An
Alternate Universe where everything is the same... but different. Superman originated this, and it has been parodied by a number of shows.
A bizarro world is distinct from a normal
Alternate Universe in that a bizarro world has everything "reversed" in some way. Heroes are villains and vice versa; beauty is hated and ugliness embraced; whatever the author decides to do. A
good/evil flip is the usual trope, allowing the heroes to work together with the bizarro version of their enemies (who are, of course, heroes in bizarro world).
Recent examples of bizarro universes have reduced the use of good and evil in favor of other reversals, such as who is the 'smart one' in a group of friends or who are the 'cool kids' at school.
A bizarro universe need not be a literal "other universe"; sometimes it is simply another city/country/building that has strangely familiar elements, but with some sort of reversals present.
Examples:
- The two most famous are from DC Comics: Bizarro World and the Crime Syndicate of America (or sometimes Amerika). Bizarro World is a planet (or sometimes a universe) that works on Bizarro logic, where everything is opposite (the planet itself is actually a cube and named "Htrae"). In the CSA Universe (later retconned as being part of the antimatter universe of Qward), Earth history is reversed (Britain fought the Revolutionary war to gain independence from America, President John Wilkes Booth was assassinated by Abraham Lincoln, and so on) and everyone generally acts the opposite of their counterparts in the "normal" universe (i.e., all heroes are villains and vice versa).
- Sketches set in "The Bizarro World" -- done with a jerky low-frame-rate camera effect and funky audio filtering -- were a frequent feature on Saturday Night Live during the early 1980s.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Wishverse is not a Bizarro world, despite Cordelia's remark "I wish us all to Bizarro World", but a combination of For Want Of A Nail and a subversion of Wonderful Life (Cordy wished somebody else had never come to Sunnydale)
- In Angel, in Cordelia's final episode after a long absence, she returns, asking "What Bizarro world did I wake up in?", referencing both the Wishverse and the trope itself.
- Hey Arnold!, "Arnold Visits Arnie", where (for example) Stumpy is the smart kid and Fifi is the idiot, as opposed to Stinky being the idiot and Phoebe being the smart kid.
- Charmed had an episode with a universe where the Charmed Ones are evil and demons are good. It also turned out that the "Power of Three" which normally requires three sisters could be used by combining the normal and reversed universe characters' powers as the Power of Four.
- Webcomic example: In El Goonish Shive
, the "AF04" universe has personality-reversed versions of all the main characters -- except Elliot, where the the only difference is that he's wearing a white T-shirt.
- Parodies:
- Moonside in Earthbound, where everything is black with neon outlines and people say things like "Hey! Parking meters! And you're walking around! Ha ha ha... that's so funny!" and "Mani Mani is always Mani Mani at Mani Mani with all Mani Mani Mani". Furthermore, "Yes" and "No" choices are switched (for, to name a few examples, when shopkeepers ask if you want to buy anything, or the innkeeper asks if you want to spend the night).
- Webcomic example: Terror Island theorem 040: panel 1 shows the logical problems with DC's Bizarro universe.
- And who could forget the Bizzaro Jerry and gang on Seinfeld?
- On the DVD commentary for The Simpsons episode "There's No Disgrace Like Home", they point out how almost everything in the episode is opposite: Marge got drunk, Lisa was a brat, and Homer was the most concerned family member.
- Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei had a segment on dreams where everyone but Nozomu had a reversed version of the traits that defined them. Cute Mute Meru was talkative, Hikikomori Komori was outside, and so on.
- In Magic The Gathering, Shadowmoor is effectively a Bizarro Universe of the previous block's setting, Lorwyn. A magical incident known as "the Aurora" causes the bright and light-hearted world of Lorwyn to become the dark and sinister Shadowmoor. The personalities of its inhabitants are likewise warped: the clannish kithkin are now xenophobic and paranoid, the mischievous and energetic boggarts are warlike berserkers, and the proud and domineering elves have become humbled preservers of beauty in a dark and ugly world.
