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A Recycled Premise is when a show is made that is effectively identical to another, earlier, popular show, made simply to cash in on the craze or shoot for another demographic. Note however, that not all sequels are recycled premises — Just the ones that are almost identical, and have more than a couple of recycled scripts.
Specific Spin Off variations of Recycled Premise:
Examples:
- Family Matters, which in addition to being a spin off from Perfect Strangers started out being much like The Cosby Show
- Nearly every Mobile Suit Gundam series since the original, though this is quite intentional and pretty much the point of the series.
- She Ra Princess Of Power was an almost identical Distaff Counterpart to He Man And The Masters Of The Universe.
- All the Hanna-Barbera cartoons that tried (and failed) to duplicate the success of Scooby Doo.
- Home Alone 2 was basically exactly the same movie as Home Alone, just set in New York. Even the scary neighbor got a direct counterpart.
- This was even lampshaded by Harry, who mentioned that Kevin threw two paint cans the last time they tried to climb up a flight of stairs, and saw it coming. Unfortunately for them, the second time around, a sewer pipe followed immediately afterward.
- Many fans have accused Star Trek Deep Space Nine of "ripping off" the premise of Babylon 5. Not only did they feature very similar premises, DS9 seemed to have a suspicious number of parallels to B5 above and beyond the station premise, including but not limited to the jumpgate/wormhole, a race who rebelled against its more-advanced alien oppressors and eventually threw them off their planet, a group of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who were using religion to influence more primitive peoples, a station commander who becomes a key figure in an alien religion in fulfillment of prophecy, a former imperialistic power trying to regain their old territory, a bone-ridge-headed alien race who were former-enemies-turned-allies with humanity, a snarky and cynical head of security with guilt about his shameful past, an idealistic young doctor who has issues with his father, a prototype Earth-made warship that's smaller and more powerful than the huge battle cruisers that make up most of the human fleet, a human government that hid corruption behind a veil of supposed Utopianism, and a long-term plot that included a war against a powerful and previously-unknown enemy who can hide almost anywhere. No one can say for sure, but for many B5 partisans, the fact that creator J Michael Straczynski unsuccessfully pitched Babylon 5 to Paramount only a few months before Paramount announced DS9 is a very large smoking gun.
- The DS9 partisans, of course, will respond by pointing out that Bajorans, Cardassians, and their relationship had already been established by Star Trek The Next Generation, that many of these elements were added to DS9 late enough in its run that it's stretching things to imply that they were all taken from the original pitch, and that many of them are a lot less suspicious than the description tries to make it sound (the humans make a Super Prototype? only Straczynski could have thought of that!).
- Speaking of B5, the plot of the Spin Off, Crusade, is uncanilly similar to Space Battleship Yamato.
- In an interview, JMS spoke of an encounter with an unnamed DS 9 castmember early in the run of both shows. This castmember told him that "Our show could not exist without your show. Best of luck to you."
- Already Fringe is looking suspiciously similar to Strange World and that is just from the advertisements.
- After Hanna-Barbera made The Flintstones, a Sit Com (more specifically The Honey Mooners) set in the Stone Age, they eventually went on to make The Jetsons, a Sit Com set Twenty Minutes Into The Future, and Roman Holidays, a Sit Com set in Ancient Rome.
- Most people in the West who have heard of City on Fire discovered it in the context of being the film of which Reservoir Dogs is a rip-off.
- The plot of Dinosaur was basically lifted from The Land Before Time. It wasn't originally supposed to have dialogue to differentiate itself, but ultimately did.
- Ironically, The Land Before Time was originally meant to be without dialog, too. The only speech was to have come from an unseen narrator; the idea was to give the film a sort of "nature documentary" feel. In both cases, Executive Meddling saw to it that the dinosaurs spoke in the final film.
- Stargate and Atlantis The Lost Empire.
- A lawsuit happened over similarities between the big-budget Michael Bay film The Island and an earlier B-movie, Parts: The Clonus Horror.
- The 1999 John Darnton novel The Experiment seems like a pretty clear rip-off as well.
- Many people have accused Pokemon 4Ever of ripping off Princess Mononoke.
- Also, the video game Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness has been panned for recycling the same premise, world, and villains of Pokemon Colosseum.
- The plots of Network and S.O.B. have been explained in the same words
 .
- But the article you linked says S.O.B. was written before Network was, even though it wasn't filmed until 10 years later. This is not a Recycled Premise. It's two different Author Tracts by two different authors (Blake Edwards and Paddy Chayefsky) who had more or less the same gripe about their respective industries, movies and television.
- Rockstar Games is a serious offender: Compare Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, San Andreas and Manhunt to The Godfather, Scarface, Menace II Society and The Running Man.
- Arguably, this was intentional. The main character of Vice City even has a mansion that contains obvious Shout Outs to Scarface. Also worth noting that both Godfather and Scarface have been turned into games that rip off the gameplay style of GTA. So Yeah.
- Vice City also needs to mention Miami Vice. Considering the sidekick from the show is your sidekick in the game...
- Bioshock is a remake of System Shock 2, fueled by Objectivist propaganda.
- Gus Van Sant remade Psycho and apparently, changed almost nothing.
- "Bart of Darkness" has almost exactly the same plot as Dominick Dunne's classic A Season in Purgatory.
- Many video games have reused the basic plot of Star Wars, Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy IV, Star Fox, Zelda: A Link to The Past and others.
- How many Disney sitcoms are about an average kid with an amazing secret that no one but their parents, annoying sibling, and best friend know about?
- The early Metal Hero shows Gavan, Sharivan, Shaider, and Spielban were pretty much identical to each other cast wise. Sharivan and Spielban even had the same actor playing the hero.
- Exactly how many times is Godzilla going to fight King Ghidorah or Mothra or Mechagodzilla? Considering that these are the most marketable monsters that Toho owns, a lot.
- Escape From L.A. is much more like a remake of Escape From New York than a sequel.
- In The Eighties, Kenner's Rose-Petal Place toy line was essentially the company's Strawberry Shortcake franchise with characters themed/named after flowers instead of food.
- PG Wodehouse's novel The Small Bachelor lifted its plot from the Broadway musical Oh, Lady! Lady!!, one of the legendary "Princess" shows Wodehouse wrote in collaboration with Guy Bolton.
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