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Expy / Western Animation

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  • The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin: Tweeg and L.B. are expies of Dick Dastardly and Muttley. L.B. occasionally laughs like Muttley and Tweeg not only has his Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat moment but he once said "Drat, drat and double drat".
  • Adventure Time: The Lich's design is heavily influenced by The Horned King. They're pure evil liches that want to exterminate humanity, completely humorless, and are treated dead serious compared to most other Disney/Adventure Time villains
  • Sussie from The Amazing World of Gumball sure has a lot in common with Ralph Wiggum:
  • Slappy Squirrel from Animaniacs is, according to Word of God, just an aged-up Gender Flip of Screwy Squirrel from Tex Avery MGM Cartoons. They originally wanted to use Screwy, but couldn't get the rights (this was at a time the rights for MGM's cartoon characters weren't owned by WB yet).
  • The Babaloos: Baby Towel is awfully similar to Blanky, being a cloth-based Animate Inanimate Object with the personality of a child and a light yellow color scheme.
  • Ben 10: Alien Force
    • Professor Paradox is a blatant Expy of The Doctor. University professors are normally Doctorate holders and a paradox is a type of contradicting statement(s). They even went so far as to make his real name a mystery.
    • After being unable to make any sense of Kevin's change from The Sociopath to wisecracking Anti-Hero, the team behind Alien Force and Ultimate Alien have taken his prior characterization and powers, made it grown-up and mature, and have named it "Aggregor", who is truly a foe to beware.
    • Some aliens are even expies of past aliens. Fasttrack is XLR8 with a Wolverine helmet, and Eatle is Upchuck as a bug. No changes at all beyond the look. Astrodactyl is also a Jetray ripoff (even has a reddish body and green Frickin' Laser Beams) but he has one power Jetray doesn't in the form of his energy whips.
    • Charmcaster is an expy of Scarlet Witch, as both are evil sorceresses who eventually become good. Even her Alien Force/Ultimate Alien suit slightly resembles the Marvel character.
  • Bimble's Bucket takes a lot of similar character archetypes from Mike Jupp's previous show The Dreamstone. While Bimble is basically a Rufus duplicate, Dolly Clackhanger and her docile minions very much resemble Sgt Blob and his cadets, with Mudge replacing Urpgor as their pompous rival for the approval of despot Big Bad Queen Kak, who replaces Zordrak. In some cases even the character designs are only slightly tweaked from those of the initial show (the hero species are anthropomorphic rabbit-like civilians while the villains are big nosed humanoids).
  • Bob's Burgers:
  • The 2015 revival of Bob the Builder has 'new' Machines that are just old machines with a different name and a new coat of paint
    • Two-Tonne is an Expy of Tumbler due to him being a pick up truck that has a cement mixer attachment.
    • Shifter is another Tricks due to him being a Forklift that likes to play tricks.
    • Stretch is a copy of Grabber because he is a bulldozer with an excavator arm.
    • Rocky is an Expy of Benny due to him being a compact-loader that looks up to Scoop.
    • Picksy is a copy of Flex due to being a cherry picker.
    • and Thud is unambiguously Rumble due to being a Large Dump Truck.
  • A rare live action-to-animation example is Calvin and the Colonel (ABC 1961-62), an expy of Amos n Andy. What happened was that by the late fifties Amos 'n Andy was viewed as racist so the producers responded by taking the same show, turn it into a cartoon, and replace the characters with Talking Animals. An early attempt at doing prime time cartoons, the show bombed in ratings and was taken off the air the following season.
  • Bonkers: The villain Ma Parker is Ma Beagle from DuckTales (1987) as an anthromophic dogface tow truck. Both even have the same voice actress, the legendary June Foray.
  • Camp Lazlo mostly averted this, being not that similar to Joe Murray's other show. However, the characters of Scoutmaster Lumpus (the grumpy, embittered guy) and Samson (the hypochondriac dork) were lifted from Mr. Bighead and Filburt respectivelynote .
  • Captain Flamingo: Lizbeth Zaragroza and Kitty Ko are eerily similar. Both are young Asian girls with strong crushes on young idiot superheroes who are oblivious/disinterested in their advances with shows that are broadcast on YTV.
  • One of the creators of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers confirmed that the personality of Gadget Hackwrench was based on that of Jordan from the 1985 film Real Genius.
  • Mickey Mouse himself is one. He was created simply so Walt Disney could replace Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character he had just lost to his distributer because he refused to take a cut in his budget. Essentially, Oswald was Mickey with longer ears.
    • Epic Mickey is playing on this, now that Disney got Oswald's rights back almost a century later.
