Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Expy Coexistence / Western Animation

Go To

Expy Coexistence in Western Animation.

  • The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Copycats" featured the Wattersons fighting the characters from the Chinese ripoff series Miracle Star.
  • American Dad!: In "Familyland", the Smiths go to the titular park and discuss the legend of its founder, Roy Family, cryogenically freezing himself. Klaus says that it reminds him of Walt Disney, but Steve tells him he doesn't know who he is.
  • Animaniacs:
    • The original series had Slappy Squirrel, who was said to be one of the original Looney Tunes characters. One episode shows a cover of a cartoon collection of such characters, and she is shown to be on it. However, in Real Life she never appeared in any media unrelated to Animaniacs. Slappy was inspired by Screwy Squirrel, an MGM character that is also currently owned by Warner.
    • The original series' segment "Back in Style" had Expies of Yogi Bear and Boo Boo known as "Calhoun Capybara" and "Lew-Lew". Come the 2020 series which featured cameos by the actual Yogi and Boo Boo in the "Suffragette City" musical number now that Warner Bros. owns Hanna-Barbera.
    • In a "Goodfeathers" sketch parodying Rocky, Squit trains to beat the champion of pigeon boxing. While running up the steps of the Philadelphia Mueseum of Art, however, Rocky Balboa steps on him as he proceeds to the top, where he does his iconic dance.
  • Archer: The title character is a parody of James Bond, but the Bond films also exist in-universe, as confirmed in "Training Day":
    Archer: I'm the best at this, Rain Man, okay? I'm like...
    Cyril: ...James Bond?
    Archer: Well, I don't like to invite that comparison, but yeah, basically.
  • Arthur:
    • In Buster Hits the Books, Arthur and Francine were trying to make Buster read books that are based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dr. Seuss. Just a season after in Almost Live Not Real Music Festival, they state that both "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and Dr. Seuss exist in the universe.
    • During Muffy's story entry in The Contest, Buster makes a remark that Muffy's outfit looks like the fifth Teletubby. Later on, the show had two shows that are copies of the Teletubbies; the Love Ducks in "That's a Baby Show!" and a more explicit version of the show in "The Secret Life of Dogs and Babies".
    • The episode "The Squirrels" had all the characters watch an old horror movie called The Squirrels, which is essentially The Birds but with squirrels as the evil creatures instead. At the end of the episode, Buster mentions that The Birds will be on TV, and the characters decide to watch that next.
    • Mary Moo Cow is the show's version of Barney. However in "The Last Of Mary Moo Cow" during a fantasy sequence where DW spends time with Mary Moo Cow, they start to sing "I Love You" implying the actual Barney exists in the show's world.
    • Bionic Bunny is obviously based on Superman, but in "Arthur's Toy Trouble", Freddie K. mentions that the first Superman comic sold for two million dollars.
  • The Batman: Season Three introduces a supervillain named the Toymaker, the former CEO of a toy company who holds a grudge against Bruce Wayne for getting his company shut down for making unsafe toys. He's based off of Superman villain the Toyman. The Toyman eventually appears in a Season Five Crossover with Superman.
  • Big Mouth: Season 1's "Girls Are Horny Too" has Jessi buy a bra at "Veronica's Closet," a lingerie store parodying Victoria's Secret. However, Season 5's "Best Friends Make the Best Lovers" has Mona shop at the actual Victoria's Secret.
  • Bob's Burgers: Louise's Borubu cards appear to be a slug version of Pokémon, though Pokémon is mentioned in other episodes.
  • BoJack Horseman has the improv comedy cult Shenanigags, which is a clear parody of the Church of Happyology. Scientology gets mentioned multiple times, including for a subversion gag where BoJack points out he knows improv is a cult because of his time as a Scientologist... since he read a book about cults that year.
  • The Boondocks features Ed Wuncler III, who primarily exists to satirize George W. Bush: a needlessly violent Upper-Class Twit from an old conservative family who goes off on disastrous criminal expeditions with his idiot friend Rummy and escapes consequences due to luck and his family. Despite this, it's been shown many a time that Bush does indeed exist in the show's universe.
  • Classic Disney Shorts: Mickey Mouse was created by Walt Disney as an expy for his other famous cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit after losing the rights for the latter. After Disney finally got the rights back after a deal in 2006, Oswald is now sometimes included in media related to Mickey (most popular in the Epic Mickey video games).
