Replacement Scrappy

"He's too friendly and polite to replace our Sasuke."

"You can't compete with the long lost Agent Mulder. His easy good looks, his Oxford education. Mulder has what you can't have. But you stumble forward, the flatfooted cop, thinking you can put handcuffs on demons."

— Josef Kobold to Agt. Doggett, The X-Files, "Dæmonicus"

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 they'd been there from the start, maybe the fans could have loved this new character, or at least respected them. But no — they're a replacement. They're not even a Suspiciously Similar Substitute who at least shared some character traits with the other one, they're a totally different character, and so every flaw — every trait that makes them not like the character the fans want them to be — drives them crazy with longing and disgust, and all they can do is get angrier and angrier.^note (Or, even worse, they are a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, trying to ape everything that made the old character popular, who the fans hate for being a "bad copy" of their favorite.)

Pointing out the fact that the creators sometimes had no choice but to abandon the old character or also make a replacement may still not calm fans down. See Exiled from Continuity, The Character Died with Him, and Actor Leaves, Character Dies.

Sometimes this is understandable: the fans mourn the loss of the old character, whom they have come to know and love, and suddenly they are forced to get to know a new character all over again, and inevitable comparisons will ensue. However, if the new character is poorly written, interacts awkwardly with the old characters, derails the show or, worst of all, becomes a Creator's Pet, fans will often go to war over their outrage. Expect the use of flamethrowers where these characters are discussed, especially if the new character gains a dissenting fandom - Broken Bases because of these characters are not unknown phenomena. Investing in fire-proof armor or a bunker deep underground may help if all-encompassing forum warfare breaks out.

In short, They Changed It, Now It Sucks!, but with a main character. If lucky, they may be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. This becomes a lot more likely if the character they initially replaced ever returns. (Most likely because they no longer have the "replacement" stigma hanging over their head, and as such are more likely to be judged on their own merits.)

Attempting this in-universe can be risky because it can backfire when the audience actually likes the replacement character who ends up becoming a fan favorite. However, Tropes Are Not Bad, this can actually be a technique to make the replacement character more sympathetic or can be satisfying when it turns out they ARE a Replacement Scrappy after all.

Contrast More Popular Replacement. Compare and contrast Temporary Scrappy, which is a purposefully dislikable character that enters and goes in a short span.

(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.)

noreallife

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Examples Subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Comic Books
• Live-Action TV
  • Game Show
• Video Games

Other Examples:

Advertising

• Wendy Thomas, for whom the Wendy's fast food chain is named, is not nearly the advertiser her father (and the chain's founder) Dave Thomas was. The nameless redhead (who looks like the logo on the sign), whom the company brought in to replace Wendy, isn't much better and didn't last either.
  • At least until the intern who ran the Twitter account started getting snarky, now...
• The makers of the German chocolate bar ''Kinder Schokolade'' certainly didn't expect that kind of backlash when in 2005, after decades, they replaced the boy on the packaging.
• The UK's Admiral Insurance has received a lot of criticism for replacing their original mascot the Admiral with a female version. She was intended to be a strong and independent business woman, but ended up coming off as annoyingly obnoxious. Out of all the videos on their YouTube channel, the ones featuring her tend to get the lowest ratings. In 2019 she was replaced by a more appealing animated version.
• UK price comparison site Confused.com's mascot Brian the Robot is considered by many to be a poor, and at worst annoying, replacement for their previous mascot Cara Confused, whose ads included catchy covers of popular songs and some racy humor. Much to fans' delight, the robot was retired in 2016 in favour of new ads featuring James Corden and later Timothy V. Murphy.
• In the Sonic commercials, there's two guys who sit in a car and banter back and forth at each other about menu items. Sonic ran commercials without them, and everyone got so mad, they had to bring the two back.
• In 2014, McDonald's began phasing out their long-time mascot Ronald McDonald for their new one: Happy, a living Happy Meal box. While Ronald still exists within the company, in advertising he's been replaced. The new mascot was disliked from the get-go not only for replacing Ronald but because it was creepy looking. Happy is also goofy and nonverbal similar to the Minions, which are controversial in their own right. This has made Happy an unpopular mascot.
• Many old school fans of Cinnamon Toast Crunch adored Cool Old Guy Chef Wendell, so when he got replaced with the Crazy Squares they weren't pleased. Chef Wendell was a little loony at times during the 90's as he was written in similar way like other General Mills mascots at the time (he was more civilized in his earlier appearances), but he was generally entertaining for many and famous for his catch phrase "Can you see the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?" Meanwhile the Crazy Squares are rather infamous for being seen as cannibals since the advertisements often show them eating each other, and has turned some old fans away from buying the cereal unless it's one of the rare "old retro covers" that has Chef Wendell on it.
• In 1998, Birdseye decided to retool their mascot Captain Birdseye, who is generally depicted as a clean living, older sailor with a white beard, dressed in merchant naval uniform and a white polo neck sweater and with a seafaring accent into a Younger and Hipper Action Hero version, who is depicted as a much younger, rugged, dark-haired man with designer stubble and a miniature submarine, who indulged in far more action-packed adventures accompanied by his pet pelican named Jess. Fans reacted unfavourable towards the new incarnation and the classic incarnation was brought back in 2002.
• After Billy Mays died unexpectedly in 2009, Anthony Sullivan was brought in to pitch his products. Reaction was instant and fierce, and the commercials didn't last long. Previously, they used a generic voice-over which yielded similar negativity.
• The 2007 Chips Ahoy! commercials were beloved for their Black Comedy and their comedic song covers, but unfortunately didn't last very long. In 2021, Nabisco attempted to make a Spiritual Successor to the commercials, but these new commercials were absolutely detested by viewers for their obnoxious Totally Radical tone.
• In 1989, Hershey's released its Christmas Bells commercial where the Hershey's Kisses, arranged in a Christmas tree, rang in bell tones to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". It got an upgrade from stop-motion to CGI in 2012 while keeping the audio the same. Then in 2020, a new commercial was introduced where the Kisses start ringing normally until a little girl's hand swoops in and grabs one of them. The scene then changes to the girl baking cookies with her father set to an almost painfully "hip" remix of the song, with her putting the Kiss in one of them. Hershey's received immediate backlash, especially from people who noticed that the abducted Kiss was the same one that concluded the song. Within a month, Hershey's began to air the original commercial again, though they still aired the new commercial indiscriminately. This didn't stop both commercials from being used in the following years, however. In addition, another new commercial was released on December 2020 involving the song without the one red Kiss. As the song was nearing its end, however, the red Kiss enters from the right and gets into its position, allowing it to play the final note, which makes its fellow Kisses delighted that the red Kiss was back.

Fan Works

• In the Ghostbusters fanfic Ghostbusters Hellbent (now taken down, but an MST of it can be read here):
  • The main character, Brendan French, isn't a complete replacement for Peter Venkman, since Venkman still exists in the story, but Brendan does steal a few of Venkman's lines and scenes, which made him unpopular with the readers, in addition to his being made the leader of the team too quickly and not held accountable for being responsible for the Ghostbusters being put in jail.
  • Similarly, another original character named Patty is unpopular for having many stolen lines of dialogue and scenes from Dana (and for being irrational). Like Venkman, Dana does appear in the story, but Patty still more or less takes over her role.
  • In its sequel, High School Screamsale, the original character Winnie pretty much takes over Janine's role in The Real Ghostbusters episode "Janine, You've Changed", which led to the readers hating her.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: In-Universe example with the Cerulean Gym's history. It was founded and originally led by Misty's grandmother Ondine Waterflower, who was considered one of the best Gym Leaders of her time. Unfortunately, her son barely inherited a portion of her talent, and her eldest granddaughters not even that, so they're viewed in this light and the gym's rep has plummeted as a result. Both the Cerulean Don George and Agent Joy see that Misty has the potential to be a Redeeming Replacement should she take it over one day, however.
• Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: In-Universe example. After being Mind Raped by Arael Asuka begins to see herself as this to the dead Kal-El, thinking that he is far more deserving of their powers.
• Thoroughly discussed in the Criminal Minds fanfiction Voices of the Forgotten, which, as the title suggests, is about all the characters who've come or gone unceremoniously over the years.
  Elle: She at least thought that they would not like her replacement more than her because nobody ever likes the replacement...
  Jordan: Even if they're temporary...
  Ashley: Or not technically a replacement at all.
• In Zelda's Honor, a lot of reader hate can be directed at Cayla for not only being a disagreeable character to begin with (she does get better by the end however), but also replacing Impa after she dies as the Sage of Shadow and all that role implies.

