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Leela: Who are you people? Haven't I seen you in some copyrighted movie?
Glurmo (singing): We resemblebutarelegallydistinctfrom the Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild...
Shari Bobbins: I'm an original character, like Ricky Rouse or Monald Muck!
— The Simpsons, "SimpsonCaliFragilisticExpiala(annoyed grunt)cious"
The doujinshi market in Japan lends itself to a slightly more lax interpretation of trademark issues in anime and manga. You are quite likely to find characters who are not merely an imitation of a character from a popular show, film, or comic (be they Eastern or Western), but literally are that character. Somehow.
You can blur their face a bit or simply not name them. Still, this trope is known enough you can expect any manga that featured these frequently will get modified a bit if the anime counterpart's broadcast sponsors are worried about pissing anyone off.
On the other hand, if said cameo character is famous enough, you're liable to get away with a more overt reference (most noticeably, Kamen Rider and Ultraman.)
Often used as part of a Take That, but just as often a friendly Shout Out. See also Writing Around Trademarks.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Yakitate Japan's American character Kid is nearly identical to Brad Pitt, for no good reason. Conan from Detective Conan also makes a thinly-veiled appearance.
- Sakigake Cromartie Koukou's Freddie was so obviously Freddie Mercury that the character couldn't be used in another adaptation for fear of lawyers. This was lampshaded with obscure references nearly every time Freddie appeared, and lampshaded most overtly with the brief appearance of another character, Mr. Mercury, who was noted by the other characters as looking exactly like Freddie (except for his clothes- although both Freddie's and Mr. Mercury were wearing exact copies of outfits worn by Freddie Mercury on stage) and who made a very loud emphasis on a number of dissimilarities between himself and Freddie (and, as a result, contrasting Freddie Mercury as well) It should also be noted that a number of other Queen references, such as many of the chapter titles, and literally hundreds of inside jokes and subtle references were present, making the manga a constant source of knowing grins from Queen fans everywhere.
- In Irresponsible Captain Tylor, a chainsaw-wielding, hockey mask-wearing fellow named "Jason" is a member of the crew of the Soyokaze (mirroring the common Western misconception Jason ever used a chainsaw).
- In School Rumble Harima stays home and watches a movie that is pretty much a rip off of Star Wars that at first covers the opening of episode 4 with Lego like star ships, and what some lines that seems to be taken from episode 6. Needless to say this is quite funny to watch.
- In Project A Ko, it's hinted a few times that Eiko's parents are Superman and Wonder Woman, though they've never appeared onscreen in costume. (Although they have appeared with costume — Mrs. Magami is shown sewing or repairing a Superman outfit at one point.) Dad is also shown reading the Daily Planet.
- Colonel Sanders shows up a lot as a figure of menace, thanks to the legend of the Curse of the Colonel
 . A few examples:
- At one point in Project A Ko, the main characters watch a horror movie - itself a parody of Rin Taro's scifi/horror anime Harmagedon - wherein a victim, panicking, yells "The Colonel! The Colonel!" His pursuer is... Colonel Sanders.
- One of the villains in the first series of The Slayers dresses up as Colonel Sanders, complete with what appears to be a roast (not fried) chicken, in a particular episode.
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni starts saccharine-cute but quickly becomes the story of a town under a terrifying curse. The first sign that we're about to experience Mood Whiplash? A statue of the Colonel.
- Albireo in the later chapters of the Mahou Sensei Negima manga insists on being called "Ku'nel Sanders" (originally just to cover up his identity, later because he liked it). At one point during his insistence, an image of Colonel Sanders appears behind him (eyes blacked out, of course, as though to protect his "anonymity"). (For those interested, "Ku'nel" turns out to be an involved Japanese pun about the purpose of living as well as a play on "Colonel".)
- This becomes even more funny to those who've lived in Asia (This Troper noticed it most in Korea) and seen the various KFC's around. Take a close look at the Colonel outside these establishments, people. He has ASIAN eyes.
- He looks Asian even in a lot of the American designs for him. I actually thought he WAS Asian until I saw the documentary about his life on A&E.
- In one of Doraemon movie about Nobita and friends making a toy land with animated dolls, toys, and statues, one of them is a Colonel Sanders statue.
- Directly referenced in a chapter of the Eyeshield 21 manga, where Hiruma uses a statue he "found in a ditch" as a stand in for Homer, the quarterback for the Nasa Aliens. Said statue has its face covered by a poorly-drawn copy of Homer's face, but it's obviously supposed to be a Colonel Sanders statue.
- The Colonel also appeared in Super Milk-Chan as an selfish, greedy, sexist man who hires assassins to kill a pair of pigs who escaped from one of his meat-packaging plants.
- In Ranma1/2, there is a plotline that involves a man's soul wandering around even though he's not dead yet. In the manga, this was called "the Colonel Sanders Effect".
- The Colonel also appears briefly in the Excel Saga manga at least once, where heavy rains flood most of Fukuoka, floating by as debris. Excel even comments on it in the English version.
- A lot of hentai features rape by Colonel. So yeah....
- In one chapter of the Bobobobo Bobobo manga, Yugi Mutoh from Yu-Gi-Oh pops out of Bo-bobo's afro and summons Sky Dragon Osiris (AKA Slifer the Sky Dragon) to help battle Halekulani. (This is even more lawyer-friendly, as the scene in which this happened was drawn by the original creator of Yu-Gi-Oh.)
- Doctor Slump featured "Suppaman", essentially a short, pudgy version of Superman. He popped up during the Dr. Slump Cross Over in the original Dragonball series.
- Suzumiya Haruhi episode 11 had a pixelated version of a Gundam launch, and referred to it as the "Gun3**".
- Also, in episode 1, Haruhi holds up magazines to Kyon and Mikuru, featuring other anime series, one of which is Shuffle, with Kaede and Asa on the cover. Note that Yuko Goto voices both Mikuru and Kaede.
- As it usually tries to avoid censoring, Lucky Star references titles and locations only indirectly, Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu being the major exception. However, in one episode, Konata tells a 'ghost story' about a bus driver singing "Danzen! Futari wa ***cure", and in another a thinly-veiled conversation about Gundams between Konata and her father seems to be an exercise in "how far can we go before we get sued?"
- In episode 21 of Keroro Gunsou, thinly-disguised versions of Lupin III and Jigen get run off the road by the Hinata family car in an obvious parody of a scene from The Castle Of Cagliostro. In episode 48, there is an inexplicable appearance by a human-sized version of the giant floating Rei Ayanami from End of Evangelion.
- Lupin and Jigen also appear as characters in a video game in one episode of Super Dimension Fortress Macross parodying the car-chase scene from The Castle of Cagliostro
- It's also highly likely that there is a Jigen sighting in an episode of Animaniacs (specifically the "Sir Yakksalot" episode) as a wagon driver bearing a very distinctive slouched fedora and pointed beard drives by the screen. Tokyo Movie Shinsha provided animation work for both the Lupin III franchise and Animaniacs.
- Yet another one is an episode of Samurai Jack where a thief that's basically Jigen in a white suit with light-brown hair tries to steal a time traveling jewel.
- Or, rather, he looked like Jigen but acted more like Lupin III.
- At one point in Great Teacher Onizuka, Onizuka challenges an entire gang to arm wrestling and winds up beating look-alikes of Jason Voorhees (from Friday The 13th), Heihachi Mishima (from Tekken), and Giant Robo.
- Onizuka himself actually dresses as Doraemon and explicitly calls himself as such when forced to fight a gang with his hands stuck in bowling balls.
- At one point he shatters the bowling balls and draws a bunch of Cross Popping Veins on himself, screaming about a woman named Yuria. Now, he calls himself Kenshiro and even draws Ken's seven scars. To top it all off, in the anime, he beats the gang with Ken's signature Spam Attack, the Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken.
- An episode of Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu had a gangster referring to 'Ambassador Mama', a reference to Ambassador Magma from Astro Boy, with an accompanying pixellated image of his spaceship.
- Yu-Gi-Oh often has characters in the background, while not outright named, Vash the Stampede (Trigun), Ino, Shikamaru, Choji (Naruto) and Ryoma Echizen (Prince of Tennis) all have brief appearances (Vash is in the background of the characters walking down the street, the other four in the stands of a duel).
- The cards for the game are no better. In the card game plenty of cards are named/designed after other Konami products (Gradius games, a card explicitly named DDR, Goemon characters). However, in the anime they do one for another Shounen Jump series. The card Illegal Summon in GX features a character scene from Naruto of Naruto's Frog Summoning training.
- The Prince Of Tennis anime has Makunouchi Ippo of Hajime No Ippo fame appear briefly in the stands at a baseball game during a chibi episode. He is voiced by the same seiyuu as Prince of Tennis's Kaidoh, making this an Actor Allusion cameo.
- Gintama runs its entire series off of this.
- Ken Akamatsu, being a video game fan, has dropped numerous character cameos into both Love Hina and Mahou Sensei Negima: the "Mahora Budokai" arc in Negima! featured crowd cameos from M. Bison, Sakura Kusanago, Akuma, Hugo, and Adon from the Street Fighter games as well as Athena, Terry Bogard, Ryo Sakazaki, Chris, Yashiro Nanakase, and the Maximum Impact version of Kyo Kusanagi, all from The King Of Fighters and related series, and several others.
- Later, when the robot army arrives, one of the characters makes an extraordinarily blatant Lawyer Friendly Shout Out:
"Wow! Are those Gu_dams? They have to be Gun_ams!"
- Love Hina also has references to Star Wars quite often; in amongst Keitaro/Naru sniping Naru is stabbed with a lightsaber, Motoko wins Su a mini Death Star, and Seta's van has the license plate number R2-D2.
- In Hellsing, Alucard's and Seras's main weapons are named Jackal and Harkonnen respectively. Though not explained in the anime, their namesakes show up in the manga as the characters' "spirit guides" during dream sequences: the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen from Dune in the case of Seras, and Bruce Willis (who starred in the movie Jackal) for Alucard. (The Baron does appear briefly in the anime's omake-style "next episode" teasers.)
- In the manga version of Rozen Maiden, Buu, the doll that attacks Jun early on, is quite clearly Winnie The Pooh. In the anime, Pooh is replaced with a generic clown doll.
- In turn, Jun makes a brief cameo early in the first episode of Ultimate Girls.
- The anime version of Hayate No Gotoku is full of lawyer-friendly mentions, although the ones in dialogue are always bleeped out. Being a fangirl, Nagi rattles them off quickly enough that it's common to have half of her monologue melodically beeped out.
- This happens in the manga as well, although it's so inconsistent (as with the Negima example above), anyone who can put two-and-two together can figure it out.
- Seto No Hanayome features the Terminator as an important character. With lines like ''"I'll be back"''◊ and "You must die, human! TERMINATOR!", and "Who's your daddy? TERMINATOR!", it's kinda hard to miss.
- Reversed in Ray The Animation: In the manga, Osamu Tezuka's Dr. Black Jack 'cameos', but his face is never shown and he is never referred to by his full name, due to copyright concerns. In the animation, Black Jack doesn't fall under these restrictions anymore, seeing as how it was produced by Tezuka's animation studio, which of course holds the copyright on the character.
- Amaenaideyo had the Show Within A Show Kamen
Rider Ranger, and continued to reference it throughout the show's run. The featured Kamen Ranger, Hayabusa 20, could've easily passed for Faiz.
- Miami Guns has several of these, such as Bruce
Willis Tsuji, the "Die Hard detective" from one episode. The most significant example in the series is the father of "heroine" Yao Sakurakoji — who is a bleached-blonde doppleganger of Gendo Ikari, right down to the design of his office. (For some reason, he has a pet dog who's a parody of Muttley. Hey, why not?)
- Black Heaven features a scene where Mulder and Scully from X-Files are investigating a mysterious event at a cemetery in the U.S., where a grave has been dug up in an incredibly precise manner. Former band member Watanabe's body had been stolen by the enemy in order to create a clone to defeat the remaining member of the band. The two agents are unceremoniously pushed into the hole by Layla's sidekicks.
- There's also a ripoff of the power rangers in it called the Flying 5.
- One chapter of the Yami No Matsuei manga had the main charaters in a book world. In the background of the wedding scene you can see the figures of Cloud, Aerith, Sephiroth and Rufus Shinra from Final Fantasy VII.
- In the North #2 arc of Naoki Urasawa's Pluto, blind composer Paul Duncan recants a tale in his childhood where he was pulled from the brink of death by a Japanese black market doctor at the cost of his already weak eyesight. Said series is set in the Astro Boy universe. Said doctor was dressed in a black cloak and, according to North #2's investigations, charged his mother a ridiculously high fee for the procedure. Wild Mass Guessing aside, this doctor's identity should be obvious to any Tezuka fan.
- Episode 27 of Zettai Karen Children has Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa, Miyuki, Yutaka and Minami appearing in the background briefly; the first four had realistic hair colors and all of them have their backs turned to the camera except for Miyuki, whose face is obscured by a leg. In addition, because Gonzo helped produce the episode, it also has Strike Witches cameos (but how could they get away with their lack of pants in that world?).
- Samurai Champloo featured Ogami Ito and Daigoro from Lone Wolf and Cub at the end of the episode "Cosmic Collisions".
- Volume 7 of Faeries Landing has a brief one panel cameo of Luffy D. Monkey from One Piece.
- The manga version of Sorcerer Hunters includes a number of these, exemplified by the chapter "Seaside Days in the Springtime of Youth, one of the series' many BeachEpisodes. In it, a magical potion turns the protagonists into cosplaying cameos from other series such as Sailor Moon, Urusei Yatsura, and Darkstalkers. Also, for a Fanservice laden shounen series, the frequent cameos from the decidedly shojo and chaste dating sim of Angelique were amusing, especially when the game's resident Cute Shotaro Boy showed up as a slave boy belonging to one of the manga's villains.
- In episode 49 of Shaman King, the members Team LCT/Team Insane Asylum were based off Pro Wrestlers Mark Lo Monaco (Bubba Ray Dudley/Brother Ray), one of the Hardys (Matt Hardy or Jeff Hardy) and Adam Coepland (Edge) who used tables, ladders and chairs respectively as their weapons in the WWE.
- And of course, earlier the heroes had to fight the corpse of a world famous Chinese martial artist from Hollywood movies, who developped his own fighting style and whose favorite weapons were a pair of nunchuks. So, totally not Bruce Lee, then.
- My Balls has Angel*** Jolie in Chapter 28.
Comic Books
- In the Asterix story Asterix in Belgium, the two Belgians who announce Caesar's arrival are dead ringers for Thomson and Thompson, the twin detectives from the Belgian comic Tintin.
- In The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in which every character is either a literary character or a literary character's ancestor, Fu Manchu is never mentioned by name, because he's still under copyright. In the movie version, Fu Manchu was replaced with the Sherlock Holmes villain Prof. Moriarty (who also appears in the comic) disguised as the Phantom of the Opera.
- No, just a generic scarred villain called Fantom - a name which has been used with various spellings by a large number of pulp villains and heroes. And incidentally, Moriarty appears in the comicbook, as well, as the (still-villainous) adversary of Fu Manchu. Then again, he's also described as "operatic" for no reason at all in the movie... And might be equally based on Fantomas, the French archvillain.
- And the Black Dossier includes British secret agents named "Jimmy", who is obviously James Bond (He won't stop talking about "some business in Jamaica" and all that, and he's also the grandson of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen original character Campion Bond), Miss Night, who is clearly Emma Peel, and Uncle Hugo, who is Bulldog Drummond.
- To say nothing of the new M, who dislikes being referred to as "Harry" because Harry died a long time ago, in the sewers under Vienna.
- Alan Moore's Swamp Thing had a story "Pog", whose title character was Pogo in a spacesuit. Amusingly, Pog had a brief cameo in a later issue by another writer who didn't seem to recognize the reference.
- A recent Invincible storyline had the title character being bounced around alternate universes. While he had a full issue experience with Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up, he also encountered Batman (though only his arm is seen and his name is given thanks to a running joke from the MTU issue), a world similar to Y The Last Man and possibly the world of The Walking Dead, one of Robert Kirkman's other books.
- Wanted by Mark Millar features lawyer-friendly versions of every supervillain (and some heroes) ever. Ever. In addition, it's implicit that the characters in the story are the real versions, and the comics are a half-baked attempt by the world to tell their exploits. But who reads comics anymore anyway?
- If you look closely in crowd scenes during DC and Marvel Crisis Crossovers, you can often make out characters that have been Exiled From Continuity (the hand of Swamp Thing in Infinite Crisis, for example).
- Walt Simonson has done his share, with Clark Kent cameoing in The Mighty Thor after the later hero uses glasses for a secret identity, and Supergirl appears in a Fantastic Four issues's group of discontinued universes.
- In one issue of The Punisher, the titular Anti Hero guns down thinly-disguised counterparts of Lupin The Third and his gang.
- In Bowling King, a nefarious physician bears an eerie resemblance to Black Jack... and in a Lampshade Hanging, claims to have strived to be like Black Jack his entire life.
- Throughout Preacher, Jesse has a spirit advisor called The Duke, who is clearly meant to be John Wayne but never explicitly referred to as such and always drawn with face in shadow.
- Alien groups scenes in Legion Of Superheroes like to slip in famous aliens or other odd looking characters. Recently, an alien resembling Dr. Zoidberg of Futurama was seen being arrested by the Science Police. Another comic had a pair that looks suspiciously like Kermit and Miss Piggy.
- In Action Comics #579, Superman is sent back in time to 253 AD, where he finds himself in a Gaulish village that has been fighting off the Romans thanks to a magic potion - so sucessfully, in fact, that they're unaware the Empire has fallen. Jimmy Olsen puts on the outfit of their unnamed "greatest warrior", while a mind-controlled Superman fights "Columnix", an overweight Gaul with a white dog, who fell in the potion as a baby.
- An early Usagi Yojimbo comic features a Lawyer Friendly Cameo from a young Godzilla, who ends up saving Miyamoto Usagi's life in return for rice cakes. Just in case you somehow missed it, Usagi actually asks "Are you a god, Zylla?" to which the creature responds "Godzylla?"
- In a X-Man issue, there's cameos of Ken, Chun-Li and Guile on the background, watching X-Man's power demonstration. How appropriate.
- The Howard and Nester comic strip in issue #9 of Nintendo Power has Howard accompanying a duck on an expedition to the moon (with Nester stowing away). The duck in question is never addressed by name and doesn't look like it, but the reader can probably guess, judging from the fact that this particular installment was based on the Duck Tales NES game, that he is supposed to be Scrooge McDuck.
- This troper can't find the reference, but he has once read a Marvel comics from the 80's involving many of the Marvel speedsters, who were getting some help from an amnesiac speedster from another dimension... Wearing a torn red suit (with a few yellow elements), saying his name was "Buried Alien, or something like that", and who quickly disappeared in some Speed Dimension afterwards as all he could remember was that he had to keep running. Oh, and he was much, MUCH faster than all the other Marvel speedsters. As this story took place not so long after an important cross-over from the Distinguished Competition, this can be seen as a homage to a certain character who died during this event.
- You mean this guy? Nah, never heard of him.
Film
Literature
- Western example that is not a cameo and features a Real Life individual. Ben Elton's novel Chart Throb features Prince Charles as a major character but he is never named, just called "The Prince of Wales", "The Prince", "Wales", "Sir", and humourously, by himself, "Muggins" and "Buggerlugs". Camilla also appears, referred to solely as "His Wife".
- Similarly, Prince Harry appears (by name) in John Birmingham's Axis of Time cycle. His character is from Twenty Minutes Into The Future and has become a Bad Ass military officer - Harry himself (who is pursuing a military career in Real Life) would probably approve of the portrayal.
- In the Solar Pons story "The Adventure of the Orient Express", Pons encounters several characters who are thinly disguised (very thinly) famous fictional spies and detectives, including Ashenden, Hercule Poirot, and The Saint.
- Pons himself is something of a Lawyer Friendly Star based on Sherlock Holmes.
- He's one of many pastiches of Holmes. It's a popular mystery fiction sub-genre.
- A short story by Kim Newman in the Unforgivable Stories collection features an unnamed teenaged journalist who has an uncontrollable cowlick and is accompanied by a small white dog who is a Nazi collaborator in occupied Paris.
- The novel of The Sword in the Stone has the future King Arthur encounter an outlaw called "Robin Wood"
- Fanon has agreed that Fantastico and his group the Good Ol' Boyz (the G.O.B.) in the Whateley Universe are George W. Bush and his cabinet and staff, but with superpowers. It's pretty obvious, since Fantastico is a Texan named Bert Walker Jr. and he's even used some famous George Bush lines. The weird part is that the author writes Phase as a millionaire who is a serious Republican and fiscal conservative, and defends those positions.
- It's possible that the author is a serious Republican and fiscal conservative... who hates Bush. (Not unheard of: GWB was not a fiscal conservative, and was highly unpopular among certain kinds of Republicans by the end of his second term.)
Tabletop RPG
Video Games
- Pokémon Platinum features a detective who talks weird, shows up in a lot of places, wears a long, brown coat and gives the player futuristic equipment.
- Actually, Pokemon makes quite a few references. For starters, Rotom◊ is based off of Pulseman◊ and Volt Tackle is based off of Voltman's signature move. It helps that the creator of Pokemon also made Pulseman, however. Anything outside of that is rare
- Pokemon Red and Blue have a Nintendo 64 in the main characters room. Apparently, a man is wearing a bucket on his head in the game.
- In Romancing SaGa 3, there is a Zorro-esque character called Robin, and in the credits, said character pulls off Zorro's infamous Z cut (Strongest Foil technique)
- The first print versions of The Revenge of Shinobi for the Sega Genesis featured Spider-Man, Batman, and Godzilla as some of Joe Musashi's adversaries. To avoid any potential lawsuits, Sega released a revision of the game which replaces Godzilla with a metal skeletal dinosaur and Batman with a winged bat-like creature. Spider-Man was kept as an official cameo (with a new copyrights screen acknowledging Marvel Comics' ownership of the character), since Sega had the Spider-Man license for a couple of other games (namely the Spider-Man arcade game and the Genesis game Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin).
- In the VGA remake of Space Quest I, the Droids-B-Us shop (which itself features an android Geoffrey the Giraffe as its logo!) has a "Dalick" for sale, which bears a striking resemblance to a certain creature from Doctor Who. There's also the robot from Lost In Space, as well as another droid, HA-Y-AO, which clearly was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's Castle In The Sky. The Blues Brothers also have a cameo as bar singers.
- ZZ Top had a cameo in the original, but this wasn't so lawyer-friendly, as Sierra got slapped with a lawsuit and had to remove them in the remake. The robot shop was originally called Droids-R-Us, which also attracted a lawsuit; apparently changing the R to a B was enough to satisfy them.
- Space Quest 3 has Arnoid, a killer robot (Terminator).
- And Monolith Burger, with its large yellow "M" logo.
- Space Quest V featured the rear end of the USS Enterprise in the Starcon hangar bay. Captain Picard also appears in the conference room on the station. There's also [[Alien Spike]]. No lawsuits, somehow. Of course, the entire series is filled with this sort of stuff.
- Shin Megami Tensei 2 featured lawyer-friendly cameos from Mr. Thriller, Audrey Jr. and Betelgeuse. Yes, that Betelgeuse.
- Starcraft has a few hero units with oddly familiar names hidden away in the map editor. Examples include the flamethrower-weilding Gui Montag.
- While Burnout normally uses Bland Name Cars, one can download in Burnout Paradise what are called the Legendary Cars which in no particular order are the Cavalry Bootlegger (complete with Dixie Horn), the Carson GT Nighthawk, the Manhattan Spirit, and the 88 Special.
- Final Fantasy has the recurring characters Wedge and Biggs, named for the pair in Star Wars.
- An early conversation in Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World has Emil and Marta discussing whether the mask that Lloyd dropped reminded them of the one from "Phantom of the Operetta", "F for Foe", or "The Man in the Aluminum Mask".
- Every Quest For Glory game features a cameo by at least one famous comedian. The list includes The Three Stooges in the first game, the Marx Brothers in the second, Redd Foxx as Fred Sanford and Abbot and Costello in the third, and a sound-alike of Rodney Dangerfield in the fourth (This Troper doesn't know the fifth game's cameo).
- In Quest For Glory 4, one of the farmers at the inn is a Lawyer-Friendly Archie Bunker.
- Disgaea Hour Of Darkness does this quite obviously with the infamous Prism Rangers.
- And how could you forget
Flash Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth!
- The second game also features a conversation with a member of monster-type demon race that's usually considered female for pretty much the rest of the game. At the end of the conversation the monster reveals that it is, in fact, a boy. At this point, you realize/remember that the monster in question is named Bridget.
- Classic H-game Season of the Sakura features characters from Magic Knight Rayearth, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenchi Muyo, Saint Tail, and Pia Carrot, but given how blatant the references were, this may simply be a Shout Out (or an excuse to let fanboys pursue anime girls popular in the mid-90s, when the game was made).
- In Prototype, a fellow who looks suspiciously like Chinese superstar Andy Lau is one of the random civilians. For reals.
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater features a CIA director who is clearly meant to be a stand-in for John McCone (the real DCI at the time), but is never addressed by his name. This was likely to done to avoid defaming McCone's person postmortem (since it wouldn't have sat well with McCone's family to depict him as a solicitor for murder), while at the same time maintaining the game's historical setting.
- The Masters in MadWorld are explicitly said to use the For—— Magnets! (With that exact wording.) And other reminiscent things.
- World of Warcraft isn't exempt from this either. In Un'Goro Crater, a gnome wearing a green tunic and cap, named Linken, sets you on a long quest line that references everything from "Eastern peninsula is the secret", to tossing a sword into a spring and receiving it tempered, to receiving a magical boomerang that deals ranged damage and stuns or disarms. And not too far away you'll find Dadanga, and the hammer-wielding dwarves Larion and Muigin. The list goes on.
Webcomics
- Sonoda Meimi from Megatokyo is suspected to be Haneoka Meimi from Kaitou Saint Tail. At one point a character even starts to refer to her as "Myster..."(ious Thief Saint Tail), but gets cut off. (On two other occasions, he only gets as far as "Mys".)
- A supporting character in It's Walky! was a short, quiet girl with coke-bottle glasses named Marcie. No mention is made of what she was like as a child, but it's safe to take a guess. (For bonus reference points, she's openly bisexual.)
- In Order Of The Stick Rich drops an entire lamp, never mind the shade, on the subject with the Mind Flayer.
- In The Non Adventures Of Wonderella: "Mace Windu is a Lucasfilm character. I'm Samuel L. Jackson in a bathrobe."
- Meet Weapon Brown. The comic that is literally constructed wholesale out of this trope. Whether it be the main characters 'Weapon' Brown and his dog Snoop, the pointy-heared CEO of 'The Syndicate', or the currently unknown-in-name alliance of characters including Pops, Val, and the blind Annie, you can be sure that you can easily recognise everybody, provided you're learned enough in your newspaper comics.
Web Original
- Pretty much the entire premise of the first batch of episodes of Press Start.
Western Animation
- In Kids Next Door a kid dressed exactly like Ash Ketchum from Pokemon can be seen often in the stands, though in one of the final chapters, the one who makes an appearance is Yugi, from Yu-gi-oh.
- This is very common in Cartoon Network's shows: Fred Flintstone, George Jetson and Dexter are often seen in The Powerpuff Girls, and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy has Pud'n, who looks just like Dexter, and several Harry Potter parodies, just to name a few.
- On the other hand, all the entities involved are owned by Time Warner, so it's probably just a friendly Shout Out.
- Done quite often on Drawn Together. In "Gay Bash", Elmer Fudd and Snagglepuss (their faces covered by Pixellation) show up at Xandir's "coming-out-of-the-closet" party. In "Requiem for a Reality Show", a masked Charlie Brown and Natasha Fatale (from Rocky And Bullwinkle) with a black bar over her eyes show up as the new BDSM partners for Foxxy Love and Captain Hero, respectively. In another episode, a down-and-out Wooldoor Sockbat is lying on the street when two characters, one fat wearing a white shirt and green pants, and one slender wearing a blue blouse and off-white pants (whose heads are cut off by the screen) walk by and give him some change. The skinny one, in a voice a little more than very reminiscent of Lois from Family Guy (because it was done by the very same actress as Lois), chastizes her pudgy counterpart for it.
- One episode of Megas XLR featured a villain who was a dead ringer for Captain Harlock.
- May not exactly fit this trope, but a Motoko Kusanagi-lookalike can be spotted in one episode
- There's a character in the Star Wars comics who wears a disguise that makes him look like Harlock, as well.
- In general, Megas is swimming in lawyer-friendly-cameos. Even the titular 'bot has one - before having it replaced, his head looks exactly like Soundwave's.
- And then you have the fact that the second time you see Mag Nanimous, his robot has a shotgun and a chainsaw for arms. (Of course, considering who VOICED that particular villain, it's not all that surprising.)
- An episode of Phantom 2040 features a guest appearance by an "old family friend" who strikingly resembles, but is not named as, Mandrake The Magician, the other famous character created by the writer who created The Phantom.
- In the South Park episode "Cartoon Wars Part II", Cartman is joined in his quest to get Family Guy taken off the air by a kid who's obviously supposed to be Bart Simpson from The Simpsons, but is never referred to by name.
- And in a turnaround, an episode of The Simpsons has Bart and Milhouse watching an unnamed version of South Park.
- Which was in turn a reference to the South Park episode "Simpsons Did It".
- In the Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends episode "Eddie Monster", the title characters of Ed Edd N Eddy appear briefly in one scene near the end of the episode.
- One of the episodes of Ben 10 has Konohamaru's team appear in the background. In another, an orange-haired girl dressed like Sakura is on screen briefly.
- Wasn't a girl that resembled Naruto's Sexy jutsu seen on the show?
- In an interesting case, one episode of Arthur had Arthur and friends writing pilot scripts for a contest. These were all obvious parodies of other popular cartoons. The thing is, most of these parodies were of shows aimed at a- to put it lightly- more mature audience, like South Park, Beavis And Butthead, and Dr. Katz Professional Therapist.
- The Simpsons episode where Lisa becomes the school president, which is a spoof of Evita and ends with a note from the directors that says, "based on the advice of our lawyers, we must say that we have never heard of a musical based on the life of Eva Perón".
- In a Treehouse of Horror episode, Groundskeeper Willie refers to Bart's newfound psychic power as 'the Shinning' for fear of copyright infringement.
- Possibly due to its anime influence, Kappa Mikey has a few of these. A few of the guest appearances include a fat, middle-aged Speed Racer, a palette-swapped version of Puchiko from Di Gi Charat, and Yugi Muto with ridiculously exaggerated hair.
- In the TV animated version of Beetlejuice, an episode spoofing The Wizard of Oz has the Munchkins (here, giant beetles) greet Lydia (as Dorothy) with "Welcome to the Land of Public Domain!"
- Let's make this very clear: you do not have to write around any copyrights to use characters from the first book (and a few others, all the ones written before about 1923) of the Oz series...the movie, on the other hand, is copyrighted. No ruby slippers for you.
- Avatar The Last Airbender has a lawyer friendly version of Ryu seen losing to June at arm wrestling at a bar (he's still there the next time they visit and is part of Bar Brawl).
- The President on Fairly Odd Parents always appears dressed up as George Washington or Abe Lincoln and has No Name Given, but once you hear his voice you can tell he's a parody of George W Bush.
- In the "La Tigres" episode of El Tigre, Remy from Street Fighter III can be seen by a locker.
- The Shadowkhan show up in the antepenultimate episode of Teen Titans, fighting Bushido.
- The opening of one episode of Justice League has a Humongous Mecha that looks a hell of a lot like a turquoise EVA Unit 02.
- In one episode of Captain Planet And The Planeteers, Shaggy and Velma from Scooby Doo can be clearly seen in the backdrop of a school hallway.
- Bounty Hamster has a carefully unnamed coyote show up and recommend that the eponymous hamster try a better catalogue than Acme Products.
- Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi: One word. Stu-Pi-Doh.
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