History Main / FictionalCounterpart

** ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "Some Buried Bones," a StudentsSecretSociety at Chelsea University called "Kings and Shadows," in which membership is passed down from powerful alumni to their sons, stands in for Yale's real-life counterpart "Skull and Bones."

* In ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'', distinctly Apple-inspired computers are branded as Tandy, which, ironically, was an actual real-world computer brand.

** "The Games Underfoot" involves searching for a bunch of buried copies of an old, infamous game called "Nottingham Knights" for the Emeryvision. A character refers to Playstation, Xbox, and the Nintendo Wii by name however they use a fictional counterpart for the UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}} and Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial licensed game.

** ''Literature/{{Toradora}}!'' has such an obvious FictionalCounterpart of Starbucks that the main character wonders out loud why the shop hasn't been sued.

* ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'' is packed with [[FictionalCounterpart Fictional Counterparts]], with most of the parodies being a twist on the name to match the medieval feel. Examples include Friar's Fat Boy (Bob's Big Boy aka Frisch's Big Boy in some parts of the country) and Farbucks (Starbucks).

* ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' is an interesting example, because all the water, drinks and basically all liquids in America, except for toilet water, have been replaced by Brawndo, a FictionalCounterpart of Gatorade. What makes it interesting is that they specifically mention this by saying that it "[[ExpyCoexistence tastes like Gatorade]]".

* OlderThanTelevision: The ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' story "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" (1923) is set in the British university town of "Camford", very obviously a FictionalCounterpart for one of the renowned university towns of [[{{UsefulNotes/Oxbridge}} Oxford or Cambridge]].

** John Berryman (Visser Four) isn't quite a FictionalCounterpart of Creator/JohnBarrymore, but he ''was'' a Shakespearean actor, though not a very good one.

* Most espionage series feature fictionalized counterparts of the CIA and KGB: U.N.C.L.E. in ''Series/TheManFromUncle''; CONTROL in ''Series/GetSmart''; KAOS in the same series is probably a FictionalCounterpart to SMERSH, itself a real-life spy organization that appeared in the early James Bond novels; Bond himself eventually faced SPECTRE (a terrorist organization with a similar modus operandi), which replaced SMERSH's appearances in the movies. In the movie ''Film/ThePresidentsAnalyst'', government agencies denied permission to use their names ''after'' filming had started, so references to the "FBR" and "CEA" are obviously dubbed in.

* In the original miniseries of ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'', the lead characters worked for an organization that was called the Department of Homeland Security, but which functioned more like the FBI with its own agents and field offices (the real DHS is a cabinet department that coordinates the efforts of such domestic security agencies as the Customs Service, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Secret Service, Transportation Security, etc.). Essentially this DHS was itself a FictionalCounterpart of the FBI, and a case of research failure. In subsequent seasons, it was renamed NTAC (National Threat Assessment Command) to correct this.

*** The Runaway Five, which may not seem to be a FictionalCounterpart; however, in Mother 2, they were known as the Tonzura Brothers. They dressed in black suits, hats and sunglasses. [[Film/TheBluesBrothers Just like these guys.]]

** ''VideoGame/Mother3'': The band DCMC is the FictionalCounterpart of AC/DC.

** Koromaru from ''VideoGame/Persona3'' is a FictionalCounterpart of UsefulNotes/{{Hachiko}}. Even a year after his owner was killed, Koromaru would still go on the same walk that his owner used to take him on every day. [[spoiler:Koromaru is eventually revealed have a human-like intelligence and joins the party as a TeamPet to avenge his master, who turns out to have been killed by Shadows.]]

* Mooby's in ''Film/{{Dogma}}'' is a stand-in for both UsefulNotes/McDonald's (Egg-a-Mooby-Muffin) and Disney (bi-coastal theme parks).

** "The Games Underfoot" involves searching for a bunch of buried copies of an old, infamous game called "Nottingham Knights" for the Emeryvision. A character refers to Playstation, Xbox, and the Nintendo Wii by name however they use a fictional counterpart for the UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}} and Film/{{ET}} licensed game.

* ''VideoGame/{{Kindergarten}}'':