringing back past guest stars with the same actor and personality but a slightly different name, for reasons we'll get to down the line.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
*** Decker and Ilia from the aborted series Star Trek: Phase II (and then incorporated into ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'') were exported to ''TNG'' and became Riker and Troi, while the Vulcan Lt. Xon became the Android Lt. Cmdr. Data.
*** Subcommander Taris of [[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E11Contagion}} Contagion]]" has become Commander Toreth by the time of the much later episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E13FaceOfTheEnemy}} Face of the Enemy]]".
*** The official ''Next Generation'' interactive VCR board game had Robert O'Reilly playing a Klingon terrorist named ''Kavok'', an Expy of his usual character ''Gowron''.
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
*** Gul Macet from ''TNG'''s "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E12TheWounded}} The Wounded]]" gets a shave and becomes Gul Dukat. The ExpandedUniverse makes them cousins (and, interestingly, invokes DivergentCharacterEvolution and makes him a very different character.)
*** Interestingly, Quark and the previous two Ferengi played by Armin Shimerman are ''not'' a case of this. Letek was a none-too-bright {{Mook}} who's got nothing in common with the later captain named Bractor, a more serious character, and neither is anything like Quark. It's just that Ferengi ears and foreheads are a ''bit'' more complex than a little nose or ear putty, and when you've gone to the trouble of making expensive and detailed alien [[RubberForeheadAliens Rubber Forehead-ness]], it's easier to get the same actor back and put the same stuff back on him again than do it over and over for new actors.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
*** The creators wanted to bring back Nicholas Locarno, a character from the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E19TheFirstDuty}} The First Duty]]". However, the character had been created by the writer of that episode and not by ''TNG'''s creators or executive producers (as was the case for recurring characters such as O'Brien or Worf, who could be reused). Because of this, the creators of ''Voyager'' thought they'd have to pay royalties to the writer of that episode every time they used the character, and that led them to create a new character similar to Locarno's named Tom Paris with a similar backstory and who would be played by the same actor. To cover the transparent change, the creators said that they decided Locarno was irredeemable due to his actions in the episode, but Tom Paris's actions (which were more like Wesley's in the original episode) were less culpable. [[note]]However, the only difference between Locarno's actions and Paris's, as heard onscreen, is that ''three'' died in the Paris version instead of ''one'' as in the Locarno version! That, and Paris actually regretted what he did while Locarno was smugly unrepentant.[[/note]] Interestingly, many years later a California court ruled that producers in a similar situation didn't have to pay royalties to a writer who created a character; had the producers of ''Voyager'' chosen to take the matter to court, they might have been cleared to use the character Locarno. A similar situation presumably resulted in Taris/Toreth, Macet/Dukat, and a name or two further down this list.
*** B'Elanna was supposed to be Ro Laren. Apparently they wanted her to be on ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' (later replaced with Kira) and then tried again with ''Voyager'' (later replaced with B'Elanna) but the actress Michelle Forbes kept saying no, wanting to focus on her film career.
*** Also, ''The Next Generation's'' Taurik becomes ''Voyager'''s Vorik, and keeps the same actor. The ExpandedUniverse says they're twins.
** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': Supposedly, T'Pol was going to be T'Pau until the rights issues made that idea expensive (though obviously, the actor changes, as we're talking a decades-younger version of the character.) The actual T'Pau does appear for a three-parter down the line.
** ''Series/StarTrekPicard'':
*** Cristóbal Rios is basically [[Franchise/StarWars Han Solo]] transplanted to the Franchise/TrekVerse, who once served in Starfleet. He even refers to the wide-eyed, sword-wielding young man who's a passenger on his ship as a kid. He seems to have gone over better than ''TNG'''s last attempt at this, Thadiun Okona.
*** If you had transported Legolas from [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Middle-earth]] to the Franchise/TrekVerse and turned him into a [[SpaceElves Space Elf]], then you'd get Elnor. Even his name is Sindarin ("Star-Run"); it was showrunner Creator/MichaelChabon's idea to call the character (what is essentially) "Star-Trek" [[https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RVtel9WIGdg/XmRXuLeO1xI/AAAAAAABATY/o5VCEYrreoc9VsK14j4DWY8KgRV4pTehQCKgBGAsYHg/s1600/Michael%2BChabon%2BStar%2BTrek%2BPicard%2BElnor%2Bname.jpg in Elvish.]]

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': The 1980-81 cast was intentionally comprised of actors meant to be reminiscent of the original Seventies cast. (Unfortunately, this gimmick ended up having a negative effect, particularly after the first sketch of the season was centered around it. The actors failed to live up to the comparisons in many ways.)
*** Denny Dillon = Creator/GildaRadner -- The 'cute' one.
*** Creator/GilbertGottfried = Creator/JohnBelushi and Creator/HarryShearer - Although, Jean Doumanian wouldn't actually allow Gilbert to use his manic personality that would've fit the Belushi comparison, and the Shearer comparison is a complete fluke.
*** Gail Matthius = Laraine Newman -- Most obvious in the first episode, where Gail appears as both the Update correspondent and a valley girl.
*** Creator/EddieMurphy = Garrett Morris -- A comparison Eddie resented bitterly.
*** Joe Piscopo = Creator/DanAykroyd -- Even adopting Aykroyd's Tom Snyder impression and motormouthed pitchman character.
*** Ann Risley = Creator/JaneCurtin -- Bizarrely, Ann is stated in the opening sketch to be similar to Gilda... which is completely wrong. Going beyond SNL, she also came across as a PoorMansSubstitute for Creator/DianeKeaton, which makes sense since she was a Creator/WoodyAllen protégé.
*** Charles Rocket = Creator/ChevyChase and Creator/BillMurray -- Close enough to the latter, in fact, that Bill mentioned it in the episode he hosted that season.
** The next cast (hired to replace most of the above) seemed to move away from the 'Seventies counterparts' idea, thankfully. For example, none of the original cast are particularly similar to either Robin Duke or Tim Kazurinsky.
** Much of the current cast are expies:
*** Vanessa Bayer = Maya Rudolph
*** Nassim Pedrad = Creator/AmyPoehler
*** Andy Samberg = Creator/AdamSandler (right down to near-identical names)
*** The show's purported star, Creator/KirstenWiig, is an expy of Carol Burnett, whose [[Series/TheCarolBurnettShow own sketch-comedy show]] paved the way for SNL.
** In 2013 members of the comedy troupe [[http://www.goodneighborstuff.com Good Neighbor]] (performers Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney and filmmaker Dave [=McCary=]) joined SNL and were very clearly intended to fill the void left after the members of Music/TheLonelyIsland departed, including making short films (though they're very conspicuously NOT labeled as Digital Shorts). At one point they seemed to be grooming Bennett to be an expy of Jason Sudeikis (versatile guy-next-door type), but he's ended up being much more like Chris Parnell 2.0, doing voiceovers and alternating in sketches between pompous and skeevy characters. He even took the Parnell role when Creator/NataliePortman did a sequel to her rap with The Lonely Island.
** After Creator/PhilHartman left they hired [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap Michael McKean]] to explicitly fill the "utility player who can do impressions, leads and supporting roles and is a little older than the rest of the cast" slot that Hartman left open. But [=McKean=]'s strengths were different than Hartman's, he seemed out of place and a bit uncomfortable in sketches, and he only lasted one and a half years (from the second half of the 1993-1994 season to the much-maligned 1994-95 season).

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E3TheInvasion "The Invasion"]], Professor Watkins and his daughter Isobel are SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitutes written in when the actors of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E2TheAbominableSnowmen Professor Travers]] and ''his'' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E5TheWebOfFear daughter Anne]] turned out to be unavailable for filming. Professor Travers and Anne are [[PutOnABus said to have moved to America]], and Professor Watkins and Isobel fill their shoes ''extremely'' well. This is quite possibly [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by the fact that the Doctor and companions mention repeatedly that they were hoping to meet Travers and Anne before finding out that the pair are gone, even though they are otherwise unimportant to the story.
** Colonel (later Brigadier, later still [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever Sir]]) Lethbridge-Stewart resembles Colonel Breen from ''Series/QuatermassAndThePit''. So much so that originally Creator/JulianGlover from the then-recent [[Film/QuatermassAndThePit movie adaptation]] would have played him had the original actor not dropped out.
** The last story of the sixth season featured the War Chief. He's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord who dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, sports [[BeardOfEvil Facial Hair of Evil]] and knows the Doctor from their days on Gallifrey. He's ''extremely'' camp, has [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace no concept of personal space]] and offers the Doctor [[WeCanRuleTogether a half-share in the universe]]. Fast forward to Season 8, where we are introduced to [[TheMaster a new regular villain]] who's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord, dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, wears a Beard of Evil and— oh, you get the point. {{Fanon}} has even identified them as the same character.
** Ernst Stavro [[Film/JamesBond Blofeld]] has been an enduring influence on the Master; what with the Nehru jackets, the kitty-stroking in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E4Survival Survival]]", the elaborate deaths for unwary henchmen, etc.
** Harry Sullivan is supposed to be a parody of Literature/BulldogDrummond, according to Creator/TerranceDicks. So was Duggan from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath City of Death]]" later on.
** Jack Harkness has a number of similarities to one of the Eighth Doctor's ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' comic-strip companions, Fey Truscott-Sade, who like him is a morally-ambiguous secret agent with ExtremeOmnisexual tendencies, who flirts with the Doctor a lot. The only major difference is that Fey is female, although very gender-ambiguous.
** [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned "Voyage of the Damned"]]: The Hosts, robotic angels who serve as the villain's {{mook}}s, look and act a great deal like the antagonists of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E5TheRobotsOfDeath "The Robots of Death"]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]]: Antagonist Miss Foster shares more than a few traits with ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' villain Miss Wormwood.
** Companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams share quite more than a few traits with Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink Blink]]", a story Creator/StevenMoffat wrote before taking over as the head writer.
** Lumpy the brain-damaged "good" Time War Dalek in the BBC online game ''The Doctor and the Dalek'' is a clear expy of Rusty the brain-damaged "good" Dalek from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E2IntoTheDalek Into the Dalek]]".
** [[Recap/DoctorWho2016CSTheReturnOfDoctorMysterio "The Return of Doctor Mysterio"]]: The Ghost is clearly based on ComicBook/{{Superman}} with many of the same powers, ClarkKenting using glasses, and pining for a reporter, who has no idea the bumbling ordinary guy is the masked superhero. Even the origin of his powers is similar. Supes gets his abilities from a yellow sun, while Grant has accidentally swallowed a wish-fulfilling gem made inside a star. And he loved ''Superman'' comics as a kid, so the powers he manifested make sense.
** The Twelfth Doctor's companions in Series 10. Bill Potts, a working-class London girl associated with chips, is similar to the Ninth/Tenth Doctor companion Rose (her name even has some similarities to the name of Rose's actress, Billie Piper). Nardole, a PluckyComicRelief, [[MinoredInAssKicking secretly hyper-competent]] ServileSnarker who is the Doctor's best friend despite being the more minor character, fulfils similar function to the iconic Fourth/Tenth Doctor companion K-9. This was all part of RevisitingTheRoots.
** Graham O'Brien is a soft-spoken working class man in late middle age who has his perspective expanded by travelling with the Doctor. These traits are all shared with Rory's father Brian, also created by Creator/ChrisChibnall.

** The last story of the sixth season featured the War Chief. He's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord who dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, sports [[BeardOfEvil Facial Hair of Evil]] and knows the Doctor from their days on Gallifrey. He's ''extremely'' camp, has [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace no concept of personal space]] and offers the Doctor [[FoeYay a half-share in the universe]]. Fast forward to Season 8, where we are introduced to [[TheMaster a new regular villain]] who's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord, dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, wears a Beard of Evil and— oh, you get the point. {{Fanon}} has even identified them as the same character.

** After Creator/PhilHartman left they hired [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap Michael McKean]] to explicitly fill the "utility player who can do impressions, leads and supporting roles and is a little older than the rest of the cast" slot that Hartman left open. But [=McKean=]'s strengths were different than Hartman's, he seemed out of place and a bit uncomfortable in sketches, and he only lasted one year (the much-maligned 1994-95 season).

* ''Series/TheXFiles'': [[TheSymbiote The Black Oil or Black Cancer]] has a striking resemblance to the Venom symbiote from ''Franchise/SpiderMan''. Both are evil black alien liquid lifeforms resembling oil that have the ability to attach themselves to people, taking over their bodies and granting them superhuman powers. And just like most incarnations of the symbiote, the Black Oil was originally discovered in a meteorite. The introductory scene of the Black Oil even has resemblances to the symbiote's introduction in ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries''.

* The main characters of ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' are based on the crew of the ''Betty'' from Creator/JossWhedon's original draft of ''Film/AlienResurrection''. Most of them ended up altered significantly in the final film, but it's still obvious that Jayne is based on Johner. The ship ''Serenity'' herself is also based on the ''Betty''.

** Queen Annis bears more than a passing resemblance to Boudicca, and there's some speculation that Princess Mithian was based on the more familiar characterization of Guinevere, being both high-born and in a (temporary) ArrangedMarriage with KingArthur (the show's ''real'' Guinevere being a servant girl widely known as Gwen).

* Expy/TheBoys2019

* ''Series/TheBoys2019'': The Seven and many other superheroes have abilities that reference classic superheroes from other media. Also doubles as AlternateCompanyEquivalent:
** Homelander, the leader of the Seven, is a fusion of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica (American flag apparel and handsome, chiseled features) with {{ComicBook/Superman}} (flight, eye beams, x-ray vision, super hearing and super strength).
** The Deep is basically {{ComicBook/Aquaman}}.
** Queen Maeve is ComicBook/WonderWoman.
** A-Train is ComicBook/TheFlash.
** Nubian Prince is ComicBook/BlackPanther.
** Black Noir is {{ComicBook/Batman}}.
** Starlight is evocative of [[ComicBook/CarolDanvers Captain Marvel]], their costumes and logos are even similar. She's also quite similar to ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} and ComicBook/{{Stargirl}}.
** Popclaw is evocative of ComicBook/{{X23}}.
** Ezekiel's power set is lifted from [[ComicBook/FantasticFour Mr. Fantastic]].
** Stormfront is a cross between ComicBook/MaryMarvel and [[ComicBook/Thor2014 the Jane Foster version of Thor.]]

** The first season also included an extremely obnoxious character Steve Hutchinson, played by David Hornsby, who liked to be called "The Hutch" and was constantly picking on a gay Hispanic character called Kip. He was obviously based on ''Series/TheRealWorld'''s most famous season, Season 3, where an extremely obnoxious {{Narcissist}} who went by "The Puck" picked on the gay Hispanic man Pedro. Pedro had AIDS, which [[DudeNotFunny they obviously didn't replicate with Kip]], but otherwise that conflict was obviously based on that season.

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** Doyle is rather similar to Whistler, a character who appeared in the season two finale of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Both are demons, both help Angel out, both serve [[spoiler: (or served, in Doyle's case)]] as intermediaries for The PowersThatBe, both are frequently sarcastic... WordOfGod in fact says Whistler was originally intended as Angel's sidekick, but schedule conflicts with the actor caused them to use Doyle instead. Which creates a certain amount of overlap with SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute. In "City of" Doyle even wears a hat similar to Whistler's iconic hat.

** Cole is clearly an expy of Angel in ''Series/{{Buffy|the Vampire Slayer}}''. Reformed demon starts a love affair with female hero, then reverts to evil. Then good again. Then semi-evil (see season 2 ''Angel'' series). Aaron Spelling obviously agrees with the saying 'good writers borrow from other writers; great writers steal from them outright'.
** The feuding '''Mon'''tana and '''Ca'''lloway families from season 6 are the '''Mon'''tague and '''Ca'''pulet families from ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', complete with StarCrossedLovers '''R'''ichard Montana and Olivia Calloway.

** Now that most of the cast were [[PutOnABus put on buses]] or just [[CommutingOnABus commuting,]] most of the characters introduced in seasons 7 and 8 are Expies filling in the ro.

** The last story of the sixth season featured the War Chief. He's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord who dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, sports [[BeardOfEvil Facial Hair of Evil]] and knows the Doctor from their days on Gallifrey. He's ''extremely'' camp, has [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace no concept of personal space]] and offers the Doctor [[FoeYay a half-share in the universe]]. Fast forward to Season Eight, where we are introduced to [[TheMaster a new regular villain]] who's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord, dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, wears a Beard of Evil and— oh, you get the point. {{Fanon}} has even identified them as the same character.

*** Denny Dillon = Creator/GildaRadner - The 'cute' one.

*** Gail Matthius = Laraine Newman - Most obvious in the first episode, where Gail appears as both the Update correspondent and a valley girl.
*** Creator/EddieMurphy = Garrett Morris - A comparison Eddie resented bitterly.
*** Joe Piscopo = Creator/DanAykroyd - Even adopting Aykroyd's Tom Snyder impression and motormouthed pitchman character.
*** Ann Risley = Creator/JaneCurtin - Bizarrely, Ann is stated in the opening sketch to be similar to Gilda... which is completely wrong. Going beyond SNL, she also came across as a PoorMansSubstitute for Creator/DianeKeaton, which makes sense since she was a Creator/WoodyAllen protégé.
*** Charles Rocket = Creator/ChevyChase and Creator/BillMurray - Close enough to the latter, in fact, that Bill mentioned it in the episode he hosted that season.

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'': Some of the new interns in season 8 seem to be Expies of the main cast.

** Michael Seater has stated in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvp7Cq9YUWE this featurette]] that James Gillies is the Moriarty to Murdoch's Holmes.