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"Trying to take Nunnally's place, you little phony?"
A popular character is killed off or otherwise written out and replaced with a new character who fills their previous role. Regardless of what this new character is like, they're likely to end up with a Hatedom directed at them, just because they're not the old favourite. If he'd been there from the start, maybe the fans could have loved this new character, or at least respected him. But no—he's a replacement. He's not even a Suspiciously Similar Substitute who at least shared some character traits with the other guy, he's a totally different guy, and so every flaw—every trait that makes him not like the character the fans want him to be—drives them crazy with longing and disgust, and all they can do is get angrier and angrier.
In short, They Changed It Now It Sucks, but with a main character. If lucky, he may be Rescued From The Scrappy Heap. Happens to all Anti Hero Substitutes that aren't potrayed as an regular villain in hero's costume.
Compare with Why Does Everyone Think I'm Deadpool.
(Of course, being a Replacement Scrappy does not preclude also being a regular Scrappy. It is entirely possible that the audience would have hated the character anyway.)
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Daisuke/Davis from Digimon Adventure 02. Inflated by the English dub, as Executive Meddling made them add a bunch of other jokes at his expense. In his defence, he does have a Raiden-like underground of firm fans who found his ultimate personification of You Suck endearing. This troper thinks he was actually a very clever intentional Scrappy, as the fans all took great pleasure in affectionate mocking of the boy.
- I saw him more as a Taichi fan who happends to be a Digidestinied himself.
- One of many, many reasons that Shirayuki Berii of Tokyo Mew Mew a la mode is so unlikeable. What's more, Ikumi Mia took it all the way — Ichigo's powers mysteriously mutated so she functions as Berii's powerup item and nothing more.
- Also the initial reaction to Saki and Mai of Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, although this didn't last long.
- This happened to the Retooled versions of Kei and Yuri in Dirty Pair Flash.
- And also to the new versions of the Knight Sabers in Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040.
- Ironically, this troper far prefers 2040 Sylia than the original one.
- Probably the biggest reason many Gundam SEED Destiny fans hate Shinn Asuka is that he's not Kira. The fact that Kira is still a member of the cast does not help, and a few fans don't even consider the Hostile Show Takeover to be enough, stating that the series needed to focus on Kira from the earliest possible moment.
- A lot of fans simply hate him in general. In fact it's possible to hate both him and Kira at the same time.
- Near from Death Note is hated by many fans for this reason.
- Mello too, but a tad less. His being such a Badass helps.
- It does help somewhat that even Light is aware of this: "Near, you are far inferior to L." Near takes this to heart and in a oneshot manga spinoff set three years after Light's death, Near is seen to be troubled about his ability to live up to L. At the end he reconciles to this and accepts that he doesn't have to do everything as L would have.
- Its not like anyone cares about Near. We just miss L.
- Sai, who replaced Sasuke Uchiha on Team 7 in Naruto, was hated by two groups of fans. Sasuke fans that hated the idea of someone replacing him. And Sasuke haters who didn't take to the character and even saw him as worse than the guy he replaced.
- Played for laughs somewhat. Sasuke has always been portrayed as the non-smiling stoic and so most fans probably assumed Sai would play the same role. Instead we have someone who always smiles, cracks jokes about Naruto and expresses how he feels from the get-go as opposed to staying silent and generally is shown to be less and less like Sasuke.
- Naruto himself says at one point that he can never replace Sasuke.
- Can a villain qualify as one? Because Madara never gets the end of it from people who can't accept anyone but Orochimaru as the final villain.
- In the Pokemon anime, some people disliked May because she replaced Misty. Although in the previous arc, Misty's character was largely derailed by the introduction of Togepi, who is a major Scrappy in his own right for this reason, fans mainly remember Misty at her peak for being a strong and dedicated female character, whereas May was portrayed as more of a stereotypical girl. (It didn't help that most of her Pokemon were arguably feminine and she was drawn with an oversized chest.) However, May eventually gained a large fanbase of her own, and come next arc, some people disliked Dawn because she replaced May and/or Misty. A good number of fans hated Tracey for replacing Brock, some even making up reasons like "he's a fat pervert" to justify this. (Incredibly stupid considering that Brock, himself, is a blatant pervert.) Also, a somewhat odd case of people hating the entire cast after the 4Kids voice actors' contracts expired and were not renewed, leading to new voices for the entire cast. Finally, hatred of Soul (Kotone, as she's known in Japanese) for not being Crystal (see the "Games" section) has escalated even more when fans discovered she'd also replace Crystal in the "return to Johto" anime arc.
- Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo, which follows Count D at his new Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday in Tokyo, introduces Wu Fei to fill the role held by Leon Orcot in the original. Many fans who are less than pleased about Leon's absence from the new series are rather disenchanted with Wu Fei as a result.
- Ranma One Half: Sasuke the Ninja, who replaces Hikaru Gosunkugi in the anime adaptations of the latter's first appearances. Even if it doesn't really make sense, such disguising oneself as a balcony just to be near Akane during a Romeo & Juliet play. Instant Cool Just Add Ninja didn't work.
- In regards to Gundam 00, Lyle Dylandy aka the second Lockon Stratos might become an in universe case, at least in regards to Tieria Erde, who has to remind himself that this Lockon isn't his dead
first love friend and teammate Neil Dylandy, the first Lockon *and* Lyle's older twin brother. And fandom sees to be prone to bitch him out a bit as well... We'll have to see how it goes, though.
- After he drops his nonchalant facade and shows genuine emotions as he witnesses the destruction of the Kataron HQ, people are a bit more forgiving...
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha fans were generally drawn to the series for the following reasons: Action Girl Nanoha and cast who manage to simultaneously be adorable and Bad Ass, and the large amount of Les Yay instigated mostly by Nanoha. So, you can just imagine the massive uproar that occurred when it was announced that the very male Touma will replace Nanoha as the main character in the fourth season. Poor Touma, when the fandom wants you to either die from the get-go or turn out to be female all along, and there are betting pools on how long he'll last before he gets Demoted To Extra, you know you have a tough road ahead of you.
- As suggested by the quote on the page, Rolo Lamperouge becomes a Replacement Scrappy in series for Lelouch after Lelouch discovers that Rolo was sent to replace Lelouch's true sibling, Nunnally.
- This eventually changes when Lelouch accepts Rolo right before he died, though even then he only accepts him as the brother of "Lelouch Lamperogue", and not of "Lelouch Vi Britannia."