  • The titular ape in Donkey Kong was clearly inspired by King Kong. In the Donkey Kong Country cartoon, he says that King Kong is his idol in one song, and even mentions having an autographed picture of the ape.
  • Drawn Together revels in this trope.
    • Captain Hero, while an obvious knock-off of Superman, is clearly established to exist alongside Superman, as well as the entire DC gang, and characters from Marvel Comics also exist.
    • Princess Clara is a Disney Princess and is seen hanging out with other real Disney Princesses, such as Snow White, Ariel, Cinderella, and Princess Aurora.
    • Wooldoor Sockbat, an obvious yet strange take on SpongeBob SquarePants, with a bit of Stimpy and Looney Tunes thrown in, was once referred to as a "poorly conceived SpongeBob parody".
    • The episode "Toot Goes Bollywood" features the character Phat Allen, "who has absolutely no affiliation with Bill Cosby's lovable character Fat Albert."
    • In The Movie, while the gang is being chased by I.S.R.A.E.L., the Jew Producer finally admits to them they are all knock-offs, and hence cannot return to their "original" shows. After the Jew Producer helps them throw I.S.R.A.E.L. off the trail, they stop and assess the situation, and:
      • Toot says she acts nothing like Betty Boop.
      • Ling-Ling says he's not the real Pikachu. In one episode, Pikachu is in fact mentioned as the characters play the Pokémon card game.
      • Foxxy Love says she is nothing like Josie and the Pussycats.
    • The movie has a blatant parody of South Park titled The Suck My Taint Show. The actual show is referenced in "The Other Cousin" when Kyle and a Jakovasaur are in the rollercoaster, and more explicitly in "A Tale of Two Cows" when the Live-Action Cow rampages through South Park (though some characters in that scene are not direct copies of South Park characters).
  • DuckTales (2017):
  • Hey Arnold!: The 2-part episode, "Veteran's Day", reveals that Spam exists alongside another similarly-named meat product named "Cham".
  • Justice League introduced the Justice Guild of America, a group of Expies of the Justice Society of America who existed in another dimension and are considered comic book characters in the world of the show. Actual JSA members Black Canary and Wildcat appear during the Justice League Unlimited seasons, though no mention is made of their similarities to their Justice Guild counterparts Black Siren and Cat Man. The Justice Guild was also shown to be opposed by a villain team called the Injustice Guild, which was based on the Injustice Society and had its members consist of Music Master (based off the Fiddler), Sir Swami (an expy of the Wizard), the Sportsman (a pastiche of Sportsmaster) and Dr. Blizzard (a stand-in for the Icicle). Justice League Unlimited would later feature cameos by the Music Master and the Sportsman's respective inspirations Fiddler and Sportsmaster.
  • The Looney Tunes Show: In the "Pizzarriba" Merrie Melodies music video (part of "Working Duck"), Speedy Gonzales has a cousin named Gustavo, who helps design a website for the titular restaurant where people can order from their computer. Gustavo appears to be the show's counterpart of Slowpoke Rodriguez, the slowest mouse in Mexico, as he shares many of Slowpoke's traits, such as being tall and thin, slow-moving, and not very bright. In a later episode, "The Black Widow", the actual Slowpoke appears as the sheriff of a small city in Mexico.
  • Miraculous Ladybug: The original 2D promotional video showed Chat Noir to be a Jerkass Manipulative Bastard named Félix. However, creator Thomas Astruc did not consider Félix interesting enough as a character, and saw his intended dynamic with Marinette/Ladybug as toxic, and so he was scrapped, with Adrien Agreste being created to occupy the identity of Chat Noir. In the show's third season, Félix makes an appearance as Adrien's identical cousin.
  • In My Dad the Rock Star Rock Zilla is an obvious stand-in for Gene Simmons of KISS fame. However, in "Chip Off The Old Rock" Rock asks a waiter at a fancy restauramt if they can play any KISS songs, meaning KISS (and by extension, Gene Simmons) exists in their world as well.
  • Robot Chicken: In a sketch from "Endless Breadsticks" parodying Sesame Street, two puppets are shown as expies of Elmo and Grover, the former having red fur, light grey hair, a light blue nose, and wearing a striped shirt. In another Sesame Street sketch from a later episode, "Eviscerated Post-Cital by a Six Foot Mantis", the aforementioned puppet was used for the character of Ricky Recycle Bin, who acts as Oscar the Grouch's Foil. Later still in another Sesame Street sketch from "Victoria's Secret of NIMH", Elmo and Ricky can be seen alongside each other at a rave party hosted by Count von Count.
  • Rugrats:
    • Early in the 1991 series' second season episode "Toy Palace", they established Thorg who is a spoof of King Kong. In the season finale "Party Animals", Stu and Drew were arguing that either Tarzan or King Kong are the "King of the Jungle", whom Thorg is based after.
    • "Spike the Wonder Dog" has their own version of Lassie named Oodles the Talking Poodle. They acknowledged Lassie exists as they mentioned that dog in the theme song.
  • Scooby-Doo:
    • In The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo episode "When You Witch Upon a Star", the trio of incompetent witches known as the Brewski Sisters are a clear homage to The Three Stooges; each witch modeled after one member of the trio. Of course, the real Larry, Moe and Curly Joe had previously teamed up with the gang in The New Scooby-Doo Movies.
    • Still in the franchise you have the Boo Brothers, who have also been inspired by the Stooges (although not to the same extent as the Brewski Sisters).
  • The Simpsons:
    • The show has media franchises that are each basically a Captain Ersatz despite earlier episodes referring to the real-life franchise by name:
      • In the series' premiere, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", just before the second commercial break, Bart tells Homer that miracles always happen to everyone on Christmas Eve, citing The Smurfs as an example. Just after the second commercial break, the rest of the Simpson family is seen watching the Christmas special for The Happy Little Elves, the series' Captain Ersatz of The Smurfs.
      • Cosmic Wars was created to make fun of the backlash against The Phantom Menace, even though it aired in 2004, two years after Attack of the Clones came out. Cosmic Wars was almost identical to Star Wars in every way, with only minor tweaks to the names and characters (e.g. Jar Jar Binks became Jim Jam Bonks, and "May The Force Be With You" became "May The Power Be On Your Side"), and is shown to be the exact same kind of phenomenon. The creator Randall Curtis is essentially a Captain Ersatz of George Lucas, except for shorter stature. However, Star Wars had already been established to exist in their universe several times. In fact, the franchise plays a role in some of the show's most famous moments, and with a few arbitrary exceptions, Star Wars was directly mentioned after this episode aired as well. It became even more blatant when Disney bought Fox (and thus the rights to The Simpsons), just seven years after they already purchased the Star Wars rights, as the show began acknowledging its ties to its new parent company more closely, especially in regards to Star Wars references.
      • Angelica Button was created to make fun of Harry Potter, which at the time was at its peak of popularity. While not identical to Harry Potter in every way unlike the previous example, it was presented as the same kind of phenomenon, with an episode that mimics the craze at bookstores whenever a new book in the series came out. However, J. K. Rowling had appeared in an earlier episode, with direct references to her books being made. To add to that, Harry Potter had been mentioned (or even appeared) in several episodes beforehand and since.
      • Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy are an obvious parody of Batman and Robin, but Batman is also occasionally referenced by the characters, and one episode shows Adam West living in Springfield and driving his series' version of the Batmobile.
    • The show in later seasons also has a very strange habit of referring to a thing it has an Expy of by its real name, but then immediately correcting themselves. This was done with Nappien (Ambien), Blazing Guy (Burning Man), Blocko (Lego), and Swapper Jack's (Trader Joe's), just to name a few. Whether this is an example of this trope or just to help people understand the connection is unknown.
    • In "The Homer They Fall", Homer lampshades the trope with the page quote, pointing out the similarities between fictional boxing manager Lucius Sweet and real boxing manager Don King. To confuse the issue further, Lucius Sweet is voiced by Paul Winfield, who played Don King in the TV movie Tyson.
    • In "Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples, Teens and Gays", Maggie becomes addicted to Roofi, a parody of children's singer Raffi. Later, a news ticker covering a disastrous concert reads "Raffi denounces Roofi".
    • Rainier Wolfcastle was the Captain Ersatz of Arnold Schwarzenegger down to even minor details. The episode "Radioactive Man" established that Schwarzenegger also existed in the Simpsons universe, as evidenced by Bart's line "Want results? You have to go to the Schwarzeneggers, the Stallones, and to a lesser extent, the Van Dammes.". And years later, The Simpsons Movie depicted Schwarzenegger as the President of the United States, looking and sounding almost exactly like Wolfcastle.
    • Mayor Joe Quimby is a reference to the Kennedy family down to including his Boston accent, a lavish wealth, resemblance to Ted Kennedy, and married a woman dressed similar to what made Jacqueline Kennedy famous. There's also an expy of Maria Shriver being related to the Quimby family and once married to Rainier Wolfcastle being an expy of Schwarzenegger mentioned above. It's already been established that President John F. Kennedy exists appeared and mentioned in many episodes.
    • "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" shows Homer was in a four-man musical group whose history parodies that of The Beatles. But not only are the actual Beatles directly mentioned, George Harrison makes a guess appearance As Himself.
    • Combined with Dark Parody, "Brother's Little Helper" makes quick mention that Dennis Mitchell exists, but Wiggum explicitly mentions him as "the kid who roughed up the Wilson widow."
    • For many years, the show featured the Blocko brand of construction toys whenever it needed to reference LEGO. After LEGO started making toys with the show's license, Season 25 episode "Brick Like Me" features the franchise as the basis of its plot.
    • In "The Simpsons Guy", the court scene features the characters from both shows that are the most similar to each other sitting together, including two James Woods.
    • "Itchy & Scratchy Land" and "The Day the Violence Died" both use Roger Meyers Sr. as a stand-in for Walt Disney, but many episodes directly mention the Disney Corporation and even Walt Disney by name. And, as mentioned above, this became more obvious when Disney eventually bought out The Simpsons.
    • In "Homer the Great", Homer joins the Stonecutters, a secret society parodying the Freemasons. However, Grandpa Simpsons mentions being a member of the Freemasons (as well as the Stonecutters).
    • "22 Short Films About Springfield" extensively parodies Pulp Fiction, particularly the conversation about McDonald's, thus making it clear that Krusty Burger and its inspiration both exist in this universe, though the latter apparently is so rare in Springfield that few of its residents even know about it.note 
      Lou: Y'know, I went to the McDonald's in Shelbyville on Friday night.
      Wiggum: The Mc-what?
      Lou: Uh, McDonald's restaurant, I, uh, I've never heard of it either, but uh, they have over 2000 locations in this state alone.
      Eddie: Must've sprung up overnight.
    • In "Grift of the Magi", Funzo is a clear parody of Furby and Tickle Me Elmo, and as he explains himself, Jim Hope name-drops both toys, meaning they exist in the world of the show.
    • Talk show host Opal is an obvious spoof of Oprah Winfrey, but Oprah herself is name-dropped quite a few times in the series as well. She even appeared in an animated short where she interviewed the Simpsons (albeit on her own show, and not The Simpsons itself.)
    • Dr. Hibbert, a parody of Bill Cosby (specifically his character Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show), apparently exists in the same universe as Cosby himself. A Besides a few scattered name-drops, "Saturdays of Thunder" features Homer reading a book of parenting advice written by Cosby, and Homer and Bart discuss The Cosby Show ending in a sequence originally attached to the end of "Three Men and a Comic Book." In "Round Springfield", Bleeding Gums Murphy refers to a guest appearance in The Cosby Show, and we see a clip of this.
    • Lucius Sweet's client, Drederick Tatum, is obviously based on Mike Tyson. Moe namechecks the actual Tyson in "The Mansion Family", with a poster which uses the same character design as Tatum.
    • The Stuff-N-Hug in "Mona Leaves-a" is a blatant parody of Build-a-Bear Workshop, which was shown to already exist in the previous season's "Homerazzi."
    • In "Mobile Homer", Marge gets clothes from Goodwill as an attempt to save money, and Lisa is seen wearing a t-shirt from the real-life Hooters restaurant. Later that season, in "Don't Fear The Roofer", Homer and Ray go out to eat at Knockers, a sports bar modeled after Hooters.
  • South Park uses President Garrison to satirize Donald Trump's tenure as President of the USA, and another episode had a Trumplica one-shot character, the President of Canada who ends up being raped to death by Garrison himself. However, the "real" Donald Trump appeared once, in the 2001 episode "The Entity", as one of the entrepreneurs interested in Mr. Garrison's new transport device.
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks: Commander Jack Ransom is a parody of Commander William Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation, as an over-the-top would-be manly hero. In the end of the first season and start of the second, Riker himself appears on the show, parodically depicted as an adrenaline-junkie horndog who constantly goes into too much detail about how much wild sex he and Troi are having.
  • Star Wars: The Bad Batch: The titular team is meant to be an Expy of Delta Squad from the Star Wars: Republic Commando series, being a team of crack commandos that consist of a stern leader (Hunter and Boss), the no-nonsense sniper (Crosshair and Sev), the Boisterous Bruiser demolitions expert (Wrecker and Scorch), and the team genius (Tech and Fixer). Divergences in characterization aside, the Bad Batch and Delta Squad both exist in the current canon, since both were featured in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (The Batch in Season 7, and the Deltas in Season 3), though the decanonization of the Delta's books and games means that only a Broad Strokes version of them exists in current canon.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures:
  • In The Venture Bros., whether a character exists in canon, exists as a fictional character, or doesn't exist at all seems to vary on the needs of the scene. The creators have even claimed that one of their favorite gags is acknowledging that the thing they're parodying also exists in-universe.
    • The series started out as a very obvious spoof of Jonny Quest, (except the setting is updated, the tone is less optimistic, and the characters are flipped on their heads; the doctor is amoral and has at least a touch of Mad Scientist, the badass bodyguard is a bloodthirsty psycho, and the pair of kids are naive and delusional to the point of being Too Dumb to Live) but as early as the seventh episode, Race Bannon from Jonny Quest appears and interacts with his expy Brock. Later an adult version of Jonny and other characters would also show up. This later became more complicated as copyright and legal issues meant that the showrunners for The Venture Brothers had to turn the characters from Jonny Quest into expies of themselves, so Race Bannon became "Red" Bannon and Jonny Quest became Action Jonny, for example.
    • The Scooby-Doo parodies the Groovy Gang play a major role in one episode, but Jonny implies he got an STD from Velma.
    • Many of the show's characters, particularly superheroes and supervillains, are parodies of existing ones, the latter of which still exist in The Venture Bros. as fictional characters. Hank, a fan of Batman, briefly mentored under Captain Sunshine, who is a Batman Parody (even voiced by Kevin Conroy). The Monarch once insultingly described Baron Underbheit as a "dime-store Dr. Doom". Brock told Hank Pym parody Dr. Entmann that he reminds him of "a Marvel hero" ("Hawkeye? Sub-Mariner?").
    • Red Mantle fondly recalls in "Bot Seeks Bot" that him and his fellow villains, back in the 60s, would get together on the weekends and have races in gimmicky cars named things like the Mantle-Mobile and the Doom Buggy. His companion Dragoon tries to recall the name of a fellow with a mustache and a dog that snickered at the other racers, at which Red Mantle impatiently tells him that he's thinking of the cartoon Wacky Races, crediting it to his status as a Scatterbrained Senior.
  • In season 1 of Young Justice (2010), Robin was given several of Tim Drake's traits, despite the fact he was Dick Grayson. In season 2, Invasion, Dick is now Nightwing while the actual Tim is the new Robin. When asked about this, Word of God says that he considers some things (hacking skills, actual pants) to be not so much "Tim traits" as things that any modern version of Robin would need to have.
    • General Zod's forces in Season 4 include both Ursa and Faora.
  • Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars revels in this trope. It's basically a Lower-Deck Episode of A New Hope, with the Phineas and Ferb cast becoming Expies of Star Wars characters but also interacting with their counterparts. For example, Phineas and Ferb are Luke's neighbors on Tatooine, Isabella is a smuggler who's a rival to Han Solo, etc.
  • Family Guy has the restaurant Cheesie Charlie's first appeared in "Chitty Chitty Death Bang" and later appeared in Family Guy Video Game! and The Cleveland Show as Cheese E. Charlie's. Chuck E. Cheese's actually exist appearing in later episodes.
    • Similarly, in "McStroke", the plot revolves around Peter getting a stroke from eating food from a restaurant called “McBurgertown” and infiltrating their headquarters. Needless to say, they wouldn’t have been able to get away with this plot if any real restaurant was used. However, McDonalds itself has been directly referenced in various other episodes of Family Guy.
    • One episode has Lois interviewed by "Helen Disingenuous" — a clear caricature of Ellen Degeneres, despite Ellen being explicitly shown and named in several cutaway gags before and since.
  • There was talk of having The Rocketeer team up with Peggy Carter in the What If... episode, "What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?" but with Howard Hughes being a mentor to the Rocketeer, they thought it would be awkward having Hughes and his Howard Hughes Homage, Howard Stark existing in the same universe.
  • Cheetor in Beast Wars was introduced as being an equivalent of Bumblebee from The Transformers, with a few traits from Hot Rod: a bright yellow rookie scout who served as a Kid-Appeal Character like the former, who would go on to become the resident Optimus's successor like the latter. In Transformers: Cyberverse a slightly more mature Cheetor would show up and join the Autobots, with the episode "Spotted" being about Bumblebee teaching Cheetor to scout.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top