History Main / MegaphoneHanging

Sometimes a story isn't a remake, but borrows themes and/or situations from an earlier story. This isn't a WholePlotReference or the SerialNumbersFiledOff, but rather the normal realm of artistic inspiration and literary allusions.

The Megaphone Hanging is a little ShoutOut that [[LampshadeHanging Hangs A Lampshade]] on the inspiration or connection to the previous work. (This is not to say that the ShoutOut ''itself'' gets lampshaded; the ShoutOut ''is'' the lampshade.) These are usually less obvious than a ShoutOut, as many times only those familiar with the source of inspiration will realize that the ShoutOut is even there at all.

Say, you have the trench run in ''StarWars'' and its connection to the ''TheDamBusters''. So GeorgeLucas fills in a small detail, like the background chatter, with something from Dam Busters. If they had a pet dog named after a racially insensitive term, similar deal. It doesn't affect the actual trench run (compared to the targeting computer) but gives a little nod to the original inspiration.

Compare SpiritualSuccessor, SpiritualLicensee.
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!!Examples:

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[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* Might or might not qualify as an example, but UK station E4's tongue-in-cheek trailers for ''HowIMetYourMother'' "accidentally" draw attention to the similarity between that show and ''{{Friends}}'' before admitting that it's basically just new episodes of the latter.
** Made all the funnier when you know that E4 is basically the ''Friends'' channel, as it shows a couple of episodes a day, every day, and when it gets to the end of season 10, starts back at the beginning again. The [[http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=5c_-gzE5OAM&feature=related ads for HIMYM]] had the following voice-over: "Meet Chandler--er, I mean, Ted. He lives in New York with a bunch of his attractive twenty-something friends, including Joey--er, I mean Barney. Phoebe--I mean Lily. And a hot one, with hair. They have on-off relationships. And there's all kinds of romantic stuff. Mixed in with the funny stuff! So it's quite unlike anything you've seen before." At this point, cut to a scene of Robin saying, "We could be friends," to which the narrator replies, "Quiet, you. Oh, all right. It's basically new episodes of ''{{Friends}}'' without boring ruddy Ross."
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''DannyPhantom'' draws a lot from SpiderMan. From the school bullies (Dash and Flash respectively) being cut-and-pasted versions of each other, to the [[ComesGreatResponsibility responsibility]] message, to SecretSecretKeeper Jazz's role being a lot like Aunt May in the main comics. They both even have clone sagas! (Danny's is quite a bit shorter, however.)
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[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''LoveHina'' has taken some flack for lifting story ideas and plot developments from ''MaisonIkkoku''. It is probably not a coincidence that Keitaro's aunt is named Haruka, the same as [[spoiler: Godai and Kyoko's daughter]] from the end of ''Maison''. This is further suggested by vocal casting MegumiHayashibara as Haruka (casting an A-list star in a support role); Hayashibara actually ''debuted'' in in ''Maison'' (minor characters and background voices).
** Not just ''MaisonIkkoku'': ''LoveHina'' also ''heavily'' borrows elements from the back-then extremely popular DatingSim series ''TokimekiMemorial'': Naru is a very obvious {{Expy}} of ''Tokimemo 1'' heroine [[HeroesWantRedHeads Shi]][[TheAce ori]] [[WellExcuseMePrincess Fuji]][[CannotSpitItOut saki]], the "promise at Todai that'll bond and give eternal happiness to a couple" is a rehash of ''Tokimemo 1'' and ''2'' 's Legend of [[WorldTree the Tree]] / Bell, and the wacky characters and atmosphere is picked from the formula that made ''Tokimemo 2'' 's success. Heck, voice cast-wise, JunkoNoda was Kitsune and Hikari Hinomoto, and YujiUeda was Keitaro and Yoshio Saotome.
* in ''Ray: the Animation...'' sort of... the story takes a lot of inspiration from ''Manga/BlackJack''. In the manga, a character that is [[LawyerFriendlyCameo suspiciously similar to Black Jack]] shows up. The anime, though, just goes ahead and drops B.J. in there, because the studio that produced had the rights necessary to do so.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Writer PeterDavid called these his PinkBunnySlippers after an example of one of his ''IncredibleHulk'' comic book storylines. He realised that there are parallels between between his ''IncredibleHulk'' story line and this other movie, ''RealGenius''. There are similar plot points so he makes a reference to it that doesn't involve using any more of the pre-existing connection but just throws in this shot of pink bunny slippers (as worn by both the University President and Val Kilmer in the movie) to lampshade it to anyone else who might have also spotted the similarites.
* It is a bit of a RetCon, but Comicbook/{{Batman}}'s [[SuperHeroOrigin origin]] (seeing his parents murdered) traditionally happened on the way back from seeing ''TheMaskOfZorro'' (an obvious inspiration for Batman himself).
** In the ''BatmanBeyond'' FullyAbsorbedFinale in ''JusticeLeague'', it's revealed that Terry [=McGinnis=]'s family was supposed to have been killed after watching a film about the Grey Ghost, a superhero who happened to be an inspiration for the DCAU Batman in ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries.''
* {{Wolverine}}'s "Old Man Logan" storyline draws many parallels to the movie ''{{Unforgiven}}''. Likely why "Un-4-Given" is gratified on the side of the future Fantasticar in the first issue.
* AlanMoore was either unaware of or had forgotten ''TheOuterLimits'' episode, [[spoiler:"The Architects of Fear"]], when he was writing ''{{Watchmen}}''. When someone pointed out the similarity it bore to [[spoiler:Ozymandias's EvilPlan]], Moore and Gibbons had it playing on Sally's TV in one of the penultimate scenes.
* Neil Gaiman's ''{{Sandman}}'': The concept of taking a relatively obscure DCUniverse figure and re-interpreting it with a deeper mythology was ground well-trod by Alan Moore, in his run on the ''SwampThing'' series. In his first couple of arcs, Gaiman throws in a ton of nods to Moore: the inclusion of the Moore-created JohnConstantine, the clues that Morpheus' pet Matthew is the reincarnation of the ''SwampThing'' character Matthew Cable, the similar plot of a formerly goofy DC universe villain taking hold of his powers to become a major threat that the JusticeLeague can't handle, so the eponymous character must talk down (The Floronic Man/Doctor Destiny), and so forth.

[[folder:Film]]
* The Death Star attack in ''StarWars: ANewHope'' owes a lot to the climactic attack in the movie ''TheDamBusters'', both in the way it was filmed and in the characters setting up a precise run to the target. This is made clear when much of the pilot chatter ("Say about twenty guns..." and so on) is lifted verbatim from the earlier movie.
** The similarity is referenced in the film's ''Encyclpedia of Science Fiction'' entry [[http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/star_wars_episode_iv_a_new_hope here]].
* {{Pandorum}} does this with ''TwelveThirteen''. Dennis Quaid even compares it to ''StarWars''.
* ''TheIncredibles'' has a family of four {{superhero}}es (plus a baby) with half of the same powers as the ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'' (who are the ur-"superheroes as family" group). Naturally, the final villain (right after the [[SuperHeroOrigin origin story]] movie) is a subterranean conqueror, "The Underminer". He's a pretty close match to the Mole Man, the villain in ''FF'' #1.
** Not to mention the parallels to ''{{Watchmen}}'', with superheroes forced into retirement. Edna, who ends up designing their costumes, goes into a rant about how capes are dangerous because they get stuck on things- similar to how ''Watchmen'''s Dollar Bill died.
* The evil rich mastermind in ''BatmanReturns'' is given the apparently MeaningfulName of Max Schreck (fright/scare). Actually that was the name of the actor who played Count Orlock in the original ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}''. A way for director Tim Burton to tip his hat to the very 1920s German Expressionist look of his two Bat movies.
* ''ThrowMommaFromTheTrain'' is built around the same let's-trade-murders plot as {{Alfred Hitchcock}}'s ''StrangersOnATrain''. This is directly referenced in the movie, when writing teacher Larry tells his hapless student Owen to watch some Hitchcock for inspiration. Owen watches the first few minutes of ''Strangers'', immediately recognizes the similarity to his current situation, and runs off to kill Larry's wife...
* It's debatable whether it is meant as this or a ShoutOut, but Adam Baldwin making a cameo appearance in ''DrillbitTaylor'', apparently as his ''My Bodyguard'' character.
* ''OfficeSpace'' had the main character and his friends robbing their company by rerouting the fractions of pennies that get rounded down when taxes are deducted. They comment that this is what Richard Pryor did in ''SupermanIII''.
** This also acts a heads-up for how it will turn out to anyone who remembers that Pryor was instantly caught in ''SupermanIII''.
* You wouldn't expect a SylvesterStallone action movie to be influenced by Aldous Huxley's ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'', but ''DemolitionMan'' draws its setting of peaceful, eugenised, tightly controlled San Angeles of 2032 from the novel, and SandraBullock's character Lenina Huxley is named after the author and one of the book's characters as a reference.
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[[folder:Literature]]
* StephenFry's novel ''The Stars' Tennis Balls'' (aka ''Revenge'') owes a lot to ''TheCountOfMonteCristo''. In acknowledgement of this, the major characters have names that are anagrams of or puns on the names of their equivalents in the earlier novel.
* It's fairly obvious that the New Republic in ''Singularity Sky'' by CharlesStross is basically 19th century Prussia IN SPACE! Less obvious is that the Republic's military leader's delusion that he is pregnant with an elephant was shared by a real Prussian field marshal (Gebhard von Blucher) during the NapoleonicWars.
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[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* Jessica Fletcher of ''Murder She Wrote'' seems to have been more than slightly [[LittleOldLadyInvestigates Inspired by]] Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, especially since series star Angela Lansbury had previously ''played'' Marple in the movie version of ''The Mirror Crack'd''. The pilot of ''Murder She Wrote'' opens with a scene of the star little old lady ''solving'' the end of a movie mystery interrupted halfway, which is a direct lift from the opening of ''The Mirror Crack'd''. Said scene is not in the book.
* A case of internal borrowing: One ''{{LazyTown}}'' episode echoes the plot of the play it was based on when Robbie Rotten in disguise takes over illegally as mayor. Although other than the 'taking over from the mayor' aspect the episode is very different, both play and episode briefly have the real mayor in a bunny suit for no good reason. Only hardcore or Icelandic fans would get it, though, as the play is both in Icelandic and very difficult for a non-Icelander to acquire legally.
** Also, many of the songs used in ''{{LazyTown}}'' have the same tune (and general theme) as the songs used in the original plays.
* Might or might not qualify as an example, but UK station E4's tongue-in-cheek trailers for ''HowIMetYourMother'' "accidentally" draw attention to the similarity between that show and ''{{Friends}}'' before admitting that it's basically just new episodes of the latter.
** Made all the funnier when you know that E4 is basically the ''Friends'' channel, as it shows a couple of episodes a day, every day, and when it gets to the end of season 10, starts back at the beginning again. The [[http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=5c_-gzE5OAM&feature=related ads for HIMYM]] had the following voice-over: "Meet Chandler--er, I mean, Ted. He lives in New York with a bunch of his attractive twenty-something friends, including Joey--er, I mean Barney. Phoebe--I mean Lily. And a hot one, with hair. They have on-off relationships. And there's all kinds of romantic stuff. Mixed in with the funny stuff! So it's quite unlike anything you've seen before." At this point, cut to a scene of Robin saying, "We could be friends," to which the narrator replies, "Quiet, you. Oh, all right. It's basically new episodes of ''{{Friends}}'' without boring ruddy Ross."
* Season 5 Episode 17 of ''{{Numb3rs}}'' contains a a number of references to the Robot series of Isaac Asimov, from which it borrows the plot device "an A.I. that kills a human." The episode's title is "First Law" after the Asimov's First Law of Robotics. The company in which the death takes place is called "Steel Cave Industries" after one novel in the series, ''Literature/TheCavesOfSteel''. The name of the A.I. accused of murder is "Bailey" after the protagonist of that novel, Detective Lije Bailey. The scientist who is killed is named Daniel and gives his admin password as "Daniel Olivaw" after Lije Bailey's robot sidekick R. Daneel Olivaw. Presumably this scientist was the one responsible for naming the A.I. and the company created to fund its development, so his familiarity with these books gives an in-story explanation for all these references.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* An episode of the short-lived ''ClerksTheAnimatedSeries'' features a weird plot that devolves into a fight with the animator, who keeps paniting Dante and Randall into weirder and weirder situations. The similarity to the [[LooneyTunes Daffy Duck]] short ''DuckAmuck'' is shown through this trope by having Randall temporarily turn into the same flower-head creature that Daffy turned into.
** This calls for a mention of the Disney artist "Tealin"'s [[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v241/twirlynoodle/jackamuck.jpg brilliant gag sketch]] of [[PiratesOfTheCaribbean Jack Sparrow]] enduring Davy Jones' Locker. Bonus points for [[ShoutOut including a Discworld reference to boot.]]
* ''DannyPhantom'' draws a lot from SpiderMan. From the school bullies (Dash and Flash respectively) being cut-and-pasted versions of each other, to the [[ComesGreatResponsibility responsibility]] message, to SecretSecretKeeper Jazz's role being a lot like Aunt May in the main comics. They both even have clone sagas! (Danny's is quite a bit shorter, however.)
[[/folder]]

Sometimes a story isn't a remake, but borrows themes and/or situations from an earlier story. There's nothing much for the lawyers to chew on, falling into the normal realm of artistic inspiration but it's enough for some viewers to get suspicious. The Megaphone Hanging is a little ShoutOut that [[LampshadeHanging Hangs A Lampshade]] on the borrowing of some themes from or the underlying cinematic connection with a previous work.

These Megaphone Hangings are usually less obvious than a ShoutOut and far more inconsequential than an {{Homage}}, as it's usually just a choice of name and/or props. Only those familiar with the original "borrowing" are likely to notice the Megaphone Hanging, or at least realize the significance. Say, you have the trench run in ''StarWars'' and its connection to the ''TheDamBusters''. So GeorgeLucas fills in a small detail, like the background chatter, with something from that movie. If they had a pet dog named after a racially insensitive term, similar deal. It doesn't affect the actual trench run (compared to the targeting computer) but gives a little nod to the original inspiration.

* You wouldn't expect a SylvesterStallone action movie to be influenced by Aldous Huxley's ''BraveNewWorld'', but ''DemolitionMan'' draws its setting of peaceful, eugenised, tightly controlled San Angeles of 2032 from the novel, and SandraBullock's character Lenina Huxley is named after the author and one of the book's characters as a reference.