- Patlabor After Kanuka's time with the SV 2 guys is up she goes back to the US and is replaced by one Takeo Kummagmi. Who is overall less than impressive
Comic Books
- Green Lantern Kyle Rayner had it even worse than most of the above-mentioned characters — not only was Hal Jordan, one of The DCU's longest-running and most respected heroes, disposed of in the stupidest, most demeaning way possible to make way for him, but pretty much the entire Green Lantern Corps was killed off too. So he wasn't just Replacement Scrappy for one (well-known and popular) character but a whole organization. No wonder he was one of the most hated characters in the DCU for some time. That said, he's become a good character on his own merits, and when Hal and the Corps were inevitably brought back Kyle was kept around in a major role.
- Quite a few Kyle fans acknowledge that is was Grant Morrison's writing on JLA that saved him. Kyle was painted as a basically decent twenty-something with an incredibly powerful weapon trying to get used to the fact that he was now seated amongst, well, gods.
- Ironically, after Hal's return, and taking the starring role in Green Lantern again, he became something of a Replacement Scrappy himself, in the eyes of the fandom Kyle had built up, since.
- In Green Lantern: First Flight, Hal Jordan is an In Universe Replacement Scrappy for Abin Sur.
- Spiderman: Don't forget Ben Reilly who was disliked for no other reason but that he wasn't Peter Parker. (That, and appearing in the story which caused severe Ending Fatigue.)
- Jason Todd,second Robin.He was so bad he was killed.He got better.
- Happened to Nightwing in JLA-Task Force. Note he wasn't loathed by the fans (as far as I know), he was loathed by his team members in canon.
- During Grant Morrison's JLA run Huntress is that to Batman. He eventually kicks her out.
- This may have been a factor in the failure of Robert Kirkman's very well-written Irredeemable Ant-Man series. Insofar as Ant-Man has fans (every character is someone's favorite, right?), they would presumably be fans of Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, or Scott Lang, the second to use the name; Irredeemable was about a third, brand-new character, Eric O'Grady. Of course, it didn't help that Eric O'Grady was an unlikeable dick
- The funny thing though is that O'Grady only exists BECAUSE Sony has the rights to make Ant Man into a movie and has state that not only do they want a family friendly film out of the character but were going with the Scott Lang character with Hank Pym as his mentor. So of course, Marvel create a new Ant Man who's a soulless asshole of epic proportions and shove it at readers, many of which are STILL bitter at hell that Bendis was allowed to kill Scott Lang off to begin with, in such a cheap and petty manner that he did.
- The Sandman: When Daniel replaces Morpheus near the end, this reaction is inevitable and instinctive for readers and characters alike. The shock is gently muted as the final arc deals with the other characters - notably the raven, Matthew - coming to terms with the replacement. This openness, combined with Daniel's dignified humility and the knowledge that he had been carefully hand-picked by his predecessor, helps the reader to accept him.
- It probably helps that the series ends at this point, since one of Daniel's positive qualities is the absence of some of the original character's inner turmoil. He is an easier character to like, and we never really see him in action enough to compare how he drives the plot.
- It's much easier to accept if you came to the series after its completion and know that it is essentially about the downfall of Morpheus.
- Wildstorm, too - with the replacement for The Doctor.
- There are a lot of fans who hate any character in Runaways who took the spotlight after Gert died.
- Lampshaded, when Molly remarks that the team eventually gets used to the new recruits by the time someone else dies.
- The Flash has had issues with this very similar to Green Lantern mentioned above. At the end of Crisis of the Infinite Earth's, Barry Allen made a Heroic Sacrifice, and Wally West, then the Kid Flash, became the Flash. Wally was not well received at first, whether due to his being young, a Jerkass, or the fact that he was less powerful (he lost a lot of his speed during the Crisis and didn't get it back for years.) While Wally grew into the role and gained acceptance, Barry kept appearing in one-off stories set in the past, time travel stories and one notable "fake out" event as well as a short lived TV series keeping his fandom alive. When Barry came back recently, after 24 years of being dead, fans are split.
- But when Bart Allen had his turn as The Flash, fans were much more in agreement about their loathing of the character due partly to the Wangst, partly due to his being artificially aged to shoehorn him into the role, but mostly because the character lost his Fun Personified sense of humor and cheerful demeanor.
- Many people also hate recent DCU replacements like Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle), Jason Rusch (Firestorm), and Ryan Choi (The Atom) due to the killing off or running off of their predecessors.
- When Marvel Comics bought out Malibu, they cancelled several titles and rebooted many others. Mantra was originally a title about a male warrior reincarnated in the body of female mystic and his struggle to cope with his new role. When Marvel took over, the central character was Put On A Bus by being banished to another dimension and the Mantra mantle was passed to minor background character; a teenaged girl who had appeared as a babysitter in a couple of issues. Needless to say, fans were not impressed.
Film
- Star Wars Episode 2. Hayden Christiansen was hated for (among other reasons) being whiny - but it's suspected that many people who cite this reason actually resent him for not being (or rather, for being) Darth Vader.
- What's truly ironic is that Christiansen didn't like the way his character was written and wanted to play Darth Vader rather than a "whiny kid." Which explains why he didn't seem to get into the role until he turned to the dark side.
- George Lazenby, the second James Bond - and arguably Timothy Dalton, the fourth. Daniel Craig (the sixth) was heading towards this, but his overall performance was good enough to have him Rescued From The Scrappy Heap.
- Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. In all fairness, the death of Richard Harris made a replacement unavoidable. Still, he didn't really act like Dumbledore is supposed to until "The Half Blood Prince."
- Indiana Jones: Several fans of the series have complained about the love interests in Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade in comparison to Marian in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, this is given a Lampshade Hanging that produces a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming.
- Detective Clifton Sleigh (Ted Wass) in Curse of the Pink Panther. The plot sets him up as investigating Inspector Clouseau's disappearance, as established in the previous film, Trail of.... Clouseau did a Face Heel Turn and got Magic Plastic Surgery to resemble Roger Moore. Sleigh was an New York City detective who was similarly incompetent, but not as arrogant. The character's a bit bland, but what sank him was a combination of the film itself coming off as lazy and cheap compared to its predecessors and the fact that not only was Peter Sellers' Clouseau a beloved character, but Trail of... used outtakes of Sellers - who had died two years prior - to create an Invisible Darrin; essentially, writer-director-producer Blake Edwards was accused of grave robbing just to set up a Replacement Scrappy! Edwards tried again at this 10 years later with Son of the Pink Panther, retconning the events of A Shot In the Dark to bring us Clouseau's illegitimate Italian son (Roberto Benigni), but it also bombed.
- A certain segment of Star Trek fans howled non-stop over the new Trek movie for daring to re-cast Kirk, Spock, et al. with younger (or in some cases, living) actors instead of attempting to stuff William Shatner back into his old spacesuit. Since the movie came out and was generally awesome, the howling has largely quieted. If anything, there's been more howling at the supposed howling than any actual howling.
Literature
- The short story Johnny Come Lately by Marc Singer tells the story from the Scrappy's point of view; based heavily on the Green Lantern furor outlined above, it tells the story of a young man picked at random as the replacement for a well-admired superhero after his death and the destruction of his entire league by the sentient hourglass that was his symbol, who finds his every effort, no matter how sincere, sneered at and put down by ingrates for no other reason than he's the new guy. Needless to say, the replacement isn't best pleased at his new lot in life.
Live Action TV
- Mike or Joel? Plenty of people on the 'Joel' side have this trope as their reasoning.
- In Doctor Who fandom, plenty of people have commented on the disappointment and sense of loss felt around a regeneration from one Doctor to another; even though it's basically the same character, the changing actors makes it easy to feel that 'your' Doctor is gone and has been replaced by some interloper instead. Fortunately for the show, for the most part each Doctor has managed to put his own stamp on the show and maintain the fans of the previous Doctor (or at least pick up some new ones).
- This goes for the Doctor's companions as well, particularly when the departure of one and the arrival of another take place at around the same time. This is Lampshaded when Rose gave way to Martha, as even the Doctor initially seems to consider her an inferior replacement.
- Star Trek The Next Generation had Dr. Beverly Crusher's one-season replacement Dr. Kate Pulaski. A lot of it has to do with the shady circumstances surrounding the brief departure of Gates McFadden, and there's never been a clear reason for why she left and whether it was due to conflict with the producers or not. Regardless, the show itself treated Dr. Pulaski as a "guest star" despite her role as a major character and after season 2, her character was never mentioned again, stopping just short of Canon Discontinuity.
- Personally, I thought it was because the character was essentially a female version of Dr. McCoy from TOS, but without the charm.
- Although she's not really The Scrappy, some lonelygirl15 fans have complained that Emma "replaced Bree".
- When Chappelle's Show ended prematurely after Dave's Creator Breakdown, Comedy Central quickly filled his time slot with Mind of Mencia, a show that is supposedly similar in content (though Mencia makes it obvious in the first episode he hates the idea of being "A Hispanic Dave Chappelle"). Boy, did the Chappelle fans go ape-shit over this one.
- Everybody remembers Steve from Blues Clues, right? So where'd this "Joe" guy come from?
- It didn't help that the show underwent some major retooling not long after he was cast. Naturally, the actor took the brunt of the backlash despite having nothing to do with, say, live-action puppet sequences.
- Then there's Jonas Quinn himself, in Stargate SG-1 — to the point when a massive Internet campaign
 was organized to bring Daniel Jackson back.
- And then in Stargate Atlantis, there was a bit of a backlash when Dr. Beckett was replaced with Dr. Keller. But because Dr. Keller was Kaylee, the hate was restricted to "No offense, Jewel, but..."
- Of course, a lot of this had to do with the Wall Bangerific death of Dr. Beckett. If his death had been handled in a slightly less What An Idiot way, perhaps Dr. Keller wouldn't have had a stigma to her.
- Your Mileage May Vary. There is a significant portion of the fanbase who thought Sunday was one of the best episodes of the series and resented the writers for bringing Beckett back the next year and cheapening his death.
- This troper thinks Colonel Cameron Mitchell should be this Trope Namer. Although the site calls him a Jonas Quinn; he filled the same job as Jack O'Neill but minus his angst, disdain for science, etc. A well-thought out, unique character, and well-liked character played by a very good Ben Browder. But he was never EVER gonna be Jack O'Neill.
- You forgot the snarking.
- Tara King (Linda Thorson) replacing Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) in The Avengers.
- It is in this Beakmans World aficianado's experience that the majority of fans who don't like Liza and Phoebe is summed up in the fact that they're not Josie. Especially Phoebe, who gets the double stigma of not being Josie or Liza.
- Brilliantly averted when Colin Quinn replaced Norm Macdonald in the Weekend Update sketch on Saturday Night Live. He started his very first segment with a properly sentimental Lampshade Hanging speech that turned the replacement ire into perhaps one of the show's most notable quotes. (Of course, this was neither the first nor the last time Saturday Night Live had a major cast change, and some have been more successful and well-received than others.)
Colin Quinn: You know how you go to your favorite bar, and your local bartender isn't there? You ask, "Where's Jeff?" "Jeff no longer works here, I'm Steve." Then you're thinking, hey, who's this idiot? I like Jeff. But you still want your drink. And even though Steve doesn't mix your drink the same way you're used to, like Jeff, you still like the bar. You don't want to have to go to a different bar. And even Steve might feel kinda bad because Jeff trained him. Jeff showed him how to work the cash register, where the tonic was on the soda gun, who tips, who doesn't. Well, I'm Steve. What can I get you?
- Kennedy was both the Replacement for and the Antithesis of Tara in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
- The whole last season.
- On Angel, Wesley joined the cast right after Doyle died. Doyle's popularity with fans, combined with the fact that fans weren't exactly eager for Wesley to come back, led to some serious anti-Wesley backlash. By the end of the season, however, he was generally accepted by fans.
- Also on Angel, in season five the simpering Eve replaced the vastly superior Lilah, to much dismay from the fans. She was quickly replaced by Marcus Hamilton, who made no attempt to act as an ersatz-Lilah. Cordelia lampshades this trope in "You're Welcome", referring to Eve as "Lilah Jr."
- Carmen Electra replacing Jenny McCarthy on MTV's Singled Out.
- An earlier MTV gameshow, Remote Control, had a fan backlash (mild— this was pre-Blog) when the first hostess, Marisol, was replaced first with Kari Wuhrer and then by a string of lesser lights.
- In-story, one of the most cringe-inducing part of the Mexican telenovela Carrusel was when a bunch of third-graders hostilized their sweet, clever and well-intentioned new teacher for just replacing their Team Mom of a teacher. It was very petty from them, VERY badly-acted, and this troper actually cheered when the old janitor of the school, usually the gentlest person in the world, bitched the brats out for treating the poor girl like crap.
- In the PBS show Wishbone, the original main characters were three kids (Joe, Sam and David) and Wishbone, the titular character (a dog). When they were suddenly renewed for a second season years later, the three "kids" had gotten too old for little kids to relate to anymore, so they were replaced by a couple of background character kids from earlier episodes. This troper felt the show very much Jumped The Shark after that.
- Richard Roeper as Roger Ebert's partner in film critiquing, following the tragic death of Gene Siskel.
- When Ebert & Roeper was retooled into At the Movies in 2008, now hosted by Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons, the response from longtime viewers quickly escalated into Hatedom. Lyons became the subject of mockery at Efilmcritic.com's "Ben Lyons Quote of the Week", and even Roger Ebert himself called him out for his poor work, not naming him but quoting his reviews from the show — arguably Lyons qualified as an actual Scrappy. A year later, they were dropped and replaced by Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott (from Chicago Tribune and New York Times, respectively).