Films — Animation

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame II: Sarousch is generally considered to be far inferior to the iconic Frollo of the previous film, being a Flat Character with a nonsensical evil plan. He's even considered worse than the below-mentioned Morgana in this regard, and he's often seen as the weakest Disney villain of all.
• Buzz's new crew in Lightyear was not liked as replacements for the supporting cast of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. And Word of God saying that in-universe the show is supposed to be an Animated Adaptation ironically makes Mira, Booster and XR a retroactive More Popular Replacement.
• The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea: While Morgana does have her fans, general consensus is that she's simply a far weaker version of the iconic Ursula, not helped by her Remember the New Guy? status.
• Flash Sentry from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls was The Scrappy in the first movie due being a Satellite Love Interest to Twilight Sparkle, but he still got one in Legend of Everfree with Timber Spruce, who had the same issues. Whether Timber is better or worse is debated, but it didn't help his case that he debuted just as Flash was starting to get Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.

Films — Live-Action

• Alien:
  • Unavoidably since Ripley is so beloved and iconic her expies in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant Shaw and Daniels respectively are regarded as this compared to her. In fairness both women were supposed harken back to Ripley’s portrayal in the first film where she was a vulnerable Final Girl who just managed to survive by the skin of her teeth, but Ripley’s badass status in the much loved second film made this a losing battle for the female protagonists who came after her.
  • The supporting cast in Alien³ Clemens, Aaron etc despite being played by acclaimed actors are regarded this compared to Hicks and Newt from the second film. The fact said characters were infamously were killed off in the opening of the film for the sake of having Ripley be alone again (making so much of Aliens All for Nothing) definitely contributed to this.
  • Android characters Cal from Alien: Resurrection and David from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are considered this compared to Lance Henriksen’s Bishop the fan favourite Android of the second film. With the latter David at least this was an Intended Audience Reaction with David being a Manipulative Bastard AI Is A Crap Shoot and eventual Big Bad of the franchise. Walter, David’s Benevolent A.I. twin was even made as a compromise for those who missed Bishop.
• The Amazing Spider-Man Series:
  • Andrew Garfield himself seems to be this to Tobey Maguire, as many Maguire fans see Maguire as their preferred Peter and somewhat resent Andrew for not being him. Doubly ironic considering many comic fans have commented on the fact that Garfield's portrayal is much closer to the original Lee-Ditko comics, and was much closer to John Romita Sr. redesign of Peter, which has been his default look for the majority of comics and in the Ultimate Spider-Man comics, as opposed to Ditko's Spider-Man which is the Early-Installment Weirdness of the franchise. Complaints usually involve Andrew's Peter being far less likable than Tobey's, which is mostly because Garfield portrayed the character as a Classical Anti-Hero whereas Maguire is portrayed with a more traditional heroic personality. Andrew's emotional range as an actor has also been called into question as being too flat and too wooden throughout the movies (though it must be said that similar complaints have been leveled against Maguire's performance). Other comic book fans, however, welcomed the film and reboot. Eventually though, reception toward Garfield’s portrayal softened as the actor was honest about his own misgivings with the films and went on to act in a number of celebrated performances. Consequently, TASM Peter’s return in Spider-Man: No Way Home was widely celebrated, and his redemptive moment to save MJ the way he couldn’t save Gwen was hailed as one of the best parts of the movie.
  • Richard Parker gets flak from fans for hijacking the plot of the sequel and removing much of Uncle Ben's impact on Peter. A lot of critics have noted that the entire subplot involving him and his operation against Oscorp was actually unnecessary for the story of the sequel and the time spent developing it should have been reserved for other characters.
  • Despite briefly becoming the new Green Goblin after his father in the comics and previous Spider-Man films, most fans simply weren’t pleased with Harry becoming the Goblin instead of his dad and just wanted Norman in the role (the TASM version of Norman unceremoniously dying off screen despite being played by the great Chris Cooper). Harry’s crack addict design as the Green Goblin and being another element in a subplot-stuffed movie didn’t help either. When the original Willem Dafoe Green Goblin gloriously returned to steal the show in Spider-Man: No Way Home there was endless rejoicing.
• Blues Brothers 2000: Mighty Mac is this to Jake. While he's a very good singer and at times comes close to being a decent replacement, he simply couldn't fill Jake's shoes (and given that Jake was played by the irreplaceable John Belushi, any replacement character was going to have their work cut out for them).
• Glen Robbins in City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold is a perfect example of this trope, having replaced the much-loved character Ed Furillo from the first movie.
• Conan the Destroyer: After spending most of the previous film accompanied by his loyal friend and cunning warrior Subotai, this time Conan has a roguish sidekick Malak. Not only he's much less competent overall in comparison to Subotai, he also seems to recognize things Subotai, not him, was a witness to in the first place, which made him appear even more as a cheap replacement and didn't endear fans to him any further.
• 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 the Pink Panther. Sleigh is a New York City detective who is similarly incompetent, but eager-to-please rather than arrogant, and more aware of/confused by the chaos he's involved in than Clouseau ever was. Beyond having a different and ultimately blander character as the focus, the film itself comes off as lazy and cheap compared to its predecessors. Worse, not only was Peter Sellers' Clouseau beloved, but Trail of... used outtakes of Sellers — who had died two years prior — to create a Fake Shemp; 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, via a Re Vision of the events of A Shot in the Dark to bring us Clouseau's illegitimate Italian son (Roberto Benigni), but it also bombed and killed the original series for good.
• When Robert Duvall refused to return to The Godfather Part III over a salary dispute, his character Tom Hagen was replaced with a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, a lawyer named B.J. Harrison played by George Hamilton. The character was universally loathed as, at best, a walking plot device, at worst a complete cipher who lacked Tom Hagen's charisma, history with the Corleones or personality beyond "officious lawyer." Especially galling to some fans since early drafts of the script featured a falling out between Tom and Michael Corleone as its central plot.
• In Godzilla (2014), Ford Brody's Base-Breaking qualities are intensified after he replaces his father as the protagonist of the film, in spite of the film's advertisements implying his dad would have a much bigger role.
• Indiana Jones:
  • Several fans of the series have complained about the love interests in The Temple of Doom (Willie) and The Last Crusade (Elsa) in comparison to Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, this is given a Lampshade Hanging that produces a heartwarming moment.
  • Speaking of The Temple of Doom, fans would ironically find Mutt Williams from The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this compared to Short Round. Despite Mutt being Indy’s biological son and Short Round just a surrogate, most fans find the latter’s bond vastly more touching and important (he even gets to wear the hat) with Mutt being seen by fans as a woeful Inadequate Inheritor to his iconic father, which is also partly due to some infamous scenes in the fourth movie and Shia LaBeouf being a controversial actor in Real Life. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would even go as far as killing his character off-screen. The fact that Short Round’s actor Ke Huy Quan got a Career Resurrection with an Oscar only helped this fan sentiment.
• James Bond:
  • Bond being played by multiple actors inevitably runs into this, with a few Bonds being seriously disliked compared to their predecessor. The first and most glaring example would be George Lazenby taking over from Sean Connery in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which despite that film’s positives would cause a great deal of backlash from those who missed Connery and Lazenby himself feeling he had done the character a disservice and leaving, resulting in Connery returning for Diamonds Are Forever. To a lesser degree, Timothy Dalton was initially regard as this due to being Darker and Edgier compared to the lighthearted and campy Roger Moore but thanks to Turn of the Millennium Dalton’s 007 has become more appreciated for being Truer to the Text i.e Bond being a Heartbroken Badass. Daniel Craig in the initial lead up to Casino Royale (2006) was this compared to Pierce Brosnan (blonde Bond really?) but that quickly died down when the film came out.
  • Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell's replacements as M and Miss Moneypenny, Robert Brown and Caroline Bliss, are generally seen as inferior replacements (though no fault of the actors). Brown was seen as too amiable and avuncular for the role and the fact that he was friends with Roger Moore made them seem more like work friends than superior and subordinate. While he worked better against Timothy Dalton, his antagonistic portrayal in Licence to Kill didn't help. Bliss' Moneypenny didn't make much of an impression (Dalton's tenure being cut short didn't help) and instead of the flirty banter, we have someone having a schoolgirl crush. Both their replacements, Judi Dench and Samantha Bond, were much more well-received. It helps that they lasted much longer in the roles.
• Jurassic Park:
  • Jurassic Park III introduces Spinosaurus as a new dinosaur antagonist... and does so by having it Curb Stomp the long-established fan favourite, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Arguably one of the most infamous examples in film - for many years after the release of the film, documentary clips on YouTube featuring Spinosaurus were full of negative comments left by angry fans of the series. Jurassic World contains a big Take That! to Spinosaurus by having Rexie smash through a specimen's skeleton when she gets introduced in the film's climax.
  • Overlapping with First Instalment Wins the Jurassic World heroes Owen and Claire along with other supporting characters are often seen as replacement scrappies compared to Alan, Malcom and Ellie from the first movie. Likewise kid characters Zach, Gray and Maisie aren’t nearly as liked as Tim and Lex are. Jurassic World Dominion eventually concedes defeat and brings back Alan, Malcom and Ellie alongside the new protagonists even if it results in a bloated cast for a Jurassic Park film.
• Valérie Lemercier's roles in Les Visiteurs, Frénégonde de Pouille and Béatrice de Montmirail, were among the most lauded things about the film, especially her Sour Prude portrayal of Béatrice, to the point she won a César Award for Best Supporting Role. She refused to come back for the sequel, The Corridors of Time, and was replaced in both roles by Muriel Robin (complete with a Flashback with the Other Darrin) and it didn't sit well — she looks nothing like Lemercier, the writing of her Béatrice lacks the wit and nuance of Lemercier or interesting things to do, and she poorly tries to imitate the posh accent Lemercier had.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Fans were initially upset at Don Cheadle for replacing Terrence Howard as War Machine in Iron Man 2. Comic fans, in particular, preferred Howard since his appearance was Truer to the Text. Fortunately, Cheadle eventually found his footing in the role and became well-liked in his own right.
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier set up Sharon Carter to be Cap's new love interest, a move that annoyed fans of the enormously popular Peggy Carter, Steve's love interest from the first movie. They especially took offense when Steve and Sharon got The Big Damn Kiss in the same movie as Peggy's funeral, something even Hayley Atwell was not pleased about. This may explain why she got the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome treatment after Civil War and Atwell had the last laugh when Steve ends up dancing with and kissing Peggy in an alternate lifetime at the end of Endgame. Or something.
  • Two notable ones from the Spider-Man mythos.
    • Much like Richard Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man Series, Tony Stark gets a lot of flak from many Spider-Man fans for effectively removing Ben Parker's influence and impact on this version of Peter. Even those who don't want another on-screen rehash of Ben's Death by Origin Story wished that the films at least mention him explicitly.
    • Michelle Jones being set up as Peter Parker's Love Interest annoyed fans who were holding out for Mary Jane Watson's potential appearance in the MCU down the line. The fact that Michelle goes by MJ, which is Mary Jane's nickname, is a subject of contention among fans, which is further complicated when Spider-Man: No Way Home reveals her last name is actually Watson all along and that she simply goes by Jones due to her issues with her father. Nonetheless, it's still not hard to find fans wanting a traditional MJ (especially since Kirsten Dunst wasn’t particularly accurate personality-wise to the comics either).
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever unavoidably runs into this with the two Legacy Characters.
    • First is Riri Williams aka Ironheart, who was considered this compared to the late Iron Man. Now in all fairness Tony Stark was always gonna be a Tough Act to Follow after an eleven movie saga and incredible Character Development, but poor Riri still got harsh flak for stepping into his shoes (even the Iron Man fans that didn’t mind Riri still wished Rhodey would take the mantle instead). This was also conflated by the fact the movie isn’t about her and she has a smaller role in it, so her Superhero Origin into becoming Ironheart feels squeezed in and doesn’t have the narrative weight that Tony’s did. This was not helped by the special effects and design of Riri’s Powered Armor not holding up as well as Tony’s.
    • Second and much more depressingly there’s Shuri taking over from T’Challa after Chadwick Boseman’s tragic passing leading to Real Life Writes the Plot and Shuri taking the mantle. While it makes most sense for Shuri to take the title and has even canonically done so in the comics, a good deal of fans simply don’t like her in the role for variety of reasons (most common being the MCU version of Shuri being far removed from the source material and Shuri’s actress Letitia Wright's controversial anti-vaccination statements during filming). Even fans who like Shuri in the role despite the painful absence of T’Challa still felt Nakia, M’Baku or Okoye would’ve probably been better taking/sharing the title, one of the film’s writers confirmed both Nakia and M’Baku were seriously considered for taking on the mantle before they settled on Shuri.
  • Kathryn Newton taking over Emma Fuhrmann as Cassie Lang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was controversial because Fuhrmann's a One-Scene Wonder in Endgame while Newton took over the role just when Cassie underwent a drastic character shift has robbed many fans the wrong way. The fact that Fuhrmann was unceremoniously replaced between films didn't help matters (despite it not being Newton's fault).
• Mean Girls 2: Many fans of the original Mean Girls consider the sequel with different characters unnecessary and inferior to its predecessor. The sequel counterpart of Cady Heron, Jo Mitchell, for example, is very different to Cady. When Cady starts at her new school, she has never been to a real school before, having been homeschooled. She is 16 when she starts high school. As such, she starts off very intelligent and academic, but also naïve. Jo on the other hand, is a Tomboy who changes schools at least three times a year because of her father's job, and does not get good grades. Regina George, the mean girl and Leader of the Plastics, was ruthless, calculating, manipulative, and prefered starting rumours and talking behind people's backs rather than openly bullying them. While Mandi Weatherly, Regina’s sequel counterpart, is overall just spoiled and cruel, lacking manipulation skills and openly bullying Abby Hanover, Janis Ian’s counterpart. While Janis is a quirky, artsy Goth with a bitter hatred for Regina, Abby is shy and very wealthy. The only thing they really have in common is they both like Art. Gretchen Wierners and Hope Plotkin are very different as well. Gretchen is rich but insecure, secretly despising Regina but too nervous to disobey Regina or confront her unfaithful boyfriend. Hope on the other hand, is a Hypochondriac, and that’s all we really get to know about her. Karen Smith is very dumb, yet sweet in the movie while her counterpart Chastity is ditzy, yet also arrogant and mean. Cady’s love interest, Aaron Samuels, is a good guy, though a Hypocrite, and is overall level-headed. Tyler Adams on the other hand is, though a nice guy, rude to his stepsister Mandi, who seems to genuinely care about him. This might be part of Mandi’s mean streak.
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor features multiple of these. Most prominently there’s Maria Bello taking over from Rachel Weisz as Evey and simply lacking what people adored about Eveline in the first place, particularly the chemistry with Rick. There’s also the grown up Alex taking over from his father as The Hero (the film initially intended to kill off Rick completely) which much like Mutt in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a Passing the Torch pretty much nobody wanted, due to Luke Ford just not having Brendan Fraser’s charisma. To a much lesser extent there’s Emperor Han aka the Dragon Emperor who has some positives (being played by Jet Li) but still considered pretty inferior to Imhotep.
• The Next Karate Kid: Dugan and the school security are generally seen as a poor replacement for Kreese and Cobra Kai. With them not even being proper martial artists, their insistence on acting like soldiers the way Cobra Kai did comes across as silly rather than threatening, and Dugan lacks the theatricality that made Kreese so entertaining.
• Lt. Mauser from Police Academy 2 and 3 comes off as a pretty poor substitute for Harris from the original. He has the same flavor of smug authoritarianism, but none of Harris' entertaining Ham and Cheese that made him such a good comic foil for the protagonists' shenanigans. Harris would eventually reclaim his role in part 4, even inheriting Mauser's personal suckup, Proctor. Nick Lassard and Kyle Connors from the later movies also come off as weak replacements for Mahoney, almost entirely lacking his easy charm and Karmic Trickster tendencies.
• Star Trek:
  • In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock the shiny new Starship Excelsior threatens to be the Replacement Scrappy for the Enterprise. This was actually going to happen for real in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, but a backlash from fans caused the powers that be to rethink that plan. Apparently the backlash was so much that it was actually lampshaded in the fourth movie, specifically during shuttle ride through Spacedock, where Sulu claims that he's hoping the former Enterprise crew would received the Excelsior, to which Scotty scoffs at the idea and calls the ship a "bucket of bolts". Then the shuttle turns toward the Excelsior's direction (with the camera following throughout), making it seem like Sulu's wish was going to come true... only for the Enterprise-A to appear behind the Excelsior. You could almost hear the original theater audience's cheers at that point.
  • Between the third and fourth movies, the DC Star Trek comics did in fact have Kirk and Co. on the Excelsior... except for Spock, who was given command of the science vessel Surak. By the time the fourth movie came out, the comics writers had put everything back in place... but this was one reason many fans thought the crew would wind up on Excelsior. Nice fake-out be the moviemakers to make us think (for all of 0.43 seconds) that this was happening.
  • Ironically enough, the Excelsior would become one of the most popular starships in the ST fandom, both due to its unique design (at the time) and for being captained by Sulu (replacing the original captain Styles) in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. One supposes this was partly due to not becoming the Replacement Scrappy as everyone feared, instead establishing itself as its own "character" from the Enterprise. Almost burning out her engines to get to Enterprise in time to have her back, in the latter's final mission, against a cutting-edge prototype stealth warship probably didn't hurt either.
• Star Wars:
  • Attack of the Clones: Count Dooku is a very cool character in his own right, but at the time many fans dismissed him for not being Darth Maul. Who was himself very cool, but no Darth Vader.
  • For the prequels in general, Padmé is considered this compared to her iconic daughter Leia, who is more charismatic and sassier. Padmé getting unfortunate Chickification in Revenge of the Sith (infamously having Death by Despair) wasn’t a point in her favour either.
  • The Force Awakens: Does this again with Kylo Ren, the successor to Darth Vader. There's a section of fans that do like him but many find him not as cool or intimidating or badass. (Even In-Universe, he struggles to live up Vader's legacy and reputation). Kylo is also considered this by some Legends fans since he effectively takes Jacen, Jaina and Anakin II’s existence.
  • As a galactic conqueror, Snoke isn't exactly as popular as Emperor Palpatine and fans weren't impressed by how he got killed in the second installment of the trilogy. It's eventually revealed in The Rise of Skywalker that Snoke is a literal clone of Palpatine.
  • Rey in general for the Sequel Series was intended to replace Luke (the biggest hero in the franchise) which is a tall order for anyone and predictably did not go over well with a large section of fans when The Last Jedi killed Luke off and The Rise of Skywalker had Rey taking his surname as well. This was further not helped by The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett featuring a Luke in his prime being awesome, which only made particular fans bemoan the Hijacked Destiny even more. Time will tell whether Rey’s upcoming solo film will rescue her from heavy dislike, like Clone Wars (2008) did with Ahsoka.
  • Fans of the old Legends continuity were annoyed at the creation of entire planets which seemed to serve no purpose other than distance the new trilogy from the old continuity. Of particular note, the Hosnian system serves no purpose that couldn't be filled by Coruscant or Chandrila (whether it's made better or worse by the system being blown up immediately after its introduction depends on who you ask), and Ahch To replaces the beloved Legends planet Tython. Exegol is hit especially hard by this, as it seemingly combines elements of no less than three planets from Legends, without adding anything new that couldn't be done by Dromund Kaas, Korriban (which was already canon) or Byss. The Ahch To complaint was alleviated somewhat by the reveal that Ahch To was considered a possibility for the origin of the Jedi Temple, with Tython being another, and Tython receiving both a short cameo in Star Wars: Doctor Aphra and its first ever live-action appearance in The Mandalorian.
• Superman III: While viewers were looking forward to see how Clark's relationship with Lois Lane would develop, actress Margot Kidder argued with the producers over the firing of original director Richard Donner. As a result she was reduced to a cameo, and her role as Superman's love interest filled by Lana Lang. However, some fans wound up preferring Lana to Lois, due to Lana being in love with Clark where Lois loved Superman.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Walker is considered a major step down from the