Fictional Counterpart - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Bif Standard" and his "Standard OS" in Magical Girl Pretty Sammy.
WcDonalds in just about any anime that needs a McDonald's stand-in. Except in Azumanga Daioh, where it's called Magnetron Burger.
- Or "Mcdoness burger" in Darker Than Black. About as subtle.
The Sailor Moon manga had many embassies, restaurants, and just about anything else you could think of actually based upon buildings in Tokyo. Two recurring location, Crown Game center and Hiwaka Shrine are amoung them. The real crown has since been replaced by a McDonald's.
Shows about Otaku will sometimes have fictional versions of the Comic Marker/Comiket convention in Tokyo. In Genshiken this is Comic Festival/Comifes, and in Comic Party this is Comic Party/Comipa.
- Genshiken also occasionally makes thinly veiled references to real anime series: "Gungal" for Mobile Suit Gundam, for example. Most of the time, however, when they want to talk about an anime they'll just use Kujibiki Unbalance, the Show Within A Show.
In the Air Gear manga, at one point there is a coffee shop called "Star in a Box", with a logo very similar to Starbucks...except that in place of the mermaid, it naturally depicted a box of stars.
Similarly, Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex features a "Starchild Coffee". Its logo and physical layout are very obvious stand-ins for Starbucks.
Toradora! has such an obvious Fictional Counterpart of Starbucks that the main character wonders out loud why the shop hasn't been sued.

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The fascist British National Party has had at least a dozen of these analogues over the years, most infamously the Norsefire Coalition from V For Vendetta.
In Ultimate Marvel, there are occasional references to "Camp X-Factor," which seems to be a mutant version of Guantanamo Bay (which itself, of course, is also known as Camp X-Ray); this is also a Mythology Gag.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen universe does this with damn near everything, not just places but people and events as well.
DC comics have a variety of fictional stand-ins, one example being 'Zesti' for 'Pepsi', another, more meta example being the substitution of the 'Wendy the Werewolf Stalker' tv show for 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'

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Mexican Cantinflas film Su Excelencia, about the conflicts between Communism and Capitalism pretty much is one example after another:
- República De Los Cocos: Coconut Republic, Latin America in general, a Banana Republic
- Pepeslavia: Soviet Union, apparently a Commie Land
- Dolaronia: Dolarland, United States, never seen but hinted to be Eagleland
- Zambombia: Recently independent African nation
- Salchichonia: Germany to the point that the name literally means Sausageia
- Karamba: Hindu/Arabic , just a biligual bonus to make you smile.
McDowall's in Coming To America, which has an active rivalry with the real McDonald's.
Shrek is packed with Fictional Counterparts, with most of the parodies being a twist on the name to match the medieval feel. Examples include Friar's Fat Boy (Bob's Big Boy aka Frisch's Big Boy in some parts of the country) and Farbucks (Starbucks).
Similar in Shark Tale, with billboards for Coral Cola and Gup, among others. Some are so close that they actually required permission from the real companies, turning parody into product placement.
In Chicken Run, when the order "Chocks away!" is given, triangular "Tasty-Choc" bars in yellow wrappers are removed from under a plane's wheels. (Interestingly, the fact that the packaging is exactly that of a Toblerone bar is properly acknowledged in the credits; it seems that the name-change wasn't so much about dodging a trademark as about making sure that the joke was accessible even to people who'd never seen a real Toblerone bar.)
When Zack Snyder (director of the 2004 remake of Dawn Of The Dead) started his screenplay, he assumed he would get permission to use real-life companies in his movie (as the majority of the movie takes place in the mall, he wanted real-life stores), but unfortunately every store turned him down, so he was forced to create an entirely fictional mall. It's funny because the majority of the film's exposition takes place in a coffee shop, which could have made Starbucks a lot of money.
- On the other hand, Hallowed Grounds is a great name for a coffee shop.
Michael Clayton: U-North clearly resembles Monsanto, who obviously wouldn't have given permission to be portrayed so unambiguously evilly.
Mooby's in Dogma is a stand-in for both McDonald's (Egg-a-Mooby-Muffin) and Disney (bi-coastal theme parks).
Santa Carla is the fictional name of the town in the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys. The film was actually filmed in Santa Cruz, CA.
Idiocracy is an interesting example, because all the water, drinks and basically all liquids in America, except for toilet water, have been replaced by Brawndo, a Fictional Counterpart of Gatorade. What makes it interesting is that they specifically mention this by saying that it "tastes like Gatorade".
- Brawndo was created because they couldn't get permission to use the Gatorade brand. Fortunately for us, it's now a real product. It's an energy drink now, but it's still got what plants crave.
The 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street is set at fictional "Cole's" rather than real-life Macy's as in the original movie.

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Animorphs has Zone 91 standing in for Area 51.
In his novel Pendennis, William Makepeace Thackeray had the hero attend Oxbridge University, whose counterpart was called Camford. Also, in Vanity Fair, several of the male characters attended the public school called Slaughter House- this is a reference to Charterhouse which Thackeray himself attended- it alludes both to the real school being situated near a slaughter house and to the sadistic corporal punishment there.
- Relatedly on the sadism issue, Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh has a Roughborough standing in for Rugby.
The Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" is set in the British university town of "Camford", very obviously a Fictional Counterpart for one of the renowned university towns of Oxford or Cambridge. This makes this one Older Than Radio.
Good Omens features a fast food chain called "Burger Lord," founded by Dr. Raven Sable's (aka Famine) company Holdings (Holdings) LLC, in which all of the food served featured no nutritional value whatsoever. Lest the reader think one particular company is being targeted, mention is also made of the company's mascot, McLordy the Clown.
Greg Bear's book Blood Music had the main character driving into Livermore, California and passing a Guinevere's Pizza. From the local discription, this is fictional pizza place is exactly where a Round Table Pizza existed at the time.

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Bones: The Jeffersonian Institute is a stand-in for the Smithsonian Institute.
In So Weird, the "Star Dot Star" company is a fictionalized version of Microsoft.
Most espionage series feature fictionalized counterparts of the CIA and KGB: U.N.C.L.E. in The Man From Uncle; CONTROL in Get Smart; KAOS in the same series is probably a Fictional Counterpart to SMERSH, itself a real-life spy organization that appeared in the early James Bond novels; Bond himself eventually faced SPECTRE (a terrorist organization with a similar modus operandi), which replaced SMERSH's appearances in the movies. In the movie The President's Analyst, government agencies denied permission to use their names after filming had started, so references to the "FBR" and "CEA" are obviously dubbed in.
- In the 2008 movie version of Get Smart, CONTROL and the CIA exist, and engage in cross-government sniping at one another, up to and including a brawl between the two agency chiefs. The Secret Service also exists in that universe.
  - Happened in the original, too. There was an episode where CONTROL found out that the CIA, the FBI and Naval Intelligence all had agents on the same case.
Angel Grove, the setting of the first five seasons of Power Rangers, is generally considered to be the fictional counterpart of Los Angeles. More elaborate theories speculate that the name shift is the result of the show being set in an alternate history where England, rather than Spain, colonized California.
- Also, "NASADA" is a fictional counterpart to NASA in Power Rangers in Space, though NASA seems to also exist at other times in the franchise.
  - One of Japan's space agencies is NASDA, so couldn't "NASADA" be NASA + NASDA?
In the original Doctor Who series, UNIT, the British paramilitary division that investigated alien phenomena, was indisputably stated to be a branch of the United Nations (the acronym standing for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce). The UN, however, declined to have its name associated with the 2005 series, however, so early references to UNIT avoided any mention of the UN or of the headquarters in Geneva alluded to in the original, and UNIT's place in the series was for the most part been usurped by the fictitious Torchwood Institute. In series 4, UNIT is reintroduced as a Darker And Edgier version of itself, now called the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. This incarnation of UNIT is shown to run secret prisons where suspects are detained indefinitely without trial, possesses a Self Destruct Mechanism for the entire planet, and generally engages in other activities that the United Nations tends to frown upon.
- Also in Doctor Who, in the first series Rose is shown as working in a department store called Henriks (alternately spelled Hendriks in other shots), another fictionalised variant of Harrods. The logos for the two companys are extremely similar.
CTU in 24 is either a stand-in for the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, or the DEA, depending on which season you're watching.
Unnamed fictional counterparts to Premiership teams have appeared a number of times in UK drama.
Blackthorne in The Unit is probably a stand-in for RL private military company Blackwater.
- In "Report by Exception" in the same show, a fictional (unnamed) Latin American country is probably a stand-in for Venezuela.
Slings And Arrows is set around the New Burbage Festival, a Shakespeare-oriented theater festival which is thinly veiled version of the Stratford Festival of Canada.
"Calsci", the fictional university in NUMB3RS, is basically Caltech in everything but name—right down to the full names (California Institute of Science vs. California Institute of Technology), and the location (somewhere in Pasadena.) Not surprising, considering several of the show's consultants are Caltech faculty, and some of the show has been filmed there.
- "Pacific Tech" plays the same role in the movie Real Genius, with a number of inside jokes.
  - "Pacific Tech" also appears in the 1953 War Of The Worlds film and the television series based on it.
Averted in Jake2.0, where most of the cast are NSA agents. Of course, it's a highly glamorized NSA, but hey.
In the original miniseries of The 4400, the lead characters worked for an organization that was called the Department of Homeland Security, but which functioned more like the FBI with its own agents and field offices (the real DHS is a cabinet department that coordinates the efforts of such domestic security agencies as the Customs Service, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Secret Service, Transportation Security, etc.). Essentially this DHS was itself a Fictional Counterpart of the FBI, and a case of Did Not Do The Research. In subsequent seasons, it was renamed NTAC (National Threat Assessment Command) to correct this.
Smallville has occasionally featured the Department of Domestic Security (or DDS, which makes it sound like it consists of dentists).
Ben Browder's character in Farscape was an astronaut for IASA - the replacement for NASA. (NASA was happy to let the show use their name, but wanted to review the scripts; ridiculous, as they were only relevant for the first ten minutes of the entire series. Hence, IASA was born. As Browder says, "IASA, You-asa, My Ass-a."
CSI Crime Scene Investigation: "A Space Oddity": Star Trek has been replaced by a fictional show called Astro Quest. Aside from being a bit over the top, the show is exactly Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off — we're even treated to plot synopses for episodes, which mimic the plots of Trek episodes, down to the dialogue. Reenacted by the Lab Rats.
Drake And Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, and any other Dan Schneider comedy uses a whole lot of fictional counterparts to brand names, bands, TV Shows, just look at this list.
Reaper: "Work Bench" is Home Depot, or maybe Lowes.
Chuck : "Buy More" is Best Buy (though they actually originally filmed at a Comp USA), and "Orange Orange" is Orange Julius.
Cancer Man/CSM from The X Files smoked Morley cigarettes, a stand-in for Marlboro.
"iCarly" : The numerous Pear computers, pearpods, etc. as a stand-in for Apple.
"Zoey 101" : The jPhone instead of the iPhone, as well as more of those Pear computers common to all Dan Schneider Nickelodeon shows.
NCIS features coffee from DC Blend (with a suspiciously Starbucks-like logo and cup), Caf-Pow (never Big Gulp) and news reports courtesy of ZNN.

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In contrast to the V For Vendetta example above, the RPG Fireborn averts this by featuring the BNP by name, but with the reincarnated dragons kung-fuing their way through London you'd be forgiven for not noticing.
In Shadowrun, the McDonald's equivalent is called McHugh's.
- Shadowrun's McHugh's is a fictionalized future version of a real Seattle restaurant named McHugh's, so this is actually a subversion.

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"Hannah Miller's" restaurant in Variable Geo is a fictionalized version of Hawaiian chain "Anna Miller's," Amish (yes, Amish) casual restaurants popular in Japan and Hawaii.
The Fire Pro Wrestling video game series is populated with Fictional Counterparts of real Professional Wrestling federations from around the world, the rosters of which are composed of No Celebrities Were Harmed versions of real wrestlers.
Early baseball video games were forced to resort to these, thanks to trademark protections on the names of actual teams. Common examples included the Baltimore "Eagles" and the New York "Americans". In later decades, the actual team names were licensed, putting an end to this process.
- Until EA Sports purchased exclusive licenses to the NFL, forcing other professional football games like All-Pro Football 2K8 to create fictional teams.
- Player names are also licensed for video game and other usages, with most license issues being handled by the league's players association. Sometimes this leads to interesting results, like a game which uses actual team names (because the developer secured the license from the league itself) but made up players (because they didn't license player names from the players association) (Due to NCAA regulations, all games with NCAA teams do this).
  - Probably the most interesting player name anomaly focused on San Francisco Giants' left fielder Barry Bonds. Before Bonds's career imploded over his alleged steroids use and resentment over his breaking the MLB career home run record, Bonds had reclaimed the right personally to control use of his name and image in connection with non-baseball projects. Game developers who licensed player names/images from the MLB Players' Association could not use Bonds's name/image without negotiating a separate agreement with him. Many (maybe most) didn't bother, and several baseball video and computer games simply carried a player in the Giants' roster named "The San Francisco Left Fielder", or similar.
In Deus Ex 2 there are two coffee shops, Queequeg's and Pequod's. Starbuck is the first mate in Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Queequeg is the harpoonist and the Pequod is the ship. So Yeah.
Escape from Monkey Island features "piratised" versions of some well-known chains, like "Starbuccaneers" and "Planet Threepwood".
Mother 3: The band DCMC is the Fictional Counterpart of AC/DC.
- Earth Bound has the Runaway Five, which may not seem to be a Fictional Counterpart; however, in Mother 2, they were known as the Tonzura Brothers. They dressed in black suits, hats and sunglasses. Just like these guys.
Throughout the Nancy Drew series of PC games, a brand of chocolate bar called 'Koko Kringle' is enjoyed by various suspects and background characters. When Nancy finally gets to eat one in game #17, the unwrapped bar has its name embossed on its surface, closely mimicking the brand names on Hershey bars.
- Koko Kringles could also be considered a shout out or easter egg to previous games, considering they were made in Wickford Castle from game number four, which was apparently turned into a candy factory after you solved the mystery.
In the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2, Solid Snake's favorite brand of cigarettes is called Lucky Strikers, which is based on the real-life brand Lucky Strikes. This is replaced by a nameless brand in the PS2 Subsistence version. In Metal Gear Solid, he smokes another fictional brand named "Moslem" (which also appeared in Policenauts), which is based on Marlboro.
The Space Quest series of games tends to require a trip to "Monolith Burger" (the SQ universe's McDonald's) in order to complete the game.
The Fallout series contains a number of these, most prominent amongst them being Nuka-Cola (Coca-Cola) and Chryslus Motors (Chrysler).
Almost everything in Grand Theft Auto is a fictional counterpart of a real thing, including cars, products, cities, and even the occasional real person.
Out & About Burger in Backyard Baseball is the fictional counterpart of In-N-Out Burger.

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Sluggy Freelance has plenty, usually based on puns (especially the names of game consoles). A less obvious one is "Burger Meister" for a fast food restaurant that basically embodies all the major chains.
Candi has "Moonbucks" where some characters work.

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The equivalent of NASA in Invader Zim is NASAPLACE.
Used repeatedly on South Park, including an episode about Harbucks Coffee and another on Wall Mart.
The Simpsons has done several, including a superstore called "Sprawl-Mart" with a large banner outside reading "Not a parody of Wal-Mart".
- Also, see Nappien as Ambien (Lisa says Ambien before correcting herself).
- Lisa has long played with Malibu Stacy dolls, a fictional stand-in for Barbie.
- The Duff Man character is based on Budweiser's mascot Bud Man.
- Lampshade Hanging - One episode featured the magical singing nanny Sherry Bobbins, who stated that she was a "totally original character just like Rickey Rouse or Monald Muck" (and she looked rather disgusted with herself for saying it, too).
  - "Did you just say Mary Pop..."
  - "No, I most certainly did not!"
- Lampshade Hanging Again - One episode they go to Blockoworld, an amusement park based on these set of plastic bulding blocks called Blockos. On the way back home, Bart slips and refers to them as "Lego" and is then apathetic to Marge's good natured attempt to correct him.
- The Simpsons also has Krusty Burger, which is a fictional equivalent of just about every fast food restaurant chain in the world - but specifically McDonald's. Chief Wiggum mentions a time he'd visited neighbouring Shelbyville, and visited a place called McDonald's, which looked just like Krusty Burger but with different names for all the exact same burgers.
  Wiggum: I went to the McDonald's in Shelbyville last night...
  Eddy: McDonald's? Never heard of 'em.
  Wiggum: Me neither, but it seems they have over 5,000 locations in this state alone.
  Eddy: Huh. Must've sprung up overnight.
King Of The Hill has Megalo-Mart, a stand in for Wal-Mart.
In the Berenstain Bears cartoon series, little Sister Bear and her pals are routinely seen playing with 'Bearbie' dolls, whose inspiration is obvious (to the point of gentle parody, as in the Golden-Furred Bearbie).
- In the books Mama gets exasperated at the way that Sister keeps begging for the newest accessories, in a subtle Take That to Mattel.

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