The below is a list of shows that are considered twisted reflections of each other. Which is the original and which is the ripoff is not always completely clear.
Oftentimes, the shows are developed at the same time, so all they have in common is their basic premise and pitch description. This is especially true in animation, given the long lead time required to get a finished show to air. When both programs get to the screen, they may differ in every important respect, except their one-sentence capsule description. This differentiation may be related to the various causes and effects of
. Either way, if they persist in coexisting, the audience will polarize, and the shows will evolve away from each other, or one will be canceled.
Sometimes, rather than homebrew a knockoff, a company will license a foreign program, usually
Maybe they're opposite each other in the same time slot, maybe one steals the other's time slot, or maybe there's some superficial similarity that causes viewers to compare the two shows.
for the video game version. Do not confuse with
Again, just to be clear: The shows have to air during the same time period, otherwise you've got either
| Original | Clone | Capsule Pitch Description | Implementation | Winner? |
| Totally Spies | Kim Possible | Extraordinarily Empowered Girl Spy in High School Cartoon | Totally Spies tried for the Animesque market, while Kim Possible stuck with straight-up Action Girl antics and a strong supporting cast. | Basically a tie. Kim Possible became more popular in the U.S.A., while Totally Spies went on to become bigger in Europe. |
| The Simpsons | Family Guy | Cartoon about Dysfunctional Family with a mom, dad, two kids and a baby. | Dueling Shows made by the same company, FOX. Simpsons came first, has lasted longer, and is overall the most successful; Family Guy now typically gets higher ratings than The Simpsons (although this can vary from week to week) and has Stewie and Brian as its own characters. Parodied on this Mad Magazine cover ◊. | The Simpsons. |
| American Dragon Jake Long | The Life and Times of Juniper Lee | Oyaji Kid Supernatural Soap Opera Cartoon | Moderate differences, but in both, a young Asian person inherits the mystical mantle of a grandparent, becomes a mediator between the human and magical worlds, and has an irritating opposite-gender younger sibling and a talking pug dog. | Though both shows ran for about the same number of months, American Dragon has twelve episodes over Juniper Lee. |
| WITCH | Winx Club | Sentai Magical Girl | Somewhat similar shows that both originated in Italy, except WITCH has a bigger budget and scripts with less fluff. Many of the similarities were introduced through Adaptation Decay. | In America, the Winx had broadcast TV coverage from day 1 while the Guardians started on cable, so the Winx ended up clobbering them ratings-wise and have now outlasted their dueling counterparts. On the other hands, the popularity of WITCH as a comic book series completely eclipses that of Winx Club as a cartoon series. |
| Transformers Generation 1 | Challenge Of The Go Bots | Transforming Mecha Sentai | Challenge Of The Go Bots seems to be the obvious pale knockoff... so it comes as a surprise to many that the Gobots toys predated Transformers by two years. Nonetheless, the cartoon Autobots beat the Gobots to TV by a month. | Transformers became a Cash Cow Franchise that's still going strong some twenty-five years later. Go Bots faded into obscurity. |
| Babylon 5 | Star Trek Deep Space Nine | Adventure Town IN SPACE | Very different, but with enough surface similarities — and a documented pre-DS 9 pitch of B5 to Paramount — to merit accusations of copying. It should be noted that there is little evidence the creators of DS 9 ever knew about the pitch of B5 to Paramount. | Both winners - so were the viewers, though DS 9 is better remembered because it's a part of one of the biggest franchises of all time. |
| Super Dimension Fortress Macross | Genesis Climber Mospeada | Transforming Mecha and an Idol Singer fight Scary Dogmatic Aliens | Similar enough that both were kitbashed together into... | Robotech |
| Star Trek | Lost In Space | Wagon Train To The Stars | One is a classic of popular culture, the other is cult kitsch. Notable in that Gene Rodenberry originally pitched Star Trek to CBS, who listened to his ideas on how to pull off a space show on a weekly TV budget, rejected the pitch, then went on to use all the ideas he'd given them to make Lost In Space. | Depends on how you look at it. Lost In Space cleaned Star Trek's clock in the ratings and lasted longer. On the other hand: Who still watches Lost In Space some forty years after the fact? We're giving this one to Star Trek. |
| ER | Chicago Hope | Medical Drama | Both mixed elements of gritty medical realism with focus on the personal lives of the staff, but ER emphasized the former while Hope emphasised the latter — and died after a few seasons. | ER |
| Power Rangers | VR Troopers | Sentai with Humongous Mecha | Both shows used Stock Footage of live action Japanese children's shows combined with new footage with American actors. | Power Rangers still exists in one form or another. VR Troopers lasted for two seasons and 92 episodes in syndication, until the creators ran out of Stock Footage to adapt... never mind that they both came from the same producers. |
| Survivor | Big Brother | Musical Chairs Reality Show | Country Mouse vs. City Mouse. It should be noted that, at least in the United States, both shows are "on the same side" since one network airs them both. | Inside the US? Survivor. Outside the US? Arguably Big Brother. |
| Thief | Heist | Drama + Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster | Subtle character drama vs. Glitzy Actioner. Neither got double-digit ep counts. |
| Maria-sama Ga Miteru | Strawberry Panic | Elaborate University High Schoolgirl Lesbians | StoPani borrows many elements of Marimite but takes the Schoolgirl Lesbians factor farther. | Both have their fanbases, but Marimite has the longevity advantage, with nearly double the episode count of Panic! |
| That Was Then | Do Over | 80's Flashback to High School | One was a drama, the other a sitcom. Neither was too successful. |
| The Contender | The Next Great Champ | Reality TV boxing competition | Neither was very successful on free TV, so they both got moved to cable. |
| Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip | 30 Rock | NBC Behind The Scenes of a Variety Show titled its studio's multiple of 30 address | Studio is a Sorkin drama, 30 Rock is a straight Sit Com. Plus... they're on the same network - NBC, which also has the closest thing to the shows they go behind-the-scenes of! | In this case, the clone has moved on to a 3rd season, while the original got the axe. It should be noted that NBC staff couldn't decide which one to greenlight, so they greenlit both. |
| The Chair | The Chamber | Kimodameshi Game Show | The Chamber was perhaps more torturous; The Chair had a better known host. | Neither American version lasted 10 episodes, both beaten by the far less stressful Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. |
| Bull | The $treet | Wall Street Drama | Pretty much the same. | Both were gone after one season, as nobody cares about the world of accounting. |
| Miami Ink | Inked | Docu Soap about tattoo parlors. | Both quite similar, one on TLC, one on A&E. |
| Beakmans World | Bill Nye The Science Guy | Kids' Science Show | Whereas Beakman was a fictional character, Bill was an actual scientist engineer. Whereas Bill stuck with one topic throughout an episode, Beakman switched topics frequently. | A tie. Both lasted about 100 episodes, were equally epic and awesome, and kissed Mr. Wizard's ring. |
| Kidnapped | Vanished | Serialized story arc about a kidnapping | | Both got 13 episodes. Kidnapped got better reviews, but Vanished got buzz from killing off its main character, played by Gale Harold. |
| Saturday Night Live | Mad TV | Sketch Comedy Variety Show | The first is a classic of the genre, though nowadays a pale imitation of what it was. The second is an attempt to imitate the sketch comedy success, a good 20 years later, and videotaped. | Mad TV's recent cancellation makes SNL 2-0 in battles with other-network sketch comedy. |
| Saturday Night Live | Fridays | Sketch Comedy Variety Show | ABC's Fridays was an earlier duelist, to the point of getting higher ratings and arguably having higher quality than the SNL episodes it was up against. | The Other Wiki explains that when Fridays was forced into a later time slot just as SNL was successfully revamped, the newcomer faded. |
| Real People | Thats Incredible | America's Funniest Home Videos meets Believe It Or Not! | NBC's Real People debuted in 1979 and was a smash hit.ABC's Thats Incredible came out next year and looked eerily similar.The similarity between these two shows was even parodied in a MAD Magazine satire titled "That's Real Incredible, People!", and by an SNL sketch called "Real Incredible People''. NBC's original was primarily devoted to humorous real-world absurdity, a la Dave Barry's ; ABC's knockoff tried to have more of a Ripley's Believe-it-or-Not!flavor to it and quickly became a bastion of pseudoscience. |
| The A Team | High Performance | Action-adventure shows featuring do-gooders for hire | Another ABC knockoff of an NBC smash hit. | High Performance died after three episodes. |
| The Addams Family | The Munsters | Sit Com about an altogether ooky family of freaks | The Munsters was created as direct competition to The Addams Family. While the Addamses were extraordinarily odd people, there was very little that was explicity supernatural about them. The Munsters, meanwhile, were a couple of vampires, a wolf-boy and a Frankenstein's monster. The Addamses were portrayed as well-to-do and WASPy, while the Munsters seemed to be more working-class and ethnic. The Addams Family generally had the odder storylines and a more macabre sense of humor, while The Munsters was played more as a traditional Sit Com. | Both winners - so are the viewers. |
| Homicide Life On The Street | NYPD Blue | Gritty, inner-city Cop Show | Both started in 1993, though Homicide had the jump on NYPD Blue by eight months. NYPD Blue proved to be the bigger hit, although Homicide was critically lauded for its realistic tone. Homicide character Det. John Munch subsequently appeared in eight different series,and is now a regular in Law And Order Special Victims Unit. | NYPD Blue by a small margin. |
| Malcolm In The Middle | Oliver Beene | Dysfunctional Family raises a boy who frequently breaks the fourth wall | Another example of dueling shows created by the same network. Oliver Beene had the same style of humor and direction, but set in a version of the 1960s that basically came off as the 2000s in vintage clothing. | Oliver Beene, a Midseason Replacement, failed to last even the rest of the season. |
| Win, Lose or Draw | Pictionary | "Picture charades" game show | Although Burt Reynolds claimed to have created the genre, the Pictionary board game came first. |
| Singing Bee | Don't Forget The Lyrics | Karaoke Game Show | In a double duel, NBC announced Singing Bee for fall 2007. Fox rushed the ripoff into production for summer 2007, which led NBC to announce an earlier start date before casting a host or taping an episode. The shows premiered on consecutive nights in July 2007. DFTL has one contestant and allows time to think and "lock in your answer" a la Millionaire, whereas SB has multiple contestants and you have to sing the line correctly the first try; SB goes through more songs fast, DFTL allows a choice among genres and between two songs each genre. |
| Ferris Bueller | Parker Lewis Can't Lose | The manipulative king of high school Sit Com | Both aired in the very early 90s — the former on NBC, the latter on FOX. And they were both an attempt to make a viable show out of the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. | Parker Lewis was generally regarded as being of higher quality, and ultimately got three seasons. Ferris got one. |
| Kaitou Saint Tail | Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne | CatholicKaitou Magical Girl | Jeanne is a Grimmification of the cute, fluffy Saint Tail premise, with the title character as a jaded Broken Bird whose Mission From God isn't actually as holy as she thinks it is. |
| Vampire Knight | Rosario To Vampire | High School Romance between a human and a vampire | Rosario+Vampire is a light hearted comedy compared to the more dramatic Vampire Knight but both mangas have their share of funny moments and tense ones. |
| Blood Ties | Moonlight | Short-lived Vampire Detective Series. | The similarities are probably more due to the nature of the genre rather than direct copying. |
| WWF Raw | WCW Nitro | Monday night Professional Wrestling shows with a focus on sports entertainment over pure wrestling | It started with Eric Bischoff asking for a Monday night timeslot to compete directly with the WWF, and spawned a constant game of one-upsmanship which saw, among other things, WCW spoiling the WWF's shows on-the-air, WWF starting Raw 3 minutes early to get the jump on Nitro, WCW responding by starting a full hour earlier, WWF sending D-Generation X to mingle with the fans outside a Nitro event and cause trouble, and Eric Bischoff challenging Vince McMahon to a fight live on Pay-Per-View. Ahh, now those were great times to be a wrestling fan. | Raw, to the point where McMahon got to bury Nitro on its last broadcast, setting up the unsuccessful "Invasion" storyline. |
| Survivorman | Man vs. Wild | A host demonstrates survival techniques by stranding himself in varying wildernesses | Both are shown on the Discovery channel. The most notable difference is that Wild tends to take many more unnecessary risks - to show it can be done if necessary than Survivorman does and Wild's more "stunt" oriented segments. Both avoid direct competition with each other by having one air new episodes while the other is still filming. Man also has a camera and safety crew on hand, and is occasionally staged, while Survivorman shoots the footage himself. | Man by default, with Les Stroud deciding to move on to other projects. Both were about equal in ratings and fan following. |
| Wife Swap | Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy | Two polar opposite families trade spouses for several days. | ABC broadcasts Wife Swap and claims to have done it first, while FOX aired Trading Spouses a few weeks before Wife Swap's debut in what seems to be a blatant ripoff. | Wife Swap |
| Bewitched | I Dream Of Jeannie | Sit Com in which a guy tries to live an ordinary life despite having a long-term relationship with a blonde with magical powers | Bewitched had Elizabeth Montgomery, Agnes Moorehead and The Other Darrin. I Dream Of Jeannie had JR Ewing and Barbara Eden in revealing clothing. Actually, if you like 1960s sitcoms, these are both pretty good. |
| Any Dream Will Do | Grease Is The Word | Talent Show in which a panel of experts search for the lead for an upcoming musical production | "Joseph" was, essentially, The BBC's second season of their Musical Talent Show brand, which they debuted the previous year with How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, Grease Is The Word was ITV's adaptation of the U.S. version of "Maria". "Joseph" had Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Barrowman and Denise Van Outen judging, GISW had David Gest, musical producer David Ian, Brain Friedman from The X Factor and... Sinetta. | "Grease" was a ratings flop because it was in Doctor Who's time slot and didn't have the star pull. |
| American Bandstand | Soul Train | Teens dancing to the popular music of the day. The day's hottest musical acts appeared as well. | To put it bluntly: AB was for white kids; Soul Train was for black kids. Or to be a bit less blunt - AB emphazised the music, Soul Train highlighted the dancing. Also there were also the show's non-musical guest signatures: AB's song rating and ST's Soul Train Line. | Both lasted the same amount of seasons - with AB having a 13-season headstart and ST lasting thirteen seasons after AB's cancellation. Soul Train seems to be more fondly remembered, though both have their Never Live It Down factor: AB for its overwhelming whiteness and ST for it's inescapable link to 70s fashion and afros. |
| Saber Rider And The Star Sheriffs | Bravestarr and Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers | Space Western Animated Series with Mechanical Horses | Saber Rider was the first of these shows; its original Japanese version aired in 1984. In America, Galaxy Rangers came first in 1986, with the other two shows following in 1987. Galaxy Rangers was Darker And Edgier than its competitors and seems to have the biggest fan following today, although none of the series did very well. | Bravestarr is the best known of the three outside of the animation fandom, but Rangers is the most popular within that fandom |
| Airwolf | Blue Thunder | Crime-fighting super helicopters, and the people that flew them | Both debuting in 1984, Blue Thunder had the name recognition and a slight headstart. Airwolf was thematically similar to the already sucessful Knight Rider. | Thunder barely lasted half a season. Airwolf ran for four seasons on CBS and USA. |
| Russel Simmons' Def Comedy Jam | BET's Comicview | Black stand up comedy with an "urban" flavor | Both debuted in the mid '90s, during the Stand Up Comedy Boom. Def Comedy tends to pull bigger names and uses it's pay cable slot to get away with saltier language. Comicview tends to edit it's shows, often splicing several comics together for themed segments. |
| Joan Of Arcadia | Wonderfalls | Too Good To Last Magic Realism Dramedies, each featuring a Weirdness Magnet heroine, who's stuck in a dead-end job and starts hearing voices telling her to do things | Both premiered in the same year. | Wonderfalls was canceled after four episodes, while Joan managed to last a couple of seasons. But really, both were good shows that got killed off, so who lost? The viewers. |
| Ghost Whisperer | Medium | Supernaturally-enhanced crime dramas | The former sees ghosts; the latter has premonitions. Both are backed by "acclaimed" psychics. And now they're not only on the same channel, but right after each other starting in this fall! | Moved from Dueling shows to complimentary shows. |
| Living Single | Friends | A group of twenty-something friends/roommates living in New York City | The most obvious difference was the main cast. Living Single also tended less soap opera-ish and slightly more reality-based and avoided Friends' mass-Flanderization. | Friends lasted ten seasons. Living Single lasted only five. |
| Cashmere Mafia | Lipstick Jungle | A group of friends who are all successful businesswomen. | One of them had four women; one had only three. Both were written by former Sex And The City writers. | Both of them got screwed over by the Writers' Guild strike, airing just seven episodes each in their first seasons. Unfortunately, Lipstick Jungle was the only one that got renewed, a fact that became infinitely worse in the wake of a certain Volkswagen ad campaign. |
| The Amazing Race | Lost (no, not that one) | Reality game show where teams race around the world. | Lost premiered one day earlier. | However, Lost only lasted 3 months. The Amazing Race is still on. When asked, 99% of people will know a TV show called Lost as... |
| Lost (yes, that one) | Flight 29 Down | Plane crashes on an island; characters must adapt. | Lost premiered a year earlier and became an overnight sensation. F 29 D was pitched as "Lost for kids" and got tepid reviews. | F 29 D was cancelled after two seasons. Lost is considered the pioneer in 21st century mainstream mystery-drama television. |
| Hidamari Sketch | Sketchbook Full Colors | Quirky Slice Of Life show, originally Yonkoma, about quirky girls being quirky in a quirky art school, with lots of Scenery Porn and Navel Contemplation | Sketchbook was first, and has more and quirkier girls; Hidamari Sketch goes more deeply into the relationships between them. |
| Extreme Makeover | The Swan | Plastic surgery makeover shows. | Fox's copycat went the Fox Extra Tastelessness Step by putting the women through the hell of plastic surgery and then sent half of them home at the end of the episode while bringing the other half on to a beauty pageant. | Both had Family Unfriendly Aesops and were ultimately canceled; the former has a More Popular Spinoff, though. |
| Sky Girls | Strike Witches | Scantily clad young females operate fantastic flying machinery to fight creatures that copy the appearance of other things. | Strike Witches leans more toward the Mecha Musume concept whereas Sky Girls has a more classical Humongous Mecha theme. Both series feature character designs by Humikane Shimada and contain quite a bit of fan service, although Strike Witches really ups the ante by giving none of the girls any pants. Both OVAs were created at roughly the same time, though Sky Girls was turned into a TV anime first. | They are about equally successful, likely because of their large shared fanbase. However, only Strike Witches got a second season. |
| Recess | Detention | A group of kids have misadventures in school whilst under the eye of a large strict female teacher. | One Saturday Morning was beating Kids' WB! in the ratings race, so it seems pretty obvious here that Warner Bros. decided to Follow The Leader. | Both shows were quite good, but Recess is the clear winner, having lasted six seasons and even landing a theatrical feature film. Detention was canceled after one season. |
| The Powerpuff Girls | Teamo Supremo | A trio of children take time off from their schoolwork to fight crime. | The big difference, though, was that the Powerpuff Girls were superpowered sisters born as the result of a lab accident. Teamo, on the other hand, were Three Amigos of no blood relation who instead used supertools. | The 10th anniversary special, the DVD releases, The Movie, the aforementioned anime adaptation, the daily repeats on Boomerang and a merchandising empire that beat Disney at its own game give the PPGs a win here. |
| Fringe | Eleventh Hour | Two "Science Is Both Good And Bad" series. | Both are doing well in the ratings, though Eleventh Hour is currently the leader. just got canned after one season, whereas Fringe lives to see another season. |
| Drawn Together | Total Drama Island | Animated Reality Show parodies. | Drawn Together is modelled after The Real World, and the reality premise takes a secondary role to the characters and jokes. Total Drama Island is modelled after competition shows like Survivor, and the reality aspect is crucial to the series. Also, while Total Drama Island is for younger viewers, Drawn Together most assuredly is NOT. |
| House | Lie To Me | Fox dramas featuring eccentric, wisecracking, and disillusioned doctor/detectives played by eminent British actors | Tim Roth doesn't attempt an American accent and Lie To Me focuses more on the detective aspect. |
| The Unusuals | Southland | Ensemble cop shows centering on a Non Idle Rich rookie. | Series launched within days of each other. ABC's The Unusuals takes a quirky, comedic approach, while NBC's Southland is a grittier kind of drama. Southland just got renewed for another season; Unusuals didn't. Then NBC canceled Southland before the second season started. | Southland's second season was picked up by TNT. It wins by default |
| Psych | The Mentalist | Phony psychic solves actual crimes not through ESP, but an unusually sharp ability to observe and deduce. | Very different in tone, which defrays some of the cries of "ripoff" from Psych fans. The Mentalist is one of CBS's most successful new shows; Psych isn't quite as big for USA, but is pretty big nonetheless. Lampshaded /Shout Out-ed/ Take That-ed in a farewell spot the "Psych" acknowledged Monk as "the second-most-observant guy I know... well, third after The Mentalist." |
| Don Kirshner's Rock Concert | The Midnight Special | Ninety minutes of live music by a variety of acts, with occasional taped shows and comedy. | Special debuted six months before Rock Concert. Special aired on NBC, Rock Concert was syndicated. The biggest difference between the shows were the hosts: Midnight Special had Wolfman Jack as the announcer and a series of guest hosts, Rock Concert was hosted by Kirshner himself. | Both shows ended in 1981. |
| The Weakest Link | Friend or Foe? | Antagonistic game show that whittles down team members round by round. Snarky Host. | Friend or Foe is the more savage of the two, because while Weakest Link guarantees one player leaves with money, it was a distinct possibility that nobody could win anything of Friend or Foe. | The gimmickry didn't provide for particularly long runs for Friend or Foe. |
| Who Wants to be a Millionaire? | Greed | A multiple-choice exam where the money goes up as the questions get harder. | Millionaire has quite a few people becoming millionaires; Greed had a person becoming a millionaire. That's how hard Greed was! | Greed lasted one season. Millionaire had a successful run on ABC, and currently survives in syndication. |
| Buffy The Vampire Slayer | Charmed | Young people battle the forces of evil in California. Both were hits for the WB network. Hot female witches were involved. | The characters on Buffy were high school and, later, college kids, while on Charmed, the Halliwell sisters were all adults. Today, Buffy is revered as one of the greatest shows of The Nineties, while Charmed is typically viewed as more kitschy, often associated with the behind-the-scenes struggles between Shannen Doherty and the rest of the cast. | Buffy ran for seven seasons and had a successful spinoff, while Charmed ran for eight seasons. |
| Virtuality | Defying Gravity | Two Thousand One A Space Odyssey With Girls! | Virtuality is from the writer of Battlestar Galactica while Defying Gravity was written by a writer from Greys Anatomy. Both feature space crews of pretty people in a ship for a long duration of time, to unravel FTL-travel and explore every planet in the solar system, respectively. Virtuality has to deal with a possibly unreliable AI and possibly a hacker; it's implied that Defying Gravity's mission was at the behest of unknown forces. | The major difference is that Gravity will be an actual show while Virtuality was only a "failed pilot". |
| HawthoRNe | Nurse Jackie | Post-ER hospital dramas focusing on flawed but heroic nurses. | Aside from different races of the two leads, Jackie is a bit Darker And Edgier, what with Jackie having an affair with the pharmacist who's also her dealer. |
| Code:Breaker | OutCode | Superpowered teenaged boys join up with The Organization and partner with muggle girls and save humanity from equally superpowered enemies. | This appears to blatant copying, with Out Code being the shonen-er version of Code:Breaker. The main difference seems to be the aims of their enemies: CB's Big Bad wants superpower supremacy while OC's Mad Scientist wants to begin a huge Bizarre Baby Boom. Also, the lead of CB has fire powers while OC's lead is electric. |
| Naruto | 666 Satan/O-Parts Hunter | A determinator with a demon inside him seeks to rule the place that abused him and makes friends and enemies along the way. | Well, the authors are twin brothers... |
| Dog Whisperer | It's Me Or The Dog | Renowned dog trainers visit troublesome dogs and train not only the animals but their owners as well. | Not much difference, although I've heard that Dog Whisperer Cesare has a rougher approach to being a pack leader then the cruelty-free endorsing Victoria. |
| CSI: | Bones | Forensic specialists team up with the police to solve crimes. | Bones has considerably more emphasis on the UST then CSI:... |
| Jon And Kate Plus Eight | 17 18 Kids and Counting... | Cameras film the complicated lives of families with a larger-then usual amount of children on TLC. | Jon and Kate lives have sadly become a lot more comlicated then the Duggars'... |
| Ace of Cakes | Cake Boss | Reality TV show about creative bakers making Beyond The Impossible cakes. | The two leads are Red Oni Blue Oni: Duff is usually very relaxed and surrounded by friends while Buddy is a bit more agitated and surrounded by relatives and his four older sisters. |
| Little People, Big World | The Little Couple | Reality TV show about the lives of married little people on TLC | The former family has four children while the latter couple are newlyweds. |
| Clean House | Hoarders | Reality TV explores people with irritatingly or pathologically cluttered homes. | Hoarders'' is the more Serious Business of the two, considering that pathological hoarding is an actual mental illness. |
| Have I Got News For You | Mock The Week | Comedy panel quiz/"quiz" focusing on recent news, featuring both regular panellists and guests | HIGNFY has been running much longer and is generally considered more cerebral and culturally valuable, but MTW is a good contender comedy-wise. Frequently draw from the same pool of guests. |
| The Daily Show | Half-Hour News Hour | Comedy shows that mock the news. | Half-Hour was meant to be the conservative version of The Daily Show | People tuned in to the Half-Hour to see if conservatives can be funny. They can't, and that show was cancelled after one season. |
| True Blood | The Vampire Diaries | Based on a book/series, featuring the attraction between a[n apparently] human woman and two vampires. | Diaries' two vampires are brothers, and the older one wants to kill the apparently human woman because she resembles the vampire who sired them. |
| Leverage | White Collar | Skilled and rather flamoyant thief/thieves are recruited by the good guys to create some Asshole Victims. | The difference is with their employers - Leverages Nate is initially out for revenge while White Collars conman is employed by the government. |
| Supernatural | Night Stalker | A pair of humans investigate paranormal and demonic activity while looking for clues about a particular demon. | Night Stalker, a remake of Kolchak The Night Stalker, starred Dorian Gray and was canceled after one season. | Supernatural is still around and torturing its two leads for our viewing pleasure. |
| Robot Wars | Battle Bots | Demoliton Derby with tricked-out, remote controlled robots | Battle Bots actually was created to compete with the British version of the original Robot Wars. Robot Wars was strictly about the robot-on-robot violence. Battle Bots tried to emphasize the human element - with more time given to competitor backstory and announcer wackiness. | Battle Bots debuted near the end of Robot Wars' run, so they went out at about the same time. Robot Wars is much more fondly remembered. 'Bots is remembered mostly for Jaime Hyneman, Adam Savage and Grant Imahara being competitors. |
| The First 48 | The Squad | True Crime shows merging COPS and Homicide Life On The Street | The First 48 covers two cases from different cities like Miami, Dallas, and Memphis. The Squad follows the Indianapolis PD's Homicide squad exclusively, going more in depth with the cases. |
| Family Matters | The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air | Family Sitcoms staring black families. | Both shows debuted a year apart from each other. Both have the fathers working in law and had heart attacks, annoying drop in characters, Hollywood nerds, the mothers' original actors quitting and being replaced, babies who developed SORAS and characters that are not in the intermediate family became the most memorable. | Both are fondly remembered and were very successful, although thanks to stronger characterization Fresh Prince got more respect critically. |
| Burn Notice | Royal Pains | A man is blacklisted from his profession and moves to an exotic location to sell his services privately. | Essentially the same premise, but substituting spy for doctor. Another aspect the shows share is the wisecracking and incompetent brother of the main character. Both are on the USA Network. | Burn Notice has been successful so far, but Royal Pains has been renewed for a second season. |
| The Twilight Zone | The Outer Limits | An anthology show of fantasy/science fiction stories, always having a narrator open and end each episode. | Similar in premise, though there are a few subtle differences. While both kinds of twist were used in each series, The Twilight Zone leaned more towards using a Twilight Zone Twist while The Outer Limits leaned more towards using an Outer Limits Twist. Both series had at least one revival. | The original version of The Twilight Zone did better than the original version of The Outer Limits; it lasted five seasons in contrast to The Outer Limits' two, and is usually better remembered. Adding up the total number of episodes from the original series and revivals, The Twilight Zone stands at 265 episodes, and The Outer Limits at 203. |
| The O'Reilly Factor | Countdown With Keith Olbermann | Hour-long opinion shows featuring hosts with wildly-inflated egoes. | Olbermann is the liberal, O'Reilly is the conservative. | O'Reilly consistently tops the overall ratings while Olbermann leads in the more profitable 18-to-49 demographic. But since they're both political, Your Milage May Vary. |
| Knight Rider | Street Hawk | An injured police officer is given a new secret identity and a super vehicle to fight crime with. | This time ABC tries to follow NBC's lead on a motorcycle without a mind of its own. | How many people have actually even heard of Street Hawk? |
| iCarly | Sonny With A Chance | Kid Com including a Show Within A Show | Carly, Freddie Benson and Sam run their own webshow, and deal with growing up. Hilarity Ensues. Sonny Monroe joins the cast of a sketch comedy show, and tries to deny falling in love with Chad Dylan Cooper. Hilarity Ensues | Rumours persist that Sonny With A Chance was ripped off a pitch for what eventually became iCarly. Whilst Disney's Sonny With A Chance isn't bad, Nick's iCarly wins ratings wise, and attracts a huge following outside the usual demo's due to constantly Getting Crap Past The Radar, and has a huge internet following. |
| Mike Nelson's Riff Trax | Joel Hodgson's Cinematic Titanic | MST3K alumni do their best to Hollywood's worst | Riff Trax started the post-MSTie film commentary revival by making audio-only downloads that take aim at more mainstream films than MST3K had access to. Soon after, Mike's predecessor started his own similar project, but as DVDs that stick more closely to the original formula: more obscure (and license-able) B-movies, silhouettes in front of the films, and sketches. | Riff Trax has a larger catalog (due to its head start and faster production process) and more mainstream appeal, while Cinematic Titanic seems aimed at old-school fans. Many say that there's room for both to be winners. |
| Dallas | Dynasty | Primetime Soap about an Big Screwed Up Family of oil tycoons | Both shows ended up defined by larger than life villains (JR Ewing and Alexis Colby respectively) but Dallas kept itself at least a little grounded while Dynasty enthusiastically embraced it's Soap Opera nature. The former had technically superior writing and acting, the later was arguably more fun. The shows even had dueling spinoffs: Knott's Landing (Dallas) and The Colbys (Dynasty) | A pyrrhic victory for Dallas which adopted a more soapish direction of it's own to compete, leading up to the infamous Bobby in the shower moment. Dynasty eventually fizzled out in 1989 while Dallas limped on till 1991. |
| I Survived... (Bio) | I'm Alive (Animal Planet) | Ordinary people relate their tales of near-death | Survived focuses on accidents and surviving murder attempts. Alive deals with animal atacks. |
| Ikki Tousen | Koihime Musou | Romance Of The Three Kingdoms Gender Flips | Ikki Tousen is based on a manga series, is a High School AU, has more fanservice, and focuses on fighting. Koihime Musou is based on a Visual Novel, takes place in the Three Kingdoms period and focuses on Adventure Towns. Ikki Tousen's third season aired alongside Koihime's first, and was repeated again for their fourth and third seasons, respectively. | Draw. The series are different enough that they both have success. Both shows have actually acknowledged this and are working together. |
| SpongeBob SquarePants | Coconut Freds Fruit Salad Island | An eternally cheerful super-optimist in a nautical-themed world of anthropomorphic sea creatures/fruit annoys his fussbudget neighbor while having wacky adventures with his dim-witted best friend. | Fred premiered on Kids' WB at the height of SpongeBob's popularity, and the main characters of both shows act and sound extremly similar. The main difference was that Fred was a talking coconut who lived on an island with other talking fruit. | SpongeBob by a light year; it is one of the most successful cartoons of all time, the cornerstone of Nickelodeon's empire and has lasted for more than ten years. Fred... was hated by critics and canceled after half a season. |
| Top Gear | Fifth Gear | Brtish motoring programme. | Top Gear is a BBC product, while Fifth Gear ran on the laughably forgetful Channel Five. | Top Gear is on its 14th series running, but Fifth Gear fizzled out on the home stretch. |