    • Oswald himself is an expy of Felix the Cat.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • Cool McCool was created by Bob Kane, so it's fitting that Cool's Rogues Gallery bears an odd resemblance to another certain set of villains. Cool's 'Jack in the Box' bears a certain resemblance to The Joker, 'The Owl' is quite like the Penguin, the Owl's sidekick 'The Pussycat' resembles Catwoman and 'Dr Madcap' is similar to the old school Mad Hatter.
  • Bob Kane's other show Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. Just change Bat____ to Cat_____ and the hero's utility belt to an amazing range of guns that shoot everything EXCEPT bullets.
  • The fact that part of the crew on Cow and Chicken previously worked on The Ren & Stimpy Show explains how the acerbic Chicken and the dim-witted Cow serve as expies of the infamous chihuahua and cat duo as much as they were permitted to do.
  • The Dating Guy was (allegedly) created from Teletoon execs using the original pitch for a Least I Could Do animated series. As such, you can see the original characterization of the LICD characters in The Dating Guy, but most of them were shifted to adopt things suggested to the LICD creators in the original pitch.
  • Dexter's Laboratory:
  • Obviously, everyone from Drawn Together is an Expy from their respective animation (or other) genre:
    • Princess Clara is, personality-wise, a generic Disney Princess but in appearance is an expy of Ariel.
    • Captain Hero is Superman. He's a super-powered alien from a planet that blew up, sending him to Earth. Unlike Superman, he feels no sort of responsibility to do the right thing and is an aggressive alcoholic.
    • Toot is an (older and washed up) expy of Betty Boop.
    • Xandir's most notable similarity is Link, but only vaguely. It's a bit of a stretch to call him an expy when the only similarity is blonde hair, pointed ears, a sword and a neverending quest to save his girlfriend boyfriend. He's really meant more to symbolize effeminate video game heroes in general.
    • Wooldoor is an expy of SpongeBob SquarePants, even having a similar voice.
      • He was even referred to as "Poorly conceived Spongebob parody" in one episode.
      • There's some similarity in attitude to Stimpy as well.
    • Ling-Ling is a direct expy of Pikachu, right down to having been trained by a boy who looks a lot like Ash Ketchum. We even see Ling-Ling evolve at one point, though the process seems to be very different here.
    • Foxxy Love is a direct (though R-rated) expy of Valerie Smith from Josie and the Pussycats.
    • Spanky resembles various characters from Internet comics and flash animations. But mostly he resembles the Napster mascot cat, changed to a pig, right down to the extra-bold lines he's drawn with. His gimmick, "an Internet download" refers to illegal downloads popularized by Napster.
  • In the Duck Dodgers episode "Pig Planet", Porky tells a story to his nephews, Porko and Puerco, and his niece, Sow. The three piglets are obvious Expys of Yakko, Wakko and Dot from Animaniacs, right down to two of their names sounding similar and the one Odd Name Out; even the actors that do their voices are the same.
    • And there's another nod to past continuity in that Porko physically resembles Porky's comic book nephew Cicero, with his sailor suit and cap.
  • Manny, the Headless Man-Horse from DuckTales (2017) ultimately turned out to be one for Goliath from Gargoyles, as he sprouts wings and is Suddenly Voiced by Keith David.
  • The main trio of Ed, Edd n Eddy was based on that of Rocko's Modern Lifenote , especially in early episodes—The (seemingly) mature and somewhat abrasive Eddynote  was much like Rocko, the childish Ednote  was a dead ringer for Heffer, and the hypochondriac Double Dnote  could stand in for Filburt.
  • At least three of the characters in Extreme Ghostbusters are expies of the original Ghostbusters; Eduardo Rivera = Peter Venkman, Garrett Miller = Ray Stantz (at one point, in frustration, Egon accidentally calls Garrett "Ray") and Roland Jackson = Winston Zeddemore. The process of elimination would suggest that Kylie Griffin = Egon Spengler, but Egon is actually IN that cartoon in the background.
  • Family Guy had this in one episode with Penelope, a one year old girl who is basically Stewie if he was still overly violent and kept trying to take over the world.
  • Filmation's Ghostbusters lived on this trope. Prime Evil, the Big Bad, was an obvious expy of Skeletor.
    • Filmation reused the character model of Drac from The Groovie Goolies for Count Dracula and another vampire called Victor.
    • The ghostly gangsters Benny and Clyde are expies of Fat Man and The Rabbit, two gangsters who appeared in the '75 live-action series' first episode, "The Maltese Monkey".
    • A monstrous ghost called Corpulon is an expy of Jabba the Hutt.
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:
    • Mac, the protagonist, is based on an exact clone of a one-time Powerpuff Girls character, Mike (note the names). In that episode, Mike came in as a new student with an imaginary friend (take note) and trouble started brewing afterwards. The students blamed him for causing all this, but it was really his imaginary friend doing the mischief. Mac and Mike look exactly the same except Mike has an outline and has shorter hair.
    • Kip Snip from the episode "The Sweet Stench of Success" is based on Dick Hardly from the same cartoon as Mike. They have a lot of similarities both in appearance (dark skin, blonde hair in a ponytail, eyewear) and personality. Both are greedy, they only care about money, sell poor-quality products and mistreat their mascot (in the case of Bloo) or products (in the case of the knock-off Powerpuff Girls).
  • Zapp Brannigan from Futurama was originally pitched as "What if William Shatner was captain of the Enterprise instead of James T. Kirk?". As such, he shares many personality traits with Shatner, such as having a huge ego and being a jerk.
  • Speaking of Gargoyles, there was an epic twist on this trope in the show: Fans hated Preston Vogel for seeming too much like a less fleshed-out version of Owen Burnett, who showed up first. They were both stoic, glasses-wearing assistants to some of the most powerful men on Earth, with the main difference being Vogel's darker hair. Then it turned out that Owen had entirely modeled himself on Vogel, trying to "out-Vogel" him because Owen was secretly Puck the fey all along, making him the real In-Universe expy.
  • G.I. Joe: Renegades:
    • Being a huge homage to The A-Team, the main cast understandably have some similarities to Hannibal's crew, most notably, its version of Roadblock being B.A. Baraccus. Additionally, Flint and Lady Jaye are reimiagined to serve the roles of Col. Lynch and Lt. Sosa.
    • Related to another Hasbro franchise, Tunnel Rat and Dr. Mindbender were reimiagined as this, too, with the former being basically a human version of Rattrap and the latter being basically "What if the Headmaster worked for Cobra?"
  • Green Eggs and Ham: As the series is loosely inspired by Planes, Trains and Automobiles," Sam and Guy themselves are loosely based on Del Griffith and Neil Page, respectively. Guy, like Neil, is a standoffish businessman who lives with his loving family in a Big Fancy House and just wants to get from one place to another with no trouble. Sam, like Del, is a well meaning but somewhat annoying drifter who treats everyone he meets like his best friend and has a special connection with a woman who's no longer in his life. Humorously, their physical dynamic inverts that film's Fat and Skinny duo, with the Neil expy being the bigger of the two and the Del expy being petite.
  • Well, basically Hanna-Barbera has made a career out of exporting characters from wherever! During The Simpsons episode "The Day the Violence Died" Roger Meyers Jr. says that "Animation is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing The Honeymooners, we wouldn't have The Flintstones. If someone hadn't ripped off Sergeant Bilko, there'd be no Top Cat. Huckleberry Hound, Chief Wiggum, Yogi Bear? Hah! Andy Griffith, Edward G. Robinson, Art Carney." While this quote may go a little over board with the term "plagiarism" as anyone with any decent education knows this kind of trend is a lot older than animation, it goes to point out how Hanna Barbera made a lot of their stars with personalities patterned after already existing personalities.
    • The Flintstones is so much an expy of The Honeymooners that Jackie Gleason threatened to sue Hanna-Barbera. At least until his lawyers talked him out of it, as he would either have been known as "the man who killed Fred Flintstone" if he won, or opened up a can of worms that even today most studios prefer to settle out of court to avoid.
    • 1974's These Are The Days was basically The Waltons animated. It is notable that unlike other HB 'period' pieces (The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and The Roman Holidays) in which the joke is 'what would modern day problems and things be like in those times', they wrote and animated it as realistically as possible for the period, further making it look like an expy of The Waltons. In truth though These Are The Days was created by Earl Hamner Jr., creator of The Waltons.
    • Another H-B character, Snagglepuss, is an expy of Bert Lahr's portrayal of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Lahr himself even threatened to block a commercial for Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies which had Snagglepuss, forcing Kellogg's to issue a disclaimer that Daws Butler is the voice of Snagglepuss, a rare instance where a voice actor is disclosed in commercials.
    • In their adaptation of The Fantastic Four, they replaced Namor with a similar character named Prince Triton. Unlike the other Hanna-Barbera examples, this was actually a case of not having rights to the original character.
    • They would have to do similar tricks to some characters in their version of Godzilla when Toho didn't give them the rights to anything other than Big G himself.
    • In the 70s Hanna Barbera had wanted to do a more Follow the Leader detective show with Muttley, but when Heatter-Quigley still owned the Wacky Races characters; (Hanna-Barbera later bought the characters outright.) they still went on with the idea by making a new expy in Mumbly. Interestingly, both were preceded by the dog Mugger from the movie Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! (1964).
      • When it came time for the Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics, Mumbly reappeared now as a bad guy and now partnered with a Dick Dastardly Expy called the Dread Baron. Both of them actualy appeared in the "Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose" movie, where the Baron was actually voiced by Paul Winchell, Dick Dastardly's voice actor.
      • In Latin America, they just said "the hell with it" and called them Pierre Nodoyuna and Patán (the Latin American names of Dick Dastardly and Muttley).
      • Similarly to Latin America, the French dub referred to them as Satanas and Diabolo (Dick Dastardly and Muttley's French names) and even had Philippe Dumat (Dastardly's voice actor in the French dub of Wacky Races) reprising his role, so to speak.
      • An issue of the Laff-a-Lympics comic book revealed that the Dread Baron is Dick Dastardly's brother. Given that Muttley and Mumbly look near identical except coloring one would imagine they could be as well.
      • In Space Race which is basically Wacky Races IN SPACE we have the Phantom Fink who in that form acts pretty much the same as Dastardly, the major alteration being Fink has a good guy disguise that in itself makes him more of Dick Dastardly + Doctor Jekyll.
    • The characters of a bunch of Hanna-Barbera Amateur Sleuth series are Expys or playing with variations around them. Sometimes this is heavily direct and other times more loose (as in there are similarities but not that direct one to one comparisons). Refer to their individual pages for more in depth thoughts on more direct expies.
    • One of the ways this is most ironic of course is that the original Scooby team are themselves expies based on characters from the Dobie Gillis stories and tv show. Proving that it is important to always keep a sense of accurate history. Many things are expies to things that came before them, sometimes even ones usually think are themselves the source are just another link in the chain.
    • Suzie Chan is essentially a Chinese-American version of Daphne in terms of appearance and temperament. The only difference is that Suzie, being somewhat savvier, avoids falling into the role of the Damsel in Distress.
    • Clue Club Woofer and Wimper are this to hounds Napoleon and Lafayette from The Aristocats.
    • Likewise Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch!, Hair Bear picks up a mix of Yogi Bear, Hokey Wolf and Top Cat. In that he usually outsmarts his antagonist with whatever scheme he cooks up at the time.
    • Mr. Cogswell from The Jetsons is essentially a futuristic version of Mr. Slate from The Flintstones.
    • Scooby-Doo is an expy of Astro from The Jetsons. Both are human-sized dogs capable of bipedal walking (granted, Astro is more capable) but preferring all fours. They both can speak but with the same impediment. Both are cowardly, often taking out bad guys by accident, though Scooby is Flanderized in this respect. Finally, both share the same voice actor: Don Messick.
    • Jellystone!: Shag Rugg is a wild country boy who shares a lot of characteristics with Cricket Green.
  • The Grump of Here Comes the Grump is an expy of another Friz Freleng character, Yosemite Sam. His dragon is an expy of the dragon from the Looney Tunes short "Knighty Knight Bugs".
  • House of Mouse's "King Larry" was an Expy of Louie, created to avoid legal issues when the Louis Prima estate charged Disney of not paying royalties to Prima for TaleSpin and The Jungle Book (1967). Baloo, Louie and Shere Khan may have been reframed in a different scenario and time period, but were still the same characters.
  • My Life as a Teenage Robot: 'Rob Renzetti freely admitted the series was based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and XJ-9 is a pretty clear expy of early (circa season 1) Buffy Summers. Likewise, Brad is pretty obviously Xander, and the Crust Cousins are Cordelia Chase and Harmony Kendall before they were declawed.
  • Inspector Gadget is very much an Expy of Maxwell Smart, right down to Don Adams doing the character's voice. It was created in part, because Don Adams was getting too old to play Maxwell, so a cartoon version was the perfect move.
  • There's an episode of Kappa Mikey who features a duo of j-rockstar girls who bears a not-so-subtle resemblance to another duo of j-rockstar girls from a rival network.
  • Papa G from Kid Cosmic visually resembles an elderly Wander from Craig McCracken's previous cartoon Wander over Yonder. Both are orange-clad hippies with big green hats and a personal belief in non-violence. Both have a Mysterious Past and are Really 700 Years Old.
  • King of the Hill:
    • Hank himself is an expy of Mr. Anderson from Beavis and Butt-Head, only younger, without a Butt-Monkey status, and more fleshed out as a character.
    • His wife Peggy also resembles a younger version of Tom's wife Marcy.
    • Similarly, Stuart Dooley is a smarter, more deadpan Butt-Head.
    • Andy Maynard from "Husky Bobby" is basically a more abrasive Stewart Stevenson.
  • In Kissyfur, Gus is what Baloo of The Jungle Book (1967) would act like if he was as a father. Also he has a similar design and another difference is his brown color.
  • Klondike Kat is a feline—and much more competent—expy of Dudley Do-Right.
  • Little Audrey is both a Captain Ersatz and an Expy of Little Lulu, since she was created by the animators at Paramount-Famous, the same studio that animated Lulu. Audrey was created after Paramount lost the rights to Lulu from her creator, Margarie Buell.
  • While somewhat lost in imitation due to Parody Displacement, many of Looney Tunes characters borrowed heavily from earlier stars as much as the above Hanna-Barbera examples. Foghorn Leghorn and Pepe Le Pew being two notorious examples.
  • Looney Tunes character Ralph Wolf (the one who keeps trying to steal sheep) is indistinguishable from Wile E. Coyote except for his red nose. Both characters were created by Chuck Jones, and are customers of Acme Products. They weren't always indistinguishable, but later animators became lazy with the character design after having done so many more Wile E. cartoons than Sam and Ralph cartoons, dropping most of what little differences there had been.
    • In one Looney Tunes comic book, Wile E. and Ralph meet, turning out to be long-lost brothers. They both realize that they both failed to get their respective targets (the Road Runner and the sheep, respectively), so they team up to catch the Road Runner. And fail.
    • Despite the recycled character design, there is quite a fundamental difference regarding how Wile E. and Ralph are each utilized in their respective shorts - Wile E. is a true blue fanatic, totally and utterly obsessed with catching the Roadrunner, while Ralph is very literally a Punch-Clock Villain (indeed, outside of work, he and his professional nemesis, Sam Sheepdog, appear to be the best of friends).
    • Interestingly Tabaqui the Jackal of Chuck Jones' The Jungle Book adaptions is near identical to Wile as well.
    • Likewise, Alexander Graham Wolf from Chuck Jones' Raggedy Ann and Andy special The Great Santa Claus Caper is an Expy of the "genius" version of Wile E. who appeared opposite Bugs Bunny.
    • The Robert McKimson-directed cartoon Oily Hare has a character named Devil Rich Texan. Said character is heavily resembles Yosemite Sam in terms of personality, design (save for the black hair), and voice; he even yells “Ooooh!” when enraged.
  • Lola of The Loud House is a near identical copy of Brianna from Kick Buttowski. Both are bratty blonde younger sisters who compete in beauty pageants, dress up as princesses, and have short tempers. Also both characters are voiced by Grey DeLisle. The Loud House creator Chris Savino, even worked on Kick Buttowski.
  • Let's Go Luna!: Luna is said to be an expy of Mary Poppins. Luna is a magical big sister/babysitter figure to Andy, Carmen, and Leo, taking them on great adventures around the world.
  • Francois, Esmeralda's brother in The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo, is based on Pierre Gringoire, the poet who appeared in the original book, and is always spouting horrible poetry.
  • Mary Shelley's Frankenhole's "Dr Polidori" is is a double expy: his name is taken from Lord Byron's personal physician, who was involved in the same dare that had Mary Shelley write Frankenstein, and his performance is based on that of Ernest Thesiger as "Dr Pretorius" in The Bride of Frankenstein. The werewolf that appears in the credits and in a couple of episodes looks like the Lon Chaney Jr "Wolfman". Dr Frankenstein, on the other hand, doesn't seem at all like any performance of "Dr. Frankenstein" I know, and definitely not that of Colin Clive.
    • The werewolf's name is Stewart Lawrence, a combination of Lawrence Talbot (the Wolf Man) and Jimmy Stewart, who his voice actor is imitating.
  • While on the subject of Megas XLR:
  • Dr. Rockzo, the cocaine-addicted rock and roll clown from Metalocalypse is an expy of David Lee Roth.(with some inspiration from KISS as well)
  • The Mighty B!'s Bessie is a version of a character Amy Poehler did for The Upright Citizens Brigade: a hyperactive ten year-old Girl Scout. Saturday Night Live's Kaitlin was a watered down version of the character, making her a spiritual cousin of Bessie. In a way, the freedom of animation makes Bessie a purer version of the character than the original! Amy Poehler, who plays Bessie, is one of the credited creators of the show.
  • Mirette from Mirette Investigates resembles another Laurent Audouin illustrated character named Mathilde, another girl with black hair and red glasses who travels in some of her books.
  • Molly of Denali: The most notable aspect of the recurring character Jake is that he looks identical to Sean Rafferty. Both have light brown hair, fair skin, a green raglan, blue jeans, brown shoes, and freckles on their face. Eventually, he is revealed to be somewhat similar to Sean personality-wise as well, due to him being skittish around creepy crawlies and afraid of the dark.
  • Motorcity has Jacob, the Team Dad who is very similar to Goat from Downtown and Megas XLR, especially in design.
  • Mr. Bogus:
    • Bogus's enemies, Ratty and Mole, are essentially expies of Elmo and Ferd, respectively, a conniving mouse duo who appeared as One Shot Characters in the Garfield and Friends episode "Trial And Error", although Ratty actually seems to share some facial similarities with those of Socrates.
    • Also, Bogus' overbearing Aunt Bogunda appears to share some similarities with Mrs. Marcus.
    • Tommy Anybody also seems to look something like a cross between Cavin and Dylan Taylor, while his father, Mr. Anybody, looks like a cross between Jon Arbuckle and Professor Peepers.
    • Tommy's mother, Mrs. Anybody, looks a little bit like Jane Jetson.
    • Jake and Butch, the two burglars who Bogus constantly tangles with, also appear to be direct parodies of that of Harry and Marv.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic was originally intended to be a Continuity Reboot of the very first series. It turned out, however, that the trademarks on most of the original ponies had lapsed, and so Lauren Faust was forced to create similar substitutes of the original Mane Six, with the exception of Applejack. Some of them became a Composite Character. Eventually, they evolved into their own distinctive personalities.
    Twilight Sparkle — Twilight/Twilight Twinkle
    Pinkie Pie — Surprise
    Rainbow Dash — Firefly, with G3 Rainbow Dash's colors
    Fluttershy — Posey
    Rarity — Glory/Sparkler
    • It should also be noted that Twilight Sparkle's mother looks like the original Twilight.
    • Discord, the villain of the Season 2 premiere, was conceived after Lauren Faust had done an Archive Binge of Star Trek and was very much modeled after Q; the plans were originally to get a soundalike of Q's actor John de Lancie but they ended up getting de Lancie himself (turning it into an Actor Allusion as well). And the final cherry on top, is that whenever Discord and Baphomet (who is actually a sabbatic goat Deity), they are both similar in appearance since they both have horns, wings, heads of goats, and somewhat-humanoid appearances.
    • The Cutie Mark Crusaders form a Power Trio similar to The Powerpuff Girls themselves.
    • The third season premiere's villain, King Sombra, is purposefully evocative of Sauron. He's crowned with Spikes of Villainy (including his horn), he dwells in an Evil Tower of Ominousness in the middle of a hellish landscape, and even a shot of a line of enslaved crystal ponies walking in chains is reminiscent of the Mirror of Galadriel scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
    • Countess Coloratura from the season 5 episode "The Mane Attraction" is one to Lady Gaga. They both have titles of nobility in their stage names ("Countess" and "Lady"), they are both capable of singing more traditional songs while having a glitzy stage persona, and they both have shown to be very kind to others. The fact that Applejack's pet name for Coloratura is "Rara" cannot be a coincidence, either.
  • Eda Clawthorne from The Owl House is one to Ryoko Hakubi due to having similar designs and personalities.
  • Brutus, Popeye's chief antagonist in the King Features TV cartoons, was such a close expy of Bluto from the earlier Paramount theatrical shorts that most people think they're the same character.
    • King Features changed Bluto to Brutus because they erroneously thought that Paramount owned the rights to Bluto. When Hanna-Barbera took over the TV franchise in the 1970s, he went back to being Bluto. In the comic strip, which King still controlled, he remained Brutus.
  • The Mayor from The Powerpuff Girls (1998) is the expy of a science fair judge in "Mandarker", an episode of the show's Spiritual Successor, Dexter's Laboratory. It should be noted that Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter's Lab, was also animation director for The Powerpuff Girls.
  • Regular Show:
    • The hero from the movie Mordecai and Rigby watch in "Grave Sights" looks like Ash from Evil Dead.
    • Kessler and Costello from "Steak Me Amadeus" look almost exactly like Mulder and Scully.
  • Rick and Morty takes many of its characters from Justin Roiland's earlier work:
    • Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith originated as parodies of Doc Brown and Marty McFly. Morty's role is mostly situational—his awkward and nervous personality makes him the opposite of the effortlessly cool McFly—while Rick is Doc's eccentric mad scientist persona explained by rampant alcoholism. On top of that, they're also expies of Doc and Mharti, characters from a much more direct parody of Back to the Future made by the same people as Rick and Morty, and the character archetypes of a drunk, spiky-haired old man and his grandson were reused in several of Justin Roiland's cartoons between Doc and Mharti and Rick and Morty.
    • Mr. Jellybean is a clear expy of Crumply Crumplestein from Justin Roiland's Unbelievable Tales, both being bean-shaped pedophiles who hold well-respected positions (Crumply is a Depraved Kids' Show Host while Mr. Jellybean is a king).
  • Maia Sterling (the other daughter of Max and Mirya) in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, appears to be an expy for Aurora Sterling (the other daughter of Max and Mirya) from the Jack McKinney Robotech novels. So far, Maia hasn't shown any psychic powers.
  • In the Samurai Jack episode "Jack and the Labyrinth" a character appeared (called "The Thief" in the credits) who was a Composite Character Expy of Daisuke Jigen and Lupin the Third from Lupin III. His suit and hat were white instead of black, and he used a briefcase that doubled as a machine gun rather than a conventional firearm, but the style of his suit and beard were identical to Jigen's. His personality, on the other hand, was based more on Lupin's behavior.
    • The episode "Jack and the Gangsters" featured expies of the Ant Hill Mob from Wacky Races. The leader of the Ant Hill Mob was himself an Expy of Rico Bandello from the live-action film Little Caesar.
  • The Simpsons: Gil, the hapless Butt-Monkey who turns up in a wide variety of occupations and sucks at all of them, is a pretty clear reference to Shelley Levene, the washed-up real estate salesman from Glengarry Glen Ross, and specifically Jack Lemmon's portrayal of him in the film adaptation.
    • Lemmon himself guest-starred on the show as a pretzel-cart franchisor.
  • The Smurfs: Gourdy, the genie that appears in a few Season 6 episodes, is based on a similar-looking genie from Peyo's comic strip Pierrot And The Lamp.
  • South Park:
  • Early Cuyler from Squidbillies is pretty much the character of Unknown Hinson, performer persona of his V.A. Stuart Baker, in squid form.
  • Mina Loveberry from Star vs. the Forces of Evil is an expy of Sailor Moon, albeit one who's completely lost her mind.
    • Also, Mackie Hand, Marco's favorite kung-fu movie star, manages to be one to three different real-life actors: his name is an obvious pun on Jackie Chan, while his dying during a movie shoot is a clear reference to Bruce Lee, but his appearance and mannerisms are based on Chuck Norris!
  • Star Wars Resistance: Tierny, a First Order Security Bureau agent who arrives on the Colossus late in season 1, has been confirmed by Word of God to be based on the above-mentioned Kallus in both personality and dress sense, with her uniform clearly similar to his. Her being black could even be a nod to early concept art of Kallus as a black man. As for whether she'll go the same way he did, only time will tell.
  • Steven Universe:
    • Peridot is one for Invader Zim. Short, green, fanatically devoted to her leaders, and with a similar voice and speech pattern. Not to mention that there are several nods such as her attempt to flush herself down the toilet and her self-aggrandizing shout of "Praise me! PRAISE ME!" Unlike Zim, however, she finally sees the beauty and worth of the Earth and defects from her kind to protect it. Since Rebecca Sugar is a fan of the show, it's very likely some of these similarities were deliberate.
    • Introduced in the episode Onion Friend, the side-character Soup is an Expy for Frisk from the videogame Undertale note 
      • Soup and Frisk are young children with a similar build and haircut. Both wear sweaters (although Soup's isn't striped), neither of them speak, and they have no specified gender.
      • Soup is also the only one of Onion's friends Steven has trouble guessing the name of. This could be a nod to Frisk's true name only being revealed at the end of a True Pacifist run, as the name you input at the beginning of the game actually belongs to Chara, the first fallen human.
      • Another nod to Frisk is that when Steven finally gets Soup's name right, they smile and blow him a kiss. Although it isn't a mandatory thing, Undertale has become notorious for sometimes allowing Frisk to flirt with its enemies. note 
    • Blue Diamond, one of the Big Bad Duumvirate, is an expy of Maetel from Galaxy Express 999. From her initial cold, calculating cruelty to her later melancholy disposition, she is a love letter to Leiji Matsumoto's famed themes of humanity versus immortal artificiality. Even her character design reflects this - her initial towering hooded appearance recalls Queen Promethium and her encounter with Greg on Earth has her shed her hood to reveal... a weeping, yet beautiful gem that is the spitting image of Maetel, if a bit blue-tinted.
    • Defense Zircon from the episode "The Trial" is an expy of Phoenix Wright. She is presented with a seemingly impossible case to win and spends the first half of the trial grasping at straws with the prosecution easily turning the court against her and her client. However, once she finds a small contradiction, she becomes much more confident and turns the whole case on its head in a matter of minutes, coming to a seemingly ridiculous conclusion which manages to hit very close to the truth of the matter.
  • Superjail! has the Warden, who was pitched as a "sadistic Willy Wonka" who owned a jail instead of a chocolate factory. He was initially not even going to have the top hat and tailcoat like Wonka (or even wear purple), but the creators decided to run with the idea after deciding he was enough like the character.
    • Lord Stingray is meant to parody Cobra Commander, although the network executives (and many fans) mistook him for parodying the Venture Bros.' villain Monarch. The other two villains shown in his debut episode are meant to be parodies of the Baroness and Destro, while the army force sent to capture Stingray ("The Stars N Stripes") reference the GI Joe team.
    • D.L. Diamond, aside from his L. Ron Hubbard inspiration, was designed as a visual shout-out to David Lee Roth and Klaus Nomi.
  • The Ruby-Spears Superman:
    • One episode featured an Expy of Brainiac called Cybron, as the makers of the show weren't sure how Brainiac would be handled in the post-Crisis continuity.
    • The Wonder Woman team-up episode featured Cyrene, an ancient and powerful sorceress with a serious grudge against the Amazons. The character was very obviously based on Circe, Wonder Woman's recurring sorceress foe.
  • Super Noobs: This show has many characters similar to the show Johnny Test as both shows were created by Scott Fellows. It also shares characters similar to Lilo & Stitch and Big Hero 6
    • Tyler Bowman is basically an expy of Hiro Yamada as both are leaders of their teams who are children and their strengths are more focused on their intelligence and wisdom
    • Kevin Reynolds is basically an updated version of Johnny Test due having similar selfish behaviors and their ability to transform into superheroes, not to mention their tendency to make bad decisions. They even have the same Hungarian voice actor (Tamás Markovics).
    • Shope is considered to be an amalgamation of Susan and Mary Test due to them being scientific geniuses and wearing glasses.
    • Roach is considered an expy of Fred from Big Hero 6 as both are laid back, naïve and goofy boys who were raised by rich families and are superheroes.
    • Zenblock is basically The Ahnold of the show but he also has some similarities to Jumba Jookiba as both speak in a foreign accent, act manly, are aliens, and have skills in mechanics but unlike Jumba, Zen is an agent for an extraterrestrial government and not a fugitive of one
    • Memnock is basically has resemblances of Agent Wendell Pleakley as both are aliens who share similar skin colors, have some effeminate interests, are fascinated with the cultures of Earth, and work for an extraterrestrial government but Memnock does not cross dress and is more manly than Pleakley. Memnock also shares similar traits with Mr. Black as both are agents who like cooking and are voiced by Bill Mondy.
    • General Blorgon is basically a masculine version of The Grand Councilwoman from Lilo & Stitch as both of them are leaders of an alien government, have serious personalities, and have light blue skin.
  • Solomon, the leader of G3 in Sym-Bionic Titan looks very similar to Alucard, particularly the hat, glasses, uniform and pale complexion.
  • Word of God states TaleSpin's Rebecca Cunningham to be based on Rebecca Howe of Cheers.
  • April O'Neil from the 2012 animated adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is similar to Willow Rosenberg. Being the redheaded Muggle Best Friend to the titular character? Check. Having powers as the series progress? Check. Corrupted from the dependency of powers which is only stopped when being talked down by the guy who has a crush on her? Check. Having better control over her powers from said experience? Check.
  • Quite a few of characters from The Three Musketeers and the films from Burbank Films Australia in Ivanhoe: The King's Knight.
    • On the Musketeer side of things we have Ivanhoe to D'Artagnan, Cedric to Aramis, Harold to Porthos, Gawain to Athos, Prince John to Richelieu and Brian de Bois-Guilbert to the Comte de Rochefort.
    • On the Burbank side of things, Richard resembles Isaac of York from that company's own adaptation of Ivanhoe and Rebecca looks like a brunette version of Joanna Sedley from the company's adaptation of The Black Arrow.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures is a combination of this trope and Spinoff Babies, as all the main characters are younger Palette Swap versions of the original Looney Tunes, who are actually there in the background as teachers in Acme Looniversity. Probably the Tiny Toon who's the furthest from her Looney Tunes counterpart is Elmyra. (Basically, she's more of an Evil Counterpart than an Expy.) Unlike Elmer, Elmyra LOVES animals, and is female. Ironically, unlike Elmer, animals find Elmyra genuinely frightening.
  • Tom & Jerry Kids: The Droopy segments of the show include the characters McWolf and Miss Vavoom which are clearly based on the Wolf and Red from Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood cartoons.
  • Pam, Alice, and Crimson from Totally Spies! are Expies of the three Kisugi sisters from Cat's Eye, right down to looking exactly like Palette Swapped versions of the girls. The joke is lost on American viewers, but is meant to be a Shout-Out, since Cat's Eye had a very popular French dub in the 80's.
  • The Transformers franchise is constantly rebooted, technically making Optimus, Megatron, Starscream, etc. expies of about eight or so identically-named characters. And then, there are other examples:
  • Korvac from Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) is an expy of Thanos, even though Korvac himself originated in the comics as well. His status as a cosmic tyrant and the leader of the Chitauri both come Thanos, especially the MCU version.
    • The show's version of Scorpion is a ninja with a grappling hook. Hmmm...
  • Trollz: Alabaster is an expy of Double D, right down to the voice actor.
  • Voltron: Legendary Defender is created by Avatar: The Last Airbender alumni, and fans have noticed similarities with both the character designs and personalities.
  • Work It Out Wombats! has the crab triplets: Carly, Cece, and Clyde. They have a Chromatic Arrangement and high-pitched voices, which sounds very similar to Alvin and the Chipmunks.
  • Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: Brad is one to Sean Rafferty, because they have the same color scheme and tend to be the nervous, nerdy one in their respective friend groups. However, Brad is based off of Brad Meltzer, and does have an interest in comics and butterflies, unlike Sean, who is interested in science, which helps distinguish Brad more.
  • Zeroman: Don, one of Rusty Woodenwater's henchmen, is basically Don Cherry.

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