Elliot: Can't we just go home, put on our pj's, and watch Grey's Anatomy?
JD: Oh, I do love that show. It's like they've been watching our lives, and then put it on screen.
JD: Oh, I do love that show. It's like they've been watching our lives, and then put it on screen.
— Scrubs
A particular form of Take That! directed at an Expy or Captain Ersatz of an already existing character by the original work.
Usually, this is done because the original creators disagree that imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery, either for (rightly or wrongly) perceiving the derivative character as an inferior rip-off of their own creation, worried about their intellectual property being infringed but being unable to bring legal action against them, or to simply mock the other creators for being unoriginal. Sometimes, the new character is actually an official reimagining of the old one but is simply perceived to be In Name Only. Effectively, the ensuing accusation of being a "poor imitation" of the original is still the same, although possibly more hypocritical considering the original owners are already receiving a paycheck for their use.
The underlying charge of plagiarism and/or inferiority is vital. This is not when a work provides its own caricature of a wholly unrelated character from another work as a way to mock them, which is just regular Parody. This is also an objective trope, so whether the audience thinks the creators who are doing the mocking have a point or not doesn't matter. In fact, the newer character may actually be more popular or better received than the older one. The original and the expy also must be made by different creators. If the original creators themselves create a shoddy copy of their own character and then proceed to take pot-shots at it, that's just Self-Parody/Self-Plagiarism. Relatedly, if a notable figure is playing up to a popular perception of themselves instead of reacting to a copy, that's Adam Westing.
Sub-Trope of Take That! and Expy. This tends to imply an Expy Coexistence if both characters appear in the same work. See also Corrupted Character Copy, which provides a reason the character might resent the Expy.
Compare Pretender Diss, which is used by characters within the same work, not between different works. Not to be confused with Copycat Mockery, which is one character making fun of another by imitating them.
Examples:
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Advertising
- The original Energizer Bunny commercial was a direct parody of the Duracell Bunny commercials, where a line of similar battery-operated drum-playing rabbits ran on different batteries. One by one, the bunnies would run down, except the one powered by the Duracell battery. When Duracell lost its US trademark of the Bunny in 1988, Energizer's take on the commercial had the Energizer Bunny show up as an uninvited guest to create the implication that Duracell always compared itself to carbon-zinc batteries and not similar alkaline batteries like Energizer. In 1994, a Canadian Duracell commercial parodying The Tortoise and the Hare would fire back; after outlasting the other tortoises, the Duracell-powered Tortoise passes by a pink rabbit sleeping under a tree, implying that by this point, Duracell had compared its batteries to Energizer's.
Comic Books
- 2000 AD: Despite the page image (which is a non-commissioned joke comic), the official creative team seem to be ambivalent about The Batman Who Laughs being a copy of Judge Death, although they did name one of their own comics featuring the latter "The Judge Who Laughs" as an obvious Shout-Out.
- Black Lightning once encountered a clueless imposter of himself named Jocko who was employed by a woman named Barbara Hannah, which was a blatant jab at Hanna-Barbera creating Black Vulcan as an Expy on Superfriends to get around having to pay royalties to Black Lightning's creator Tony Isabella. Isabella attributed DC Comics letting the story fly to not realizing what he was doing.
- Deadpool has often had to deal with people — both in-universe and in real life — accusing him of being a ripoff of DC Comics' Deathstroke.note
- The Defenders had an arc involving the Squadron Supreme (Marvel's Alternate Company Equivalent to the Justice League) where Namor the Sub-Mariner trounces Amphibian and dismisses him as a pale imitation. Amphibian is the Squadron Supreme's equivalent to Aquaman, who is very similar to Namor in both being sea-themed heroes and rulers of Atlantis and first appeared in the comics a short time after Namor's debut.
- Destroyer Duck by Steve Gerber, the creator of Howard the Duck, is an interesting case, where the knock-off is one that many people wouldn't even consider a separate character. Created at a time when Gerber had lost the rights to Howard to Marvel Comics, one of the major characters is a talking duck called "The Little Guy" who is recognizably (but never named as) Howard as he appeared when Gerber wrote and drew him. The contemporary version of Howard the Duck (as written and drawn by later writers and artists) also appears as a character, who is claimed to be an inferior clone of The Little Guy created by a soulless MegaCorp.
- Doomsday Clock features characters from the Watchmen universe crossing over to a version of the DC universe, and thus plays this trope both straight and in the inverse. The straight example is The Joker openly deriding Mime and Marionette, who are blatant expies of himself and Harley Quinn. The inversion is Doctor Manhattan, an expy of Captain Atom, shrugging off attacks from Captain Atom himself (though Atom is, appropriately, the character who is best able to actually hurt Manhattan).
- In Marvel Versus DC, Darkseid meets Thanos (who was explicitly created to be a knock-off of him) and calls him "a pale imitation".
Films — Animation
- Teen Titans Go! To the Movies: When the Titans first meet Slade, they mistake him for his expy, Deadpool. Slade, in response, tells them how much more serious he is, along with how people should be confusing Deadpool for him on account of him coming first.
Films — Live-Action
- In Godzilla: Final Wars, one of the many monsters Godzilla fights against is Zilla, a Captain Ersatz of the Godzilla incarnation seen in Godzilla (1998). Zilla is defeated by Godzilla in 20 seconds and the Big Bad calls it a "useless tuna-eating lizard" after that. The irony of course is this helped pave the way for Zilla being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap (though it's her appearance in the comics that solidified it), as fans warmed up to her as a Villainous Underdog after it was established she was canonically a separate, and admittedly cool-looking, Kaiju with her own set of abilities who had the guts to take on the Godzilla.
Live-Action TV
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Many people saw Alias, an action-adventure show about a young female spy named Sydney Bristow, as strongly influenced by Buffy. In the episode "Beneath You", one of the Potential Slayers shown being murdered by the First Evil's minions has pink hair and a leather jacket similar to one of Sydney's most iconic looks.
- Psych: A later show, The Mentalist, blatantly ripped off the show's exact premise (a man who can cold-read details of a crime scene via Sherlock Scan solves crimes by pretending to be psychic), and Psych took several opportunities to call them on it. At one point, Shawn explains what he does as "like The Mentalist but not fake" and then adds that if he were a fake psychic, it would be "a virtual carbon copy." In another episode, a character is made fun of for listing The Mentalist as one of her favorite TV shows.
Music
- The Arrogant Worms did a version of "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" for their Semi-Conducted concert with full symphony backup, then dared Captain Tractor, whom "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" was misattributed to, to "cover that!"
Professional Wrestling
- During the first half of the Turn of the Millennium, CM Punk wrestled for many promotions, one of them being CHIKARA. After an abrupt (bad) ending to his career there, CHIKARA's creative team came up with CP Munk, a wrestling Straight Edge chipmunk, as a form of Take That! towards him. Punk himself at first was enraged by this but then declared that he shouldn't be offended by this, because "nobody from Chikara will ever be over enough anywhere for anybody else to parody them".
Radio
- I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has a regular game called "Pick-up Song", where a song is played in live, a panelist starts singing along to it whilst the music is faded down, and the panelist continues singing a cappella with the aim being to be as close as possible to the original song when the sound comes back on. When the TV show That's Showbusiness started using a more or less identical game (the only difference being that as it was on TV, the original music video or footage of the performance would also be played), the similarity did not go unnoticed by chairman Humphrey Lyttelton:
Humph: Now we go on to a very entertaining game which I came across while watching the recent television series That's Showbusiness, with Mike Smith. In it, people sing along to a song they're given, and the song is then faded out. The object is for them to be in time with the music when it's faded back again... Brilliant. I don't know where they get their ideas from...
Barry Cryer: Humph, the producer of that show's Christian name is Nick.
Humph: Ah, that explains it all... to somebody. Not to me.
Web Videos
- With the premise of Epic Rap Battles of History involving two (usually) related characters rapping against each other, this inevitably comes into play whenever a character and an expy of the character are involved, with the original often calling out the Expy for being a cheap ripoff.
- Vlad the Impaler faces off against Dracula, the fictional vampire often said to have been inspired by him, and in the battle is portrayed in the Hollywood image of Bela Lugosi from Dracula (1931). Vlad is quick to point out his campy attire, among other aspects that were dumbed down for media portrayal.
- Harry Potter vs. Luke Skywalker has Luke pointing out exactly how many similarities the wizard boy had conceptually copied, including being an orphan who finds himself to be The Chosen One under the tutelage of a wise old mentor.
- Several matches in DEATH BATTLE! are explicitly this. Most notable examples include:
- Deathstroke vs. Deadpool, where they both acknowledge their similarities.
- Omni-Man vs. Homelander is an interesting case where both are Superman Substitutes, but the former is effortlessly tearing apart the latter for being a pale imitation of a superhero.
- Trunks Briefs vs. Silver the Hedgehog. When Silver goes Super Silver during the fight, Super Saiyan Trunks calls him a ripoff before booting him into the air.
- Spooky Month: The advertisement
for the second edition of the Skid and Pump plushies directly references some bootleg plushies of the two that were going around at the time, comparing them to a rotten jack-o-lantern while the official ones were a pristine jack-o-lantern, and telling viewers to "be clever, because you deserve better".
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Copycats," which is a long Take That! at the Chinese Miracle Star commercials that plagiarized scenes of the show, their Gumball and Darwin analogues being a goat and a frog respectively. The Wattersons are disgusted at their ripoffs and try to get them violently killed. Even before this episode was made, creator Ben Bocquelet acknowledged the ripoff.
- Family Guy: The crossover episode with The Simpsons, "The Simpsons Guy", used this as a plot point with the catalyst being how Duff is similar to Pawtucket Patriot and the latter being sued over it. Then going on how similar some of the characters between each shows are to one another in the court scene. With the twist being that the judge is none other than Fred Flintstone whose show the Simpsons is often cited to be an Expy of, which in turn led to the inspiration for Family Guy itself.
- New Looney Tunes episode "One Carroter In Search Of An Artist" has Bugs Bunny at the mercy of a devilish animator, similar to the classic Looney Tunes cartoon "Rabbit Rampage". At one point, the animator redraws Bugs Bunny as his 2005 iteration, Ace Bunny from Loonatics Unleashed, which was widely decried by Looney Tunes fans.
Bugs Bunny: Now you're just messin' with me.
- The Simpsons:
- The show has jabbed Family Guy, often accused of being a Simpsons clone, a few times:
- In the "Treehouse of Horror XIII" story "Send In the Clones," Homer clones himself with a magic hammock. Soon, his clones rise up by cloning themselves, causing a few mutations. One of the mutated clones is Peter Griffin.
- In "The Italian Bob," Sideshow Bob loses his position as mayor of Salsiccia after the town finds out he's a wanted killer in the United States. The Italian police officers confirm this by checking their book of American criminals, which includes Peter Griffin (wanted for "plagiarismo") and even Stan Smith (wanted for "plagiarismo di plagiarismo").
- In one episode, the Simpsons are watching a Show Within a Show that's an obvious parody of Dinosaurs. The family makes several comments about how similar their lives are to the show, with Bart even saying "It's like they filmed our lives." The obvious implication is that Dinosaurs is a rip-off of The Simpsons.
- The show has jabbed Family Guy, often accused of being a Simpsons clone, a few times:
