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alt title(s): Bizarro World Jerry: Like Bizarro Superman ... who lives in the backwards bizarro world. Up is down, down is up. He says "Hello when he leaves, "Goodbye" when he arrives. Elaine: Shouldn't he say " badbye?" Jerry: No, it's still goodbye. Elaine: Does he live underwater? Jerry: No. Elaine: Is he black? Jerry: Look, just forget the whole thing. - "The Bizarro Jerry" (1996), Seinfeld
"Inverted world, where the spazzes make fun of the cool guys!"
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.
Compare Opposite Day, a similar idea on a much smaller scale.
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"). On the CSA's parallel world of "Earth-3" (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, and upon finding that Angel is working with their main enemies and an old villain has switched sides, asks "What Bizarro world did I wake up in?", referencing both the Wishverse and the trope itself.
- 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.
- Father Ted, where Rugged Island has another set of three priests with the same dynamic as the regulars on Craggy Island.
- Seinfeld episode "The Bizarro Jerry" (1996) posits Elaine as the focal point between two universes: Jerry, George, and Kramer being their juvenile, petty, and doofy (respectively) selves are contrasted with Kevin, Gene, and Feldman who are mature, considerate, and clever. The episode goes to great lengths
 to provide all the show's constants with bizarro versions. Some stuff The Other Wiki misses:
- Kevin's apartment is a literal mirror image of Jerry's, built from the same set. The paint scheme is reversed as well, as are the camera angles.
- At the Bizarro Coffee Shop (i.e., Reggie's), the Bizarro Gang sits in a booth by the window, which the normal gang does but rarely (and often to their consternation).
- Gene, in addition to his polite Bizarro George personality, is always over-dressed. A sharp contrast to his rival, who would "drape [himself] in velvet [jumpsuits] if it were socially acceptable" (and in fact, eventually does).
- Feldman apparently has several ideas for inventions that are both new and useful, but dismisses them as "not practical", whereas Kramer's ideas fall into two categories: bad ideas, and good ideas he claims were stolen from him.
- On The Daily Show, John Oliver referred to "Bizarro Hitler", who spent his time hugging Jews and got his ass handed to him by France. Also, his face was all moustache except above his lip- when Jon Stewart said he imagined Bizarro Hitler would be a black man with blond hair and a pencil beard, John Oliver told him he was thinking of Dennis Rodman.
- In another episode, Jon Stewart's Bizarro version is mentioned: the "ruggedly handsome, non-neurotic" Jon Leibowitz, who pretends to be independent, but actually is a "right-wing nutcase."
- In a Red Dwarf episode, the boys visit an alternate universe with an alternate Red Dwarf, and meet female counterparts of Lister and Rimmer and even the computer Holly (it's a world with a female-dominated history). The Cat runs off eagerly and lustfully to find his female counterpart, and she-Lister says, "He's going to be disappointed." "Why?" "His opposite isn't a female. It's a dog."
- 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.
- The Simpsons' hometown of Springfield has a bizarro neighbor, Shelbyville. Despite longstanding hatred between the two towns, the differences between them are negligible:
- Shelbyville also has a nuclear power plant, but run by flamboyant billionaire Aristotle Amadopoulos. That suburban towns the size of Springfield and Shelbyville can't share a single plant speaks to the depth of their rivalry.
- Shelbyville stores do not stock Springfield-made products. The Speed-E-Mart and Joe's Tavern prefer Fudd Beer to Duff, despite Fudd's connection to hillbilly blindness. Krusty Burger doesn't seem to exist, replaced with some weird place called McDonalds.
- All the fire hydrants in Shelbyville are yellow, as opposed to Springfield's, which are universally red.
- Some characters in Springfield have Shelbyville counterparts, such as a female version of Groundskeeper Willie, and the East Asian proprietor of Speed-E-Mart. There's also a Milhouse ("Your name is Milhouse? I thought I was the only one!")
- Interestingly, Milhouse's mother Luann (who looks strikingly like her husband Kirk) is from Shelbyville, possibly making herself her own (now ex)-husband's Bizarro counterpart!
- In one episode of Codename Kids Next Door, the KND discovered a world where adults were slaves to kids, and a group of despotic kids ruled over the others. Not only were all the inhabitants the opposite of their regular world counterparts, but all names and acronyms were backwards (Lizzie became Eizzil, etc.).
- The Sealab 2021 episode "Bizarro" had the titular underwater research lab being taken over by bizarro versions of the crew who wanted diamonds.
- In an episode of the the Beetlejuice cartoon called Dr. Beetle and Mr. Juice, the titular ghost invents a cologne that makes anyone exposed to it behave in a manner opposite to how they usually would.
- An episode of The Secret Saturdays has a magic mirror bring The Mondays, their evilcounterparts from a Mirror Universe, into their world. Each of them has their personalities reversed and some physical difference to tell them apart. In addition, they are supposed to be made of Anti-Matter, which causes reality t go crazy every time one of the characters approached his or her counterpart. (Actually, if they were made of antimatter they would have exploded like nuclear bombs the moment they entered the positive universe.)
- 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.
- Terror Island theorem 040: panel 1 shows the logical problems with DC's Bizarro universe.
- In Shortpacked, McAwesome's Parasailing and Chocolate Bakery (the place Ethan nearly went to work) is the Bizarro version of Shortpacked. As well as Ethan's counterpart Evan (who's dating That Guy) there's a Benevolent Boss (Bizarro Galasso), a fairly sensible ex-SEMME agent (Bizarro Robin), an employee who's obsessed with pirates (Bizarro Ninja Rick) and Franklin Roosevelt (Bizarro Reagan). There are also versions of Amber (Rose) and Faz (Zaph).
- And now that things finally seem to be going right for Ethan, Evan's in a coma.
- Sluggy Freelance appeared to have one of these when the Dimension of Lame first appeared, where Riff, Zoe, and Bun-Bun were all incredibly nice and polite to Torg, while the normally sweet Kiki was rude and vicious. It was later revealed that the Dimension of Lame was actually populated entirely by absurdly kind and innocent versions of people from the main universe. The only reason the Kiki there was so evil was because she originally came from a dimension populated only by extremely Jerkass versions of main universe characters.
- 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).
- Praetorian Earth in City of Heroes, which is the standard good to evil switch. Statesman becomes Tyrant, Ms. Liberty becomes Dominatrix, Manticore becomes Chimera, et cetera.
- 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 beleaguered preservers of beauty in a dark and ugly world (they're only slightly less smug, though).
Sketch Comedy Show
- The History of the World Backwards takes place in a parallel world where history flows backwards. So Nelson Mandela started life as a popular politician, then went to the prison and became a terrorist, the United States fought to join Great Britain and Christopher Columbus loses the Americas and proves the world is flat.
- GURPS Alternate Earths has Bizarro Earth, where doing things backwards started as a harmless fashion in the early 19th century that quickly grew out of control. On this Earth, Kennedy was deposed for shooting at a book depository worker named Lee Harvey Oswald from his presidential car.
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