- And of course, the age-old question: Dick York or Dick Sargent? (This troper calls this phenomenon "Dick Sargent Syndrome" because of this.)
- Edward Tudor-Pole replacing Richard O'Brien as the presenter of The Crystal Maze.
- Really? I don't remember anyone being upset at this one. He was different enough to make it okay, this troper thought.
- Oliver (Richard Mylan) replacing Jeff on Coupling when Richard Coyle would not return for a fourth series.
- The numerous changes on Are You being Served?, resulted in a few Replacement Scrappy cases. Many fans despise Mr. Grainger's first replacement, Mr. Tebbs, even though cast members and numerous other fans have said that he did a brilliant job. More serious was Mr. Spooner's replacement of popular Mr. Lucas after the seventh series, though in the fans' defense, Mr. Spooner's personality was never developed beyond rudeness. Even more-hated was Old Mr. Grace for Young Mr. Grace, which was justifiable since it was tackily executed by pasting a middle-aged actor with loads of old-age makeup.
- Rose on Keeping Up Appearances being portrayed by Shirley Stelfox in Series 1, then Mary Millar in all subsequent series (though this might actually be an improvement...)
- Another anti-replacement Scrappy: Angie, the secretary on The Brittas Empire's first series, for Julie.
- On the other hand, Penny Bidmead was no Laura Lancing.
- Game shows are known for Replacement Scrappy controversies (or not). On Tic Tac Dough, when Wink Martindale could not appear on the show's last season, he was replaced by PM Magazine's Jim Caldwell, who, while the show remained the same outside of a set change, paled to many in comparison to Wink. (His obsession about the "red box categories (we'll explain them when we get to them)" didn't help matters.) On the other hand, the illness and later death of Allen Ludden prompted Password Plus to attain a new permanent host in Tom Kennedy, who kept the show going another 2 years. On The $100,000 Pyramid, when the show returned from a three-year hiatus in 1991 (but pretty much the same, even the returning champion from the last 1988 show returned), Dick Clark was busy on The Challengers, so hosting duties went to John Davidson, who did not impress.
- You seem to have left off Bert Convy's run with Super Password, which pretty much followed the Password Plus rules.
- Many long-time watchers of The Price Is Right were wondering "What were they thinking?" when the show decided to replace the retiring Bob Barker with Drew Carey as host. In Carey's defense, it would be hard for audiences to see anyone replacing Barker, since he had hosted the show for an amazing 35 years.
- Arthur Petrelli from Heroes certainly qualifies. He is an inferior substitute for the previous season's chief villain, Adam Monroe, and his facilitation of the many horrible sub-plots that Season Three is rampant with have made him all the more despised by the fanbase.
- I completely agree with you. I cheered when Sylar killed him.
- Made all the worse by the fact that Angela's precog dream makes it clear that Adam was originally going to be the one in charge of the the "Villains". The writers didn't have the strength of conviction to go through with that because Season 2 was poorly received, and so they killed off Adam (along with all but one of the new Season 2 characters) apparently hoping we'd all forget Season 2 happened (despite Adam being possibly the only thing in Season 2 that the fans took a shine to).
- They failed. The fans hated most of the Season 3 characters (Eric Doyle is the only new "Villain" who got any praise) and there were nonstop complaints on the boards about both Arthur and the stupid way Adam was killed off.
- Dad's Army replaced the character of Walker with Private Cheeseman after the sudden death of James Beck, who played Walker. Cheeseman became unpopular both with viewers and fellow cast members (John Laurie is on record as saying that he felt both the character and actor were fast approaching Spotlight Stealing Squad status) and was written out at the start of the next series.
- Robin Hood introduced the character of Kate in the third series, to replace the departed Marian and Djaq. Before a single episode featuring her had aired, she was being criticised in the fandom as a poor replacement and a Canon Sue; pre-publicity material frequently described her as "feisty" and hinted that she would become Robin's new love interest. The first episode she appears in was duly broadcast, and the same fans said "See, we were right."
- Randy from That 70s Show was supposed to be a replacement for Eric. Practically every fan hated him. The writers finally caught on this; he barely appears in the finale.
- Agent Doggett, and later Agent Reyes.
- A series of Replacement Scrappies, most notably Lee Meriwether as Tracy, filled in on Mission Impossible after Barbara Bain left. Lesley Warren eventually got the role of Dana for the fifth season, and was treated as a Replacement Scrappy by some. Others found her replacement, Lynda Day George, to be more Scrappy-ish.
- Diane Neal as Casey Novak on Law & Order: SVU, replacing Stephanie March's beloved Alex Cabot. Eventually Novak was Put On A Bus and replaced by Kim Greylek (Michaela Mc Manus), who was so bad that the producers got rid of her before a full season was even up. (They brought back March.)
- Law And Order has had their share of cast replacements over the years, but most have been handled pretty well. Among the more notable Replacement Scrappies are Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest) for Adam Schiff (Steven Hill), Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina) for Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), and Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Rohm) for Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon).
- Briscoe himself is a pretty notable aversion of this trope; having replaced Phil Ceretta (Paul Sorvino) who himself replaced Max Greevey (George Dzundza), Briscoe went on to become one of the show's most popular characters and a pretty iconic example of a TV cop in his own right.
Music
- Many entries in Discontinuity/Music deal with Replacement Scrappies.
- In music there's the fans reactions to the many incarnations of Queens of the Stone Age - "What happened to Nick Oliveri?", "Dave Grohl was a way better drummer than this guy", "Mark Lanegan should be the singer", "Josh should just reform Kyuss..."
- Before the worldwide phenomenon that was Beatlemania, a fair number of their O.G. British fans resented the fact that Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best on drums.
- Many Metallica fans (including this troper and the other band members themselves) are guilty of heaping unnecessary scorn on Jason Newstead because he had the misfortune of replacing the late, lamented Cliff Burton on bass.
- And then redirecting said scorn to Newstead's own replacement, Robert Trujillo.
- Ironic, considering Metallica have a habit of burying the bass in the mix to the point that it's a bit hard to make out on every album (well, maybe except The Black Album)...
- Sammy Hagar. There's a reason people refuse to call the Hagar-era band Van Halen...
- Queen with Paul Rodgers. Nearly all fans refused to call the band "Queen".
- It helps that Queen called themselves Queen & Paul Rodgers not just "Queen"..
- Similarly, INXS with J.D. Fortune isn't INXS.
- The Finnish monster rock band Lordi has had this problem. To date, they've replaced the bassist three times (Magnum with G-Stealer, G-Stealer with Kalma, and Kalma with OX) and the pianist once (Enary with Awa.) While very few fans can deny that the quality of the music has never diminished after a switch, and has often improved, the new band member's costume can cause fits in the fandom (for example, Enary, the busty blonde valkyrie, being replaced with Awa, the grey corpse-like ghost/witch.)
- William DuVall in Alice In Chains. He's not Layne Staley and most fans just can't accept that.
- A fairly hefty portion of the Nightwish fandom will never forgive Annette Olzon for her inability to be Tarja.
- Likewise, Tim 'Ripper' Owens is hated by Judas Priest and Iced Earth fans for not being Rob Halford or Matt Barlow.
- Also likewise, Mike Di Meo is hated by Masterplan fans for not being the almost identically styled Jorn Lande.
- An odd example happened early on with the new drummer brought in to back up They Might Be Giants on "John Henry". What was so odd? He replaced a drum machine. Some fans protested the move, although pretty much everyone has since gotten over it.
- Mötley Crüe, anyone? The band got a lot of negative feedback from fans upon firing frontman Vince Neil, and even more when they replaced him with John Corabi. To add insult to injury, they proceeded to name the Corabi album "Mötley Crüe". Of course, all is made well when their record label pressured the band to fire Corabi to bring Neil back.
- Then again, the result was Generation Swine...
- Averted HARD by the Thrash Metal band Municipal Waste. They got rid of their original drummer, so they decided to get Dave Witte from the legendary grindcore band Discordance Axis. No one even DARED to complain.
- Completely inverted by Kamelot as Mark Vanderbilt, the replaced vocalist, is now despised by the fandom, though considering his awful "singing" style and replacement by the classically trained opera styled Roy Khan previously of the Progressive Metal band Conception, you can't blame them.
Professional Wrestling
- Jonathon Coachman and, to a lesser extent, Joey Styles got this when they replaced Jim Ross as the play-by-play announcer for WWE Raw.
- Michael Cole seems to have avoided this as Ross has been moved to Smack Down rather than simply taken off TV.
- And Mike Adamle got this for replacing Styles (who retired play-by-play announcing out of the blue) on ECW. When he became Raw's General Manager (ironically, the previous GM William Regal returned from suspension on the same day), his replacement of Todd Grisham is probably seen as an improvement.
- Joey Styles only got the job for two reasons: 1, WWE failed to snag UFC commentator Mike Goldberg, and 2, the general consensus was that Joey was the only possible choice that would not be seen as a Replacement Scrappy by the fanbase. And, while he still did get a bit of heat over it (Fan Dumb being what it is), most of the criticism of Joey actually came from the upper management, who hated his style from the very start and constantly exhorted him to call the matches more like Jim Ross used to (i.e. with less emphasis on play-by-play and more emphasis on "telling the story" of the match). It seems WWE will never be satisfied with any replacement until they can find somebody exactly like Jim Ross, but younger, less Southern, and more telegenic (in other words: Crockett Promotions-era Jim Ross), while the fans will not be satisfied until they can find somebody exactly like Jim Ross, but better able to call the moves. Either way, it shows why Jim Ross is generally thought to be irreplacable.
- God help us when he's gone then.
- One of the most famous examples is Lex Luger's face run in WWF, where he was essentially Hulk Hogan's Replacement Scrappy. Despite (or perhaps because of) him playing the All American Face to an even greater hilt than Hogan himself, the fans still saw him as a cheap imitation and hated him. But they kept trying, and trying, and trying to get him over...
Close Professional Wrestling
Radio
- Directly addressed in Adventures In Odyssey. Over the course of two loosely-connected episodes, Whit turns out to have left for the Middle East off-camera while his friend Jack Allen is introduced. Jack winds up taking over as manager of Whit's End, as well as approximating Whit's original role to the point where Connie freaks out and accuses Jack of trying to "replace" him. She gets over it by the end of the episode, thanks in part to Jack himself acknowledging that neither he nor anyone else could ever replace Whit.
- Narrowly averted on Im Sorry I Havent A Clue. When the much-beloved chairman Humphrey "Humph" Littleton died unexpectedly in 2008, the remainder of the series was cancelled, and the future of the series was in doubt. When the series was confirmed to be returning, rather than risk the inevitable dissapointment of whoever replaced him, there's a rotating series of hosts — Stephen Fry, Jack Dee, and Rob Brydon, all fairly popular comics who had appeared on the show before.
Video Games
- Metal Gear Solid 2 intentionally invokes this with Raiden. Maybe he would have been more liked if he hadn't, to make his inherent not-Snake-ness worse, also been a distinctly Bishounen You Suck character who spent a lot of time Narming at his girlfriend over the Codec.
- This is made even worse in that he remained practically hidden away by Kojima until the Prologue section of the game ended. The opening introduction even goes as far as to either show none of the Plant chapter, or when they had to, only show the villains, or to superimpose Snake in Raiden's place...
- At least, this trope was the case til he gave the fans something to talk about in Metal Gear Solid 4. Now there are people bemoaning the fact that he's not properly playable. Bonus points if these are the same guys who bemoaned his main character status in MGS2!
- And now it's come full circle: Raiden will be the main character of the next Metal Gear game. (And now some fans are complaining because it's not Snake. Unpleasable Fan Base all!)
- The fans hate was expected, and so Raiden was abused for most of the game, and after it was released the fans complained about his girfriend Rose and his pretty boy appearnce (I didn't really mind either, I thought it was a good contranst to Snake, but oh well). So in the next game he appeared in *spoilers ahead* the creators destroyed the relationship with his wife, had her miscarry a kid (or at least had Raiden think so), and then had his face and body mutulated and grafted onto a robot. Ow, I suppose the creators were appealing to the fans?
- Apollo Justice Ace Attorney attracted a lot of ire from fans of the old main character, Phoenix Wright; partly because Apollo simply wasn't Phoenix, and partly for necessitating Phoenix to become arguably Not As He Was Known in order to allow him to shine. No one can quite seem to decide what the problem with him is, though; depending on who you ask, the complaint is that he's "almost a carbon copy of Phoenix" or "not enough like Phoenix".
- The unexplained absence of well-liked support and secondary characters important to Phoenix's character (especially the Feys, Gumshoe and Miles Edgeworth) also upset many fans, which means poor Apollo gets even more dislike directed towards him.
- It really does not help that in the tutorial case that Phoenix pretty much solved the case himself (players feeling cheated and making Apollo look like a bigger idiot).
- Devil May Cry 4 and I'm-not-Dante Nero. He also had a girlfriend who he Narmed at.
- Possibly made worse by the revelation that he's actually supposed to be "Not-Vergil" rather than "Not-Dante."
- Not to mention he pretty much looks exactly like Dante, except much younger. It's like the character designers didn't even try.
- That's not especially fair. Nero's outfit and demeanor are much more "angry skater boy" than Dante's "fun-loving Badass Longcoat" vibe. The similarities primarily boil down to a similar hair color and style, and wearing the same rough types of clothes; the way those clothes actually look is quite different. Then there's the Devil Bringer...
- The title character of Mega Man X 7 was demoted to Optional Party Member so the apparently 13-year old robot Axl could steal the lead role.
- Also, the reason Stinkoman87 avoided Battle Network for two weeks before getting Star Force is because he didn't want this happening to Geo Stelar.
- Midori from Guitar Hero III, as noted above. She was added to the series' third installment while Clive Winston, Eddie Knox, and Pandora were removed. While Midori is a perfectly fine character and the player's choice of avatar has absolutely no effect on the actual gameplay, this troper is still bitter about the removal of her beloved Pandora.
- Strangely enough, Eddie Knox and Lars Umlaut could both be seen as replacements for Clive Winston (who got shoved into being an unlockable character in the second game before being removed in the third), but neither got anywhere near that much heat.
- Rectified in Guitar Hero 4.
- Due to the choice to remove nearly the entire line-up of original Guitar Hero characters in favor of unlockable real-life stars, Guitar Hero V has the interesting potential for the likes of Shirley Manson or Kurt Freaking Cobain to be Replacement Scrappies, if you liked any of the characters that were dropped.
- Johnny from the third installment of the Shadow Hearts series was a poor stand in for Yuri, the protagonist of the previous two entries.
- However, any fan of the series would realize Yuri is unavailable for the non-trivial reason that he's dead, damnit. He's not coming back. No one found the body. He's got his Stable Time Loop and he's happy.
- On the other hand, the fact that Halley is never even mentioned at all is a little harder to rationalise. Particularly since he moved to the USA after the events of the first game, and would seem a fairly reasonable choice for a cast member given his psychic powers and prior experience of fighting at least one Cosmic Horror.
- Emil from Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.
- Dunno if this goes here, but this troper is eternally peeved at Namco for replacing Lloyd's voice actor in the second game (and pretty much all other games he appears in)... it's not that I don't like the replacement VA or anything, (in fact, I especially enjoy his work on the Digimon English dubs), it's just... I'm more used to his original VA, Scott Menville. Also, the person voicing Emil in Dawn of the New World is none other than the awesome Johnny Yong Bosch, so I could have had two of my all-time favorite English voice actors working together in the sequel of one of my all-time favorite video games. (Yes, I am a seriously geeky otaku, why do you ask?) Maybe if there was a good reason...
- Joshua, your partner for Week Two in The World Ends With You, is a Replacement Scrappy on both sides of the fourth wall. The players hate him for being condescending, smug and having all the self-defense skills of a rock for quite a while, in addition to replacing Shiki; Neku hates him for... exactly the same reasons. But some forgive him.
- Then again, he's also pretty much the strongest and easiest partner to use for the post-game stuff.
- This gets levelled against all the Jonas Quinn additions to Super Smash Bros Brawl in some circles, although most of the removed characters were just duplicates of other characters who remained. Perhaps the one who gets the most heat is Lucario, though, as he replaced Mewtwo, who didn't have any clone in the game. The fanbase still has arguments as to whether Mewtwo was a hopeless character that got replaced by a superior character in every way, or replaced by someone meant to hype the latest versions of the Pokemon games and abandoned instead of retooled.
- On a side note, Lucas was thought to be a Replacement Scrappy for Ness until Ness was confirmed to return.
- R.O.B. has gained honorary Replacement Scrappy status for essentially confirming an early leaked roster for Brawl (being the least obvious character to appear), thus "replacing" all the characters people wanted in the game who didn't get in.
- Wolf is in a situation like R.O.B. He wasn't obvious, and he prevented Krystal who was very hyped up (or any other better character) from coming to Brawl. That's probably the only reason why he got a hatedom.
- In The King Of Fighters, lots of people hated May-Lee for replacing Jhun Hoon. And lots of people hate K' and Ash Crimson for not being either Kyo or Iori. K', however is less Scrappy than Ash because he only links himself with Kyo's story once (in 1999, whereas actual Kyo clones appear, but even they don't play much to the story/main fighting) and doesn't bother with him much. Ash, on the other hand, had it worse due to his extremely flamboyant style, as well as him becoming a Wesley by starting to actually UPSTAGE Kyo and his crews by stealing Chizuru's powers, and later Iori's, in EVERY game he's in.
- May Lee is an interesting case. She was reviled (at least in Japan) when it was revealed in King of Fighters 2002 that a newbie had "stolen" King's spot, and placed alongside the veterans of the Women Fighters team (Mai and Yuri). Other than that, the fans seem to love her.
- In the Soul Calibur series, rabid Hwang fanboys (and Hwang x Mina fangirls) just won't stop bashing Hong Yungsung for replacing Hwang in Soul Calibur II.
- Von Bolt from Advance Wars: Dual Strike, the Big Bad replacing Sturm. Being a crippled asthmatic old man in a hovering wheelchair, and a subpar CO that was ludicrously easy to defeat on top of it, rankled somewhat when compared to Sturm; Sturm being essentially Darth Vader with a paint job who dropped meteors on people and had a leitmotif with an electric guitar solo.
- There are those that look upon the entire Days of Ruin cast in the same way.
- In the Donkey Kong games so far, Tiny in Donkey Kong 64 (for replacing Dixie) and Kiddy Kong in Donkey Kong Country3 (for taking Diddy's place) have been seen as this.
- Tiny is an interesting case - she was actually designed before Dixie, while Dixie was a stand-in for Tiny until Donkey Kong 64 was finished. This makes her a replacement for her own replacement.
- A lot of Naruto fans hate the latest Wii game, Clash of Ninja Revolution 2, because the creators decided to give North America some exclusive characters like Kurenai, Asuma, Yugao, Baki and Bando (the last one being an Expanded Universe character created solely for the game, the others ((save for Asuma)) have never been in the Clash of Ninja series, even in Japan). The thing is, in order to add these characters, they removed some old ones like Iruka, Kimimaro and the Third Hokage. The thing is, if they kept those characters, the fans would just accuse TOMY of being lazy. Unpleasable Fanbase at its finest, people.
- It's made even better because the Third Hokage and Kimimaro were only in the later Clash of Ninja which were never even released in America.
- Define "exclusive to North America". These characters are all in this troper's PAL version, which for some reason even says "Naruto Clash Of Ninja Revolution 2 European Version" on the cover.
- A lot of Drakengard fans regard Nowe, the hero of the sequel, as a Replacement Scrappy for Caim... and even most of Nowe's fans admit he just can't compare as a character.
- Inverted in Knights Of The Old Republic 2 with the Exile. While fans of the game don't outright hate the character, the characters in the game certainly seem to! Just being present at the site of a major catastrophe will cause everyone to blame you for it and even doing good deeds (incidentally, one includes fixing the problem that you didn't cause but were still blamed for) still fails to earn more than a smidgen of respect. Instead every character in the game seems to want the protagonist from the original back.
- Also inverted in that while most fans don't resent the character for replacing her predecessor, they DO loathe the (incoherent and just-outright-unfinished game) for how badly it fails to meet its legacy.
- So in a sense, the Replacement Scrappy of the series is Obsidian, who replaced BioWare as the developer and ended up hated by fans for not being as good.
- To be fair, Obsidian did an admirable job with the short amount of time Lucas Arts gave them in order to get the game out by Christmas, and consider the fact that it was made in a little over a year. Besides Peragus, and how rushed the ending was, some parts of KotOR II were better than the original game.
- The new Prince in the Prince Of Persia series is getting this already. Never mind that there were Princes before the Sands of Time Prince; the Fan Dumb is uninclined to budge on that aspect.
- It has more to do with the Prince's new companion being capable of exactly the same acrobatics as the Prince, as well as having access to powerful magic, which is the mechanism you are rescued with when you screw up, along with the plot critical powers needed to undo the corruption. Also, that magic is how all boss fights are best dealt with. In short, the new Prince is more or less extraneous and serves as little more than a meatshield, and is probably closer to being a damsel in distress what with him constantly having to be rescued from fatally stupid acrobatics.
- One Game Spy Daily Victim character complained about the disappointment he felt when, as a child, Clyde was replaced by Sue in Ms. Pac-Man.
- Mega Man Battle Network was able to avoid this in its transition to Mega Man Star Force. Altough previous characters were loved by the fanbase, no one really hated the new characters - some says it's because they are exactly the same as the old ones, while others say it's because they are completely different from the old ones. Either way, no hatred.
- Inverted in Kingdom Hearts II. Roxas starts with a lot of these traits (he's the first person you play as, he plays like Sora did in KH 1, and Sora is nowhere to be seen), but the creator probably realized he had a potential Raiden on his hands and promptly Dropped A Bridge On Him at the end of the longest prologue ever. Some players played this trope straight with their reaction to Roxas, while others actually would rather have spent most of the game as Roxas instead of Sora. Thankfully, it looks like Roxas will be getting his own game soon, so fans of his can rejoice.
- People who aren't fans of his, on the other hand, have their feelings toward him increased. This review outright describes Roxas and his game as "Scrappy Doo getting his own show."
- Of course, Roxas is Sora. This often gets ignored by people being dumb.
- After Nintendo's contract with Mike Tyson expired, they replaced him in the game formerly known as Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! with Mr. Dream, a fictional boxer, while retaining the boxing style. To say the least, fans were unhappy with the perceived generic character.
- The cast of Left 4 Dead 2 seem to be receiving this. Their game being what was supposed to be downloadable content for the original probably isn't helping them.
- Krile from Final Fantasy V gets treated like this by some of the (admittedly tiny) fandom. Why? Because she's not her Badass Grandpa, Galuf. Therefore, HATE HER! Even though he's the one who told her she needed to take his place in the party and arranged it so that she got all of his skills and stats so she would be an effective fighter.
- When Pokemon Generation II remakes Heart Gold/Soul Silver was announced, everyone assumed Kris from, well, Pokemon Crystal would return as the female protagonist. Instead, another character Soul was introduced as the new character. Quite a bit of backlash ensued, with debates ongoing as to which character had the better design, despite the fact that Kris was technically never a part of the original Gold/Silver games in the first place.
- This gets even worse when you realize that it was only recently confirmed whether "Soul", now named Kotone is really a new character, or Kris redesigned in a similar manner to the female protagonist that was planned for Red/Green. In other words, she was being hated for replacing a character before it was known for sure that she was really a new character.
- Actually, there is still doubt whether or not she's a new character, since the Crystal female character("Kris"), second generation rival("Silver") and second generation male character("Gold") had no official names in Japan.
- In the Backyard Sports series, Samantha Pearce, for Jocinda Smith. This was probably because Jocinda had the "surfer" personality, but didn't look the part, and was removed in favor of a new character. Soon after Samantha's debut, she became the most annoying character in the entire series (besides Joey, of course).
- Contra: Legacy of War, the first of the much maligned 3D installments in the Contra series by Appaloosa, recycled the plot of Hard Corps while substituting all of its characters with new ones, with the sole exception of Ray Poward (who didn't look anything like the original character from the Genesis game). Sheena was replaced by Tasha, Brad was replaced by Bubba, and Browny was replaced by CD-288. Even the antagonist, Colonel Bassad, is just a ripoff of Colonel Bahamut.
- Hoo boy. The fifth arc of Umineko No Naku Koro Ni introduces Erika, a little girl who floats to Rokkenjima practically out of nowhere, and proceeds to solve the epitaph and possibly figure out the murderer for the arc she was introduced, attracting some visceral reactions from fans who have been puzzling over this stuff for a bunch of arcs and have scrambled brains to show for it. She then proceeds to kill the previous antagonist and attempt to be the new protagonist of the story by turning Battler into a Decoy Protagonist. Fandom was... not happy. Played with, though, because Battler is still the protagonist, just under a You Are The Demons situation. Erika is being set up as an antagonist, and so it's likely that the author was actually trying to get that reaction.
- And thus we've come thus far without mention of Super Mario Bros.'s Bowser Jr., who was first introduced in Super Mario Sunshine. The fact that Bowser is having his family vaction with him instead of the Koopalings irked many fans. Things may be looking up for the little guy in the near future, though, as New Super Mario Bros. Wii will feature both him and the Koopalings for the first time ever. Otherwise, this picture◊ perfectly sums up the general reaction when he first showed up back in 2002.
- While this is totally unjustified, Squall from Final Fantasy VIII was disliked by a fair number of people back in the day for not being Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. (Yes, I know the FF games don't work that way; didn't I say totally unjustified?) Zidane from Final Fantasy IX was also widely disliked, but that wasn't exactly the same thing; the problem with him was less being a Replacement Scrappy and more him being a Scrappy period.
Web Comics
- The Sins - The new "Envy" Flattery is so annoying that even the other characters think he is the Replacement Scrappy.
- Then again, previous "Envy" Desire purposely replaced himself with someone less awesome then he is.
- Sluggy Freelance averted this hardcore with Sasha, who endeared herself to fans pretty quickly, and even Gwen's fans wouldn't wish her on Riff. Then it was done intentionally with Monica; even years after Sasha had left, Monica brought up fresh, fond reminiscences of her.
Web Original
- Dave from Shadow Of The Templar was automatically relegated to this role in-story when he was brought in to replace a member that had been on Team Templar for quite some time. It didn't help that he was initially timid and all but screamed to be used as a punching bag. He manages to develop out of this status by becoming more self-confident and joining in the regular pranks pulled by the team. (Ironically, readers didn't dislike Dave nearly as much, probably because the character he replaced hadn't been very popular in the first place.)
Western Animation
- When Transformers: Beast Wars started airing, this was at the exact magnetic center of much of the controversy, better known as Trukk not munky.
- Before that, there was Rodimus Prime, formerly Hot Rod, who took over as leader after Optimus died in The Movie. Rodimus was not only not accepted because he wasn't Optimus, was partly responsible for the death of his predecessor and sometimes insecure over his leadership abilities, when he wasn't also being sharply sarcastic. However, Your Mileage May Vary as Rodimus Prime also has a share of fans who like him better than Optimus, for the very same qualities he's hated for. To a lesser degree the rest of the 1986 Transformers cast brought in after the movie suffered from this, as many of the beloved older characters had been killed off to sell toys or just weren't shown anymore.
- Hell, Transformers in general suffers from this, as every new series, new character, new toy, and so on inevitably gets compared to GEEWUN. The recent Classics and Universe lines have taken it to whole new levels, with Astrotrain and Powerglide's color schemes receiving Replacement Scrappy status.
- Speaking of Beast Wars, Beast Machines
derailed "developed" Optimus Primal into some sort of religious leader, while Cheetor stepped up into his place as The Aragorn. The new writers introduced Nightscream to fill in Cheetor's old role as the kid. Unfortunately, Cheetor was designed to grow from a annoying and kinda dumb newbie to a capable fighter and leader, while Nightscream was just annoying and kinda dumb.
- A case of this happening in-series is in Re Boot when Enzo has to replace Bob as guardian. Despite being just as competent at saving the day, the people think of the most inane reasons to dislike him. Like being green instead of blue.
- Also, in a bizarre case of meta-trope, certain Bootniks hated Matrix for "replacing" Enzo, despite him being the older version of Enzo. The abrupt transformation was just too much for some oldschoolers to parse.
- Toonami gets hit hard with this, it probably would have been better if they kept more than the name TOM, or at least not change it from TOM 3 to TOM 4.
- A bit more detail. The first 3 TO Ms have had changes, but still kept the basic structure (a somewhat humanoid robot with a cool motorcycle helmetish head). More importantly, the TOM models have increased in awesome over the years. TOM4's head and torso looks like they were ripped off Thomas The Tank Engine, and his limbs looked like vacuum cleaner hoses. And they replaced SARA, his hot AI sidekick, with a couple of 'explorer robots'.
- The Batman could more or less be considered this for an entire series, as many hated it not being as good as Batman The Animated Series. There's also the fact that its existence prevented Batman villains from appearing on Justice League Unlimited, even though the writers said that didn't mean that much.
Bat-Mite: "Batman's rich history allows him to be interpreted in a multitude of ways. To be sure, this is a lighter incarnation, but it's certainly no less valid and true to the character's roots than the tortured avenger crying out for mommy and daddy."
- The New Paper and Bubs on Homestar Runner... at least to Strong Bad.
- The other boys certainly thought Butters was this when he replaced Kenny on South Park. His replacement, Tweek, is "okay, but he's certainly no Kenny". Incidentally, since Kenny's return, Butters has been elevated to main character status, and has become the show's new chew toy.
- Parodied in the second Re Boot movie where Bob is believed to be a copy when another Bob, who looks and sounds more like the original shows up. This is particularly highlighted in the opening scene which takes place in front of a live audience. The audience cheers when any other character enters, but when Bob arrives, all we hear are the crickets chirping.
- Many Super Mario Bros greatly dislike Oogtar the caveboy from the Super Mario World cartoon, who was essentially an obnoxious replacement for a major character from the games (Toad).
- When the 1978 The Fantastic Four cartoon was in development, a prior contract with Universal was already in place for a potential Human Torch movie, which kept him from being used. So they replaced him with... HERBIE (above pic), Reed Richards' assistant robot. To say that he wasn't quite a suitable replacement for a guy who sets himself on fire (and the brother of one of the characters, not to mention best friend of another) is an understatement.
- It was also a bit of Executive Meddling as well. After the whole craze of "putting on a towel, pretending to be Superman, and jumping out the window", the higher-ups thought that if they put the Human Torch on the show kids would try to imitate him by trying to set themselves on fire, and so canned him from the show.
- Dimmy from The Snorks was written out of the scripts after season two. At the same time Corky, Big Weed and Lil Seaweed were introduced.
- The during the ninth season of the original Ninja Turtles cartoon, the Shredder and his crew were replaced by invading alien Lord Dregg, who took over as big bad during the show's last two seasons. While capably voiced by Tony Jay and arguably more menacing and effective than the Shredder, fans found that he lacked the charm of his predecessors.
Real Life
- One of the reasons Heather Mills is so hated by Paul McCartney fans is that she and Paul got married very shortly after the death of Paul's long-time spouse, Linda Eastman.
- Way back in the late 1960s, there were people who hated the Lovely Linda because she wasn't a classy Brit like Jane Asher, Paul's previous significant other. It took decades for fandom to learn her good points.
- Way way back in the beginning, Yoko Ono got a similar reception due to being Japanese, not being John Lennon's old flame, and the fact that she appeared while the Beatles were in the middle of breaking up (contrary to popular belief, she didn't break them up). By now, all she's remembered for is breaking up the Beatles, which, once again, she didn't actually do.
- I'm afraid much of her reception had to do with the fact that she was openly sleeping with John while he was still married to his first wife (not flame - he was married at the time), Cynthia. That and the fact that she was seen as "pushy" for appearing in the studio.
- This is part of the reason why Ancient Rome became so Royally Screwed Up — each Emperor wanted to make sure they were remembered favourably, so they usually picked someone worse than they to succeed them. (In some cases, this was somewhat justified - in the case of Caligula, Claudius and Nero, there was no other candidate left in the imperial family, and Nero was only adopted.)
- Partially inverted in the case of the Nervan-Antonian dynasty, where several Emperors adopted their right-hands as sons and heirs based on their capacity to get the work well-done (yes, some of these emperors had no children, but still). Nerva and Trajan, Trajan and Hadrian, etc. Incidentally, the Nervan-Antonins were among the best Roman emperors ever (with the exception of Aurelius's son Commodus, but even he wasn't as horrendous as Gladiator says).
- That was the main problem with the Roman Empire (well, other than the fact they made their cups and plates out of lead), namely that the first Roman Emperor never really put in a way for his successor to be named. It got really weird when the emperor's own Praetorian Guard strangled him at one point and sold his throne off to the highest bidder.
- The American Presidency is an especially apt example of this (could be the Trope Namer for this and/or Jonas Quinn) Many Presidents are judged less on their policies and more on comparisons to their predecessors. George W. Bush is a very good example as he is a Jonas Quinn to his father and a Replacement Scrappy to his more popular immediate precedcessor, Bill Clinton. Barack Obama is considered a replacement scrappy by some.
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