Captain Ersatz / Western Animation

• South Park:
  • Bigger, Longer & Uncut featured an assortment of original songs that were obvious tributes to numbers from classic American musicals. Oklahoma! got quoted quite a bit ("Mountain Town"/"O What a Beautiful Morning"; "Uncle Fucka"/the title song; and "It's Easy, Mmmkay?"/"The Farmer and the Cowman"), but there were others. "Kyle's Mom's a Big Fat Bitch" was a pretty generic tribute to early 1900s musicals in general, complete with a "showstopper" climax followed by a "Good evening, friends!" finale. "La Resistance" is derived from "One Day More" from Les Misérables.
  • In terms of characters, the Secret Society of Cynics from "Ass Burgers" is heavily based on Morpheus's gang from The Matrix.
  • In "Super Best Friends", we had Sea Man who is a version of Aquaman.
• From the early years of The Golden Age of Animation, we have the Warner Bros. star Foxy, whose image adorns the main page, and whom some of you might even remember appearing in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Two-Tone Town." To say he's a blatant copy of Mickey Mouse is like saying fish enjoy swimming. Incidentally, he only lasted three shorts—because Walt Disney personally complained to Foxy creator Rudy Ising, with one phone call putting an abrupt end to Foxy's career. However, he and his girlfriend Roxy made a modern day appearance in Tiny Toon Adventures, as previously mentioned. He and Roxy had to be completely redesigned so they'd look more like foxes and less like Mickey and Minnie.
  • When Foxy became victim of Screwed by the Lawyers, a second Mickey Mouse rip-off was created named Piggy (Piggy's first cartoon, "You Don't Know What You're Doin'!", was supposed to be Foxy's fourth cartoon before Walt Disney threatened legal action). Piggy himself only lasted two shorts for unknown reasons (one of which is part of the Censored Eleven), and for several years, the rest of the Merrie Melodies output would be one-shots until the debut of Bugs Bunny.
  • Early Warner Brothers shorts like "It's Got Me Again!" (and, to be honest, almost every other animation studio during the 1930s) shamelessly copy the Disney animation style as well, what with the dancing and the playing instruments. The one mouse in "It's Got Me Again" who talks even sounds just like Mickey.
  • The titular Pancho Vanilla of Pancho's Hideaway is essentially just Yosemite Sam with a Palette Swap and a Mexican accent, to the point that the short's title card on The Merrie Melodies Show has Yosemite Sam himself on it.
  • In 1935, Friz Freleng cooked up a number of characters in an effort to give the studio the kick in the pants it needed. Among them was Beans the Cat, who was essentially a feline version of their failed previous star Buddy, especially under Jack King's direction. This ensured that he would soon become displaced by his sidekick, one Porky Pig.
• Probably the best-known Captain Ersatz of all time would have to be Mickey Mouse, who's obviously based on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Hence, Epic Mickey. And Oswald was, in turn a pretty obvious Captain Ersatz of Felix the Cat.
• Woody Woodpecker is a rather obvious copy of the early Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny prototypes. No surprise, since the Bugs Bunny prototypes and Woody Woodpecker were made by Ben Hardaway, who was a prominent writer in the Woody Woodpecker cartoons after he left Warner Bros. for Universal Cartoons.
  • Mel Blanc himself voiced Woody for his first few appearances (and invented that famously annoying laugh) before being replaced because of his contract with Warner Bros.
• A few years before Foxy was created, the Van Beuren Studios cartoon plant took one of their existing characters from the silent Aesop's Fables, called Milton Mouse, and redesigned him into a blatant knockoff of Mickey once the latter became popular, starting with the 1929 short A Close Call. Incidentally, by the time of 1930's Hot Tamale, Milton looked identical to another Mickey Mouse clone: Foxy, of Warner Bros. cartoons. As with Foxy, Walt quickly got wind of Van Beuren's ripoff and forced them to never use Milton again. This didn't stop them from creating another, less blatant ersatz of Mickey, called Cubby Bear.
  • "The Farmarette" features a boop oop a doop cat girl that is obviously inspired by Betty Boop; she's even voiced by one of Betty's actresses, Bonnie Poe!
• Then there's Mighty Mouse, who is a Captain Ersatz of an older, similar character who appeared in animated shorts called Super Mouse, which was something of a prototype for Mighty Mouse. The original Super Mouse cartoons were - and still are - shown, with the narration edited with the character's name changed to "Mighty Mouse".
• The DCU characters occasionally get Captain Ersatz replacements in animated adaptations:
  • For a fairly minor C-list DC Universe hero, Black Lightning has an awful lot of animated Captain Ersatz versions (most, if not all, created to avoid paying royalties to Black Lightning's creators):
    • Black Vulcan was created by Hanna-Barbera for Superfriends.
    • One episode of Static Shock features the temporary comeback of a retired 1960s hero named "Soul Power." While the writers of the show wanted to use Black Lightning, DC's executives refused permission.
    • Tantrum from the episode of that show with the same name is a Captain Ersatz of the Incredible Hulk.
    • Even Black Lightning villains get Ersatzed. The Justice League Unlimited episode "Double Date" features the crime lord "Steven Mandragora", a Captain Ersatz for Kingpin-esque albino villain Tobias Whale, who was the primary adversary in the original Black Lightning comic series.
    • On top of that, JLU featured a Captain Ersatz for Black Vulcan in Juice (alongside ersatz versions of Superfriends characters the Wonder Twins, and the various Captain Ethnics.) For those keeping score, that's a Captain Ersatz of a Captain Ersatz.
    • Batman: The Brave and the Bold finally bucked the Black Lightning trend, with his appearance as the de facto leader of the Outsiders. Since he's a teen on this show he's now a Captain Ersatz of Static, which was lampshaded by Wildcat during the Outsiders' Heel–Face Turn — "It'll take more than a little Static Shock to keep me down!"
  • JLU featured a thinly-disguised Captain Ersatz for Aquaman villain Black Manta, "Devil Ray." (Aquaman and related characters were off-limits while a live-action CW series was "in development".) This was lampshaded in an actual issue of Aquaman, where someone mistakenly thinks Black Manta is actually called Devil Ray.
    • Superfriends once faced off with a character just called Manta, who's only real difference was he wore a brown costume. This was possibly done to avoid Unfortunate Implications. The Challenge of the Superfriends later restored the costume color and name.
  • Justice League also had Aresia and Tsukuri, who were heavily inspired by the heroines Fury and Katana, right down to wearing very similar costumes. According to Dwayne McDuffie, Tsukuri was partially based off Lady Shiva as well.
  • While featuring characters who mostly predated the Marvel versions by decades, the team-ups between Dr. Fate, Aquaman, and Solomon Grundy, were meant to mirror Marvel's Defenders (Fate = Dr. Strange, Aquaman = Sub-Mariner, Grundy = Hulk. The latter even acted and talked like the Hulk on the cartoon). They were later joined by AMAZO, a Silver Surfer mirror. Hawkgirl was the stand-in for Nighthawk.
  • The Question became a more kid friendly clone of Rorschach, making him a Captain Ersatz of his own Captain Ersatz (as well as ensuring that he will Never Live It Down).
  • Batman: The Animated Series episode #18, "Return of the Gray Ghost", has Simon Trent, the star of a 1950s "costumed crimefighter" TV show, finding out that he was the inspiration for The Batman — because as a child, Bruce Wayne used to watch the show with his father. The Gray Ghost is an Expy of both Will Eisner's The Spirit and Walter B. Gibson's The Shadow. But there's still a Captain Ersatz here, since Simon Trent/The Gray Ghost is provided by Adam West, the original TV Batman (1966)....
  • Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman introduced three different Canon Foreigner Batwomen instead of using the original Batwoman, Kathy Kane. The closest analogue is an African-American woman named Kathy Duquesne, who like Kane, ends up in a romantic relationship with Bruce Wayne.
  • Superman: The Animated Series introduced Luminus and Mala, who were essentially Doctor Light and Ursa with the serial numbers filed off. There was also Angela Chen, who was essentially an Asian-American version of Cat Grant. She was even given Cat's job as a gossip columnist and her infamous rivalry with Lois Lane.
    • Mala's lover was Jax-Ur. While Jax-Ur is a supervillain from the comics, this Jax-Ur has little to do with his comics counterpart, and is General Zod in all but name.
    • Mala also existed in the comics but was a man.
  • One episode of JLU featured Supergirl and several other heroes going to Tokyo to fight a giant turtle with tusks, which flew by retracting its legs into its shell and replacing them with rockets, causing it to spin like a flying saucer, but which was definitely not Gamera.
  • Also from JLU, the aforementioned "Defenders" fought... "Ic'thulutu."
  • In the Justice League episode "Legends," four of the leaguers get zapped into an alternate universe populated by parodic Captain Ersatzes of Golden Age DC heroes. (For example, there's the Green Guardsman, whose power ring doesn't work against aluminum.) In-universe, the John Stewart Green Lantern read all their comics growing up. The episode had originally been written to explicitly feature Justice Society of America characters, but DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz refused permission. This wound up being a fairly positive bit of Executive Meddling all around, both for the episode itself and because it allowed for greater use of JSA characters down the road.
    • The same episode featured the Justice League fighting a giant robot that looked almost exactly like one of the title mecha from Neon Genesis Evangelion. The commentary from Bruce Timm confirmed this was intentional.
  • Since Superman comics were undergoing a revamp at the time, the producers of the Ruby-Spears Superman cartoon weren't sure how to utilize Brainiac. Instead, they created an original character named Cybron.
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold had an episode focusing on circus heiress/vigilante Katrina Moldoff, who used Kathy Kane's costume but was never once called Batwoman (Riddler derisively nicknames her "Bat-Lady"). Word of God says that DC requested the rename because they didn't want this character's negative traits causing a backlash against the just-debuted Kate Kane Batwoman character.
  • The same series featured Scream Queen, Equinox and Kru'll the Eternal, who were Captain Ersatzes of Silver Banshee, Libra and Vandal Savage respectively.
  • The Faceless Hunter, while an existing character, was heavily retooled so that he became the Silver Surfer.
  • Rumor from The Batman was originally supposed to be Hush until some Executive Meddling resulted in him becoming a new (but extremely similar) villain. Ellen Yin was also heavily based off Ellen Yindel from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
  • Superman X from Legion of Super Heroes (2006) is mostly a Composite Character, but his costume and backstory were heavily lifted from the modern Superboy.
  • Teen Titans (2003) has a few original characters based off pre-existing ones.
    • Val-Yor was Captain Atom (but only in appearance).
    • Private H.I.V.E. was based off the Guardian
    • Billy Numerous was Multiplex
    • See-More was Professor Ojo
    • Larry was Bat-Mite
    • Tramm was Lagoon Boy
    • Sarasim was Sarah Simms
    • Puppet King was the Puppeteer
    • Johnny Rancid was Lobo
    • Mumbo was Abra Kadabra crossed with the Silver Age Joker.
  • Like the JLU example from above, Young Justice: Invasion has a trio of characters based off the Captain Ethnic Superfriends members. There's Tye Longshadow (Apache Chief), Asami "Sam" Koizumi (Samurai), and Eduardo "Ed" Dorado (El Dorado). Virgil Hawkins completes the homage as the group's Black Vulcan analogue, but obviously he's an existing character in his own right.
    • To further hammer the homage home, Virgil's jacket is inspired by Black Vulcan's color scheme.
• Colonel Moss from Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) is a Captain Ersatz of John Wraith from the Ultimate books.
• SpongeBob SquarePants features superheroes Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, who are based on the 1960s TV versions of Batman and Robin, respectively (with physical appearances based on the Silver Age Aquaman and Aqualad).
• Bonkers himself, a Disney property, is more obviously based on a Tex Avery style character rather than actual Disney style.
• Schizophrenic and completely divorced from reality, Loogie from the Jetix series Get Ed is so similar to Sheen from Nickelodeon's The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius that it hurts.
• Cyberchase has Shari Spotter and Professor Stumblesnore.
• Little Audrey was created by Famous Studios to be a replacement for Little Lulu, as Paramount didn't want to pay Lulu's creator any more money for rights to the character. Both characters would survive for decades in comic books and eventually both wound up under the ownership of the same company.
• Since they couldn't use other Toho Monsters for Godzilla: The Series, the writers simply created their own monsters as a sort of Homage to classic Japanese Godzilla foes. Examples include a giant Megapede/Cicada monster instead of Battra, a garbage eating Nanomachine cluster instead of Hedorah, a cyborg version of the original American Godzilla instead of Mechagodzilla, and a robotic yeti as a replacement for everyone's favorite giant ape.
• The Galafems and their queen, Hippsodeth, from Aladdin: The Series are obvious stand-ins for the Amazons and their queen, Hippolyta.
• Animaniacs and its spinoffs have episodes that include "Baloney" the Dinosaur, mainly as a Take That! to the original show.
  • Also Googily Goop, an obvious parody of Betty Boop.
• From the black-and-white Looney Tunes, Buddy is both a Captain Ersatz and a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Bosko. When Bosko's creators left WB for MGM and took the rights to Bosko with them, producer Leon Schlesinger quickly assembled a new animation team who hastily came up with the character of Buddy, who was, in Leonard Maltin's words, "Bosko in whiteface." The Buddy shorts are remembered for being particularly dull even by the standards of 1930s animation.
  • His follow-up, Beans the Cat, who had his spotlight stolen by Porky Pig, was an ersatz of Felix the Cat.
  • The Big Bad of the Beans short "Alpine Antics" is clearly based on Mickey's arch-nemesis Pete, and is even voiced by the same actor, Billy Bletcher.
  • Miss Cud, a recurring supporting character in the Beans and early Porky shorts, is one to Disney's Clarabelle Cow, with whom she also shared a voice actress (Elvia Allman).
• Baby Looney Tunes had The Super Sunshine Girls.
• Speaking, anyone had the impression that the Totally Spies! episode "S.P.I" is too similar to PPG episode "The Rowdyruff Boys"? It's like the Boys quit Cartoon Network and worked for Marathon!
  • Made more suspicious by the fact that in another episode the teen Spies were wearing the same colors as the PPGs (not the exact dresses, but the colors matched still!)
• The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (the animated segment) had Captain Ersatzes of everyone from Robin Hood to Indiana Jones to Elvis Presley.
• Clearly done for copyright reasons, Arthur has Henry Skreever (Harry Potter), the Scare-Your-Pants-Off Books (Goosebumps), Persimmony Glitchet (Lemony Snicket), Bionic Bunny (Superman and The Six Million Dollar Man), Dark Bunny (Batman), Mary Moo Cow (Barney the Dinosaur... although given that an episode focuses on its cancellation in favor of "Stock Market Today", it may also be an homage to the locally produced children's shows which were once popular in the 1970s and 1980s), the Love Ducks (Teletubbies) and the Vegimorphs (Animorphs).
• 6teen uses this constantly, in fact the only thing they use that is the name of the real life thing is Star Wars:
  • Ironically, in the episode Nikki was annoying Darth's girlfriend (for those who remembers the plot) she and Jonesy saw a sci-fi movie that's an expy of Star Wars, but not the real one! Yet they had constant references in other episodes, namely around Darth!
  • Whether or not Ron the rent-a-cop is a Captain Ersatz or an Affectionate Parody of Christopher Walken is open for debate, but he did do a dead-on reenactment of the Fatboy Slim "Weapon of Choice" video in one episode.
• The Real Ghostbusters included Captain Ersatzes of rival shows and various movies, including Dracula (referred to by his real name, "Count Tepes"). There were only three things that were referred to by their real names: Star Wars, Newhart, and Cthulhu. The funny thing is Dracula is a Public Domain Character; they didn't need to "create" a Captain Ersatz.
• Kappa Mikey, a parody of anime, contains tons of characters who are legal rip-offs of real anime characters, in the same vein as Drawn Together. The character Gonard gets bonus points, since he is believed by fans to be an expy of Goku, thanks in no small part to both of them sharing the same English voice actor!
• Depending on whom you ask, The Dread Baron and Mumbly are either these, or Expys. According to some accounts, Hanna-Barbera was in a legal conflict with Heatter-Quigley (who was to have created a live game show segment for Wacky Races) over who owned the rights to the Dick Dastardly and Muttley characters, which led to the creation of the new characters for the show Laff-A-Lympics even though Mumbly predates Laff-A-Lympics by a season.
  • Issue #13 of the Laff-a-Lympics comic book shows that Dread Baron and Dick Dastardly were brothers.
    • Heatter-Quigley was given an on-screen credit on Wacky Races despite the fact that the live game show segment they were to have made as part of the show was scrapped. The Heatter-Quigley billing appears nowhere on either of the show's spinoffs, but it does appear in the copyright tag of a Dastardly & Muttley comic book story, "Truce or Consequences" (Gold Key, Hanna-Barbera Fun-In #10, January 1972).
• The Venture Bros. has quite a few. Dr. Orpheus is Doctor Strange. Jefferson Twilight is Blade. The Groovy Gang are a bunch of psychotic parodies of Mystery, Inc. from Scooby-Doo. Professor Impossible and his family are deconstructions of the Fantastic Four. There are a lot, and they're mostly played for laughs. Surprisingly averted with Jonny Quest, Race Bannon, and Dr. Zin. When the creators found out the same people own the right to their show and Jonny Quest, they had them make actual appearances. Later on, they had to start calling him "Action Johnny" for trademark reasons. Intellectual property law is a cruel mistress.
  • They also could have used the real Scooby Doo characters but deliberately chose not to, since their parody versions were a bit too dark for the joke to really land if they had used the actual IP.
• Captain Fall uses this for comedic effect in one episode with Steele consulting a Becker who looks and sounds exactly like Desmond Lleweyn's Q from the James Bond series. Only his technology is ridiculously primitive and he's quite insane.
• The Fairly OddParents! has two of its villains in this position: first, Dark Laser is obviously Darth Vader. In fact, his original episode was just an excuse to do an extended parody of Star Wars. The second is Foop, who is Stewie Griffin. No surprise, since Butch Hartman and Seth MacFarlane are friends. Catman, portrayed by Adam West, is another example.
  • Although Catman gets complicated, as he's an actual Batman villain (with the same costume), who is himself a thinly veiled stand-in for a Golden Age hero named Catman.
    • Also, Catman really is Adam West, dressed up in a costume from an old TV show he was on where he was an animal-themed detective who fought crime.
• Almost every episode of The Simpsons has one. A few examples: "Angelica Button and the Dragon King's Trundle Bed", Count Fudgeula, Itchy and Scratchy, Menthol Moose, Rainier Wolfcastle (married to Maria Shriver Kennedy Quimby)... the list goes on and on.
  • Explicitly with Shary Bobbins, "an original creation, like Ricky Rouse, or Monald Muck."
  • Ozmodiar, the Great Gazoo Ersatz, appears in two episodes: "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase" and "HOMЯ".
  • Speaking of "HOMЯ", there's a scene with a voice actor, and the audience points out that he just copied other voices; Yellow-Bellied Yak sounded just like the Cowardly Lion, Loudmouth Leopard was Jackie Gleason and Clutzy Cat was Jerry Lewis.
• The Pro Wrestling Episode of Ben 10 has a shocking number of comic book characters getting the treatment: Wolverine, Cyclops, Wonder Man, Killer Croc, even a gang boss based somewhat on Kingpin. The clincher? Wolverine and Killer Croc were adopted by Aunt May.
• On the 1981 Filmation series Blackstar, respect for a certain no-longer-living author could not prevent the introduction of "Trobbits".
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • A few episodes mention a show called "Dr. Timespace and the Continuums" (Doctor Who).
  • In the Christmas Episode, they fight Yule-themed pastiches of the X-Men. Yes, including a Wolverine with candy cane claws. Specifically, they fight elves who resemble the members of X-Men's Alpha Flight (a Canadian task force that served as part of Wolverine's backstory in the late '70s/ early '80s). They are even given the Punny Name Elf-a Flight and the one with candy cane claws is called Wintergreen.
  • The same episode also features villainous versions of the Fantastic Four, called the "Faculty Four" here since they're supposed to all have school- and teacher-related powers.
• Batman Beyond:
  • "Heroes" had three obvious references to the Fantastic Four in form of another superhero team called the Terrific Trio: the stand-in for Mr. Fantastic was changed to "the 2D man", the Invisible Woman gained ice powers and was dubbed Freon, and the Thing and the Human Torch were merged into one character, Magma. The idea is then ruthlessly deconstructed with the "accident" having been set up by a jealous admirer. Plus the mutation not only causes an end to normal life, but eventually psychosis. Then they all go rogue and die. And the captain of the SHIELD-like organization is not Nick Fury mixed with J. Jonah Jameson with a Hitler mustache.
  • The Stalker from "Bloodsport" is rather obviously based on Spiderman villain Kraven the Hunter.
• The Tiny Toon Adventures spring break special very briefly shows a parody of Ren and Stimpy (in this case they're a squirrel and a chicken instead of a cat and dog) and Beavis and Butthead (who are portrayed as two furry animals, Beaver and Hoghead) here.
  • "Weekday Afternoon Live" featured one-shot purple-skinned Butt-Monkey Blart Simpleton as a guest host on the Show Within a Show.
  • "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" features "Sappy Stanley" the Elephant, who seems to be based loosely on the Terrytoons character Sidney the Elephant.
• ReBoot examples:
  • During the Daemon arc, Frisket, Matrix, Enzo and AndrAla encounter a mod user character who is a spoof of Austin Powers. While playing, Frisket reboots into a version of Mr. Bigglesworth, Matrix reboots into an exact version of Doctor Evil (complete with placing his pinky near his mouth in a sinister fashion if the shout out wasn't already enough), Enzo reboots into a version of Mini-me, and AndrAla reboots into a Fembot. In one scene, AndrAla actually shoots the Austin Powers user while trying to lure her in bed, as seen here.
  • In "My Two Bobs", there was also a Dragon Ball Z/Pokémon parody.
  • Almost all of the games are a Shoutout to various other pieces of popular culture, so if a episode featured a game (which it usually did) you're bound to find a few Captains or so among the cast.
  • Then there's the episode where people are mysteriously disappearing in Mainframe and two binomes show up to investigate: Fax Modem and Data Nully.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy examples:
  • Hoss Delgado, an Ersatz of Snake Plissken and Ash Williams with a splash of Max Rockatansky who has a job as a "Spectral Exterminator" ala Van Helsing and Ghostbusters.
  • There is also an Ersatz of the Harry Potter universe. Harry Potter (a parseltongued wizard who can talk to snakes) is replaced by Nigel Planter (a partial-tongue "wizard" who can talk to snacks), Lord Voldemort is replaced by Lord Moldybutt (complete with the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named title), and Dean Toadblatt replacing Dumbledore in title and Snape in his attitude toward Nigel. It also featured Ersatzes of Draco and Hermione.
• The Tick had a lot of these. Among the most prominent was Die Fledermaus (a Batman parody), American Maid (a female Captain America with a more than passing resemblance to Wonder Woman), and Big Shot (The Punisher).
• An episode of The Mask dealt with Stanley Ipkiss/The Mask spending time with and causing mischief with his favorite cartoon characters The Goofalototots Stinko, Pinko, and Snot, who are obvious expys of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot from Animaniacs.
• "The Boulder wishes to remind us all that he is Avatar: The Last Airbender's Captain Ersatz of a certain well-known wrestler-turned-actor!" (To top it all off, the Boulder was voiced by Mick Foley, who made a living off affectionate parodies of The Rock.)
• Whenever a character from another series appears on MAD (often), their design is modified slightly to ward off potential lawsuits - even for characters that are owned by its parent channel Cartoon Network. Example: when Applejack appears in the "Cowboys and Alien Force" skit, she wears a floppy Southern Belle-style sunhat instead of her normal cowboy hat, has two bands on her tail and ponytail instead of one, has a variation on Rarity's cutie mark, and is colored reddish-pink instead of orange. The only aversions are DC Comics and Scooby-Doo characters, owned by Warner Bros., the producer of the show.
  • This trope was spoofed in a parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! on the show, "Whose name that we changed so nobody would sue."
• Dexter's Laboratory:
  • The Justice Friends are Ersatzes of The Avengers, including Major Glory, Val Hallen, and The Infraggable Krunk. Other episodes would introduce more members into the team like Living Bullet, White Tiger, Fantone (Vision), Miss Spell, and Capital G (Bill Foster as Giant-Man).
  • Action Hank IS Mr. T, Chuck Norris and G.I. Joe at the same time.
  • Don't forget the Bill Clinton Captain Ersatz from the episode about a bodily function.
• In Secret Squirrel (H-B, 1965), the villain Yellow Pinky was a Captain Ersatz of James Bond villain Goldfinger.
• Bonkey the Green Dragon from Recess.
• The Goode Family episode "Gerold's Way or the Highway" has a cop character who's a straight Captain Ersatz to the Angry Cop from the Harvey Birdman episode "Booty Noir", who is no better either.
• Almost happened to The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. In an attempt to ride the show's success, Disney tried to launch their own show called Poopdeck with almost the exact same premise. When Cartoon Network found out, they had Disney cancel the show immediately on copyright basis and then made the subtly vitriolic episode "Panfake", where Peppermint Larry creates two not-Flapjack and K'nuckles puppets and makes them look like morons.
• The Amazing World of Gumball has Alligators on a Train.
  • They've also had Shotofop, a Spoonerism of Photoshop.
• Johnny Test featured a parody of Pokémon called Tinymon, including a spoof of Ash Ketchum named Blast Ketchup and most obviously, a spoof of Lugia named Screechareen and a spoof of Shadow Lugia named Badias.
  • There was also a recurring character named Dark Vegan and an episode in which the main character is sent to another planet to learn how to be a "Rib-Eye Knight".
• Rick and Morty has two: Scary Terry, a "legally safe knockoff of an '80s horror character", and Rick's best friend Birdperson, a parody of The Hawk from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
  • Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith themselves started off as Doc Smith and Mharti McDonhalds, who were obvious knockoffs of Doc Brown and Marty McFly from Back to the Future.
• The Ricky Gervais Show has Knobopoly, Knobration, and Chess Cock.
• An episode of Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi titled In the Cards features a trading card game called Stu-Pi-Doh.
• The obviousness of Irma Langenstein from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) being the Captain Ersatz of Jeanette of The Chipettes.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) has several superhero characters who are clearly meant to resemble characters from DC and Marvel. Good examples are the Silver Sentry, a Flying Brick who protects the innocent, who's obviously a stand-in for Superman and Nobody, a caped and brooding crimefighter dressed in black, clearly meant to resemble Batman.
• Star Wars: Clone Wars has the Jedi Sha'a Gi. Genndy says on the commentary he wanted to initially give him a more Shaggy-like voice, but thought it might come off as too goofy.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Savage Opress was explicitly created as the replacement for Darth Maul: the same species, the double-bladed red lightsaber, ferocious fighting style, and being Maul's brother no less. Ironically, he proved so popular with the crew and George Lucas, that the next move was to bring back Darth Maul himself and teaming the two up.
• On Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Scooby and the gang could be considered Captain Ersatzes of the original Mystery Inc. (Ricky Owens, Cassidy Williams, Brad Chiles, Judy Reeves and Professor Pericles), only that previous team had since been corrupted by the thought of finding a cursed treasure. Ricky Owens' (Mr. E) van, the Enigma Machine, is definitely an ersatz version of the gang's Mystery Machine.
  • Going back even further, the original team were Captain Ersatzes of what was called the Benevolent Order of Mystery Solvers which dated back to the 1600s, when Crystal Cove was founded and a missing treasure corrupted each team's animal member which caused the dissolution of each team.
• Tom & Jerry Kids has Dropout Mutant Ninja Toads.
• Bun-Bun in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy's TV spin-off Underfist looks and acts very much like Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel from Lilo & Stitch. Both are small animals with aspirations to take over the world.
• The Bakshi Mighty Mouse episode "Mighty's Benefit Plan" featured Elwy and the Tree Weasels, more of a spoof of Alvin and the Chipmunks than a Captain Ersatz. Animator Bob Jacques created Elwy and the Tree Weasels in retaliation for being left out of the credits for ''The Chipmunk Movie" on which he worked.
  • Mighty Mouse himself was really a rodential Captain Ersatz of Superman.
• In 1966, Hanna-Barbera planned to make a cartoon show of The Beach Boys for CBS, in light of the success of The Beatles show on ABC. That fell through, so they created a Captain Ersatz group, the Impossibles, for their Frankenstein Jr.. show.
• Dr Director, the eyepatch-wearing director of Global Justice in Kim Possible is a Gender Flipped Captain Ersatz of Nick Fury. Her evil brother Gemini is Jake "Scorpio" Fury.
  • Team Go are a pretty obvious Ersatz to Marvel Comics' Power Pack, which logically makes Shego a villainous version of Katie Power.
  • Also Teen Titans (2003), considering the group's use of themed colors, they inhabit a "Go Tower", and the fact that the show was pretty popular at the time.
• In-universe example, in an episode of Code Lyoko, the director of a movie filming at the factory shows everyone the new monster animatronic. It looks so much like the Xenomorph, that when Ulrich points out the similarities, he is interrupted by the director stating that it was so totally his original idea.
• Jem had an entire episode where they did this. It had to do with the main characters being popular rockstars. The creators wanted to allude to the popular singers of the day but they couldn't so instead we got characters with names like "Lena Learner" , "Stevie Blunder" (who just happened to be blind.) etc.
  • Another episode had the Holograms go back in time to meet "Ben Tiller" and "Johnny Beldrix" along with Mozart. Bizarrely, Glenn Miller is mentioned in the end-of-the-episode song.
• Portia, Gwen and Penny from The Mighty B!. They're Take That! parodies of Ed, Edd n Eddy.
• Bob's Burgers has The Equestranauts, whose title sounds similar to a spin off of the show that came out nearly a year earlier.
• Warner Bros.' 2005 series Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island had "SpongeBob SquarePants rip-off" written all over it. Let's start off with the fact that the main character is a simple geometric shape and is annoying in-universe. He even inflated in one episode to solve a problem.
• In the We Bare Bears episode "Shush Ninjas", Panda is shown reading a Sailor Moon parodying manga called "Pretty Z" .
• The Ogre from Shrek is a Captain Ersatz of the 1930s professional wrestler French Angel, who was a Fountain of Expies in the pro wrestling world.
• Cassiopeia in Il Était Une Fois... Space is a mix of Romulans, a futuristic Roman Republic, and even the uniforms of its military have an armband like Nazi ones with instead of a swastika a "W"^note The symbol of Cassiopeia is the "W" formed by the stars of that constellation as seen from Earth.
• After Paramount sold the rights to Casper the Friendly Ghost to Harvey Comics, they briefly tried to follow it up with Goodie the Gremlin who, being a cute and friendly version of a scary and mischievous creature of folklore, was a blatant rip-off of their own character. Goodie only lasted a few cartoons before being shelved.
• The Vathek from the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "Deadliners" are pretty much a (relatively) family-friendly version of the Cenobites from Hellraiser.
• Cool Cat was widely considered to be a Warner Bros.-created Captain Ersatz of The Pink Panther.
• When MGM's Tom and Jerry became a hit in theaters, two other studios created their own Captain Ersatz cat and mouse teams years later—Paramount's Herman And Katnip and Terrytoons' Little Roquefort (paired with a cat named Percy). Tom and Jerry's creators, Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera, created their own ersatz T&J for TV and added an additional mouse—Pixie & Dixie with Mr. Jinks.
• The Loud House has these such as Ace Savvy being a homage of Superman, Vampires of Melancholania being a homage of Dracula series, Blarney basically a homage of Barney, and ARRGH! being a homage of Ghost Hunters.
• The Biker Mice from Mars episode "So Life Like" had Lawrence Limburger attempt to create assassins to do away with the Biker Mice by having Dr. Karbunkle use one of his inventions to bring cartoon characters to life. Two of the fictional characters given life are Saddle Sore and Deathmaster, who are clear spoofs of Yosemite Sam and Skeletor respectively.
• Captain Sturdy has several obvious superhero parodies.
  • The title character is a clear pastiche of Superman. The [adult swim] pilot Captain Sturdy: The Originals even has him keep the shrunken city of Maldor in his refrigerator, referencing Superman holding onto the shrunken city of Kandor in his Fortress of Solitude.
  • Cyber Master is a blatant stand-in for RoboCop.
  • Velocity Man from The Originals is a superhero with super speed who wears a red costume decorated with yellow elements shaped like lightning bolts, making him a representation of The Flash.
• Kaeloo: Stumpy's superhero alter ego is Ratman, who is a stand-in for Batman. He has a sidekick named Robcoin (Robin as a Funny Animal duck) and a butler, and uses gadgets such as a grappling gun. His costume is also very similar to Batman's, and he drives a fancy car with gadgets known as the Ratmobile.
• Hoze Houndz:
  • "The Hound Who Loved Me" introduces suave spy James Bone.
  • One of the announcers in the Hockey episode is clearly modeled after Don Cherry.
  • In one episode, Steamer is challenged to a wrestling match by Reeve Tossman.
• One brief scene in the trailer for Pibby shows a rabbit with a heart symbol on its belly that is clearly designed to emulate the Care Bears. They're even able to shoot heart-shaped lasers from it like a Care-Bear Stare.
• One short-lived Terrytoons character, Looey Lion, was a rather obvious ersatz of the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz, having a similar voice, mannerisms, and personality. This is best exemplified in his debut short, The Temperamental Lion from 1940.
• Hamster & Gretel has a running gag of parodies with overly long and literal names, including ''England but with Dragons'', ''The Ocean but with Monsters'', and ''Larry the Magic Boy and the School that is Also Magic''.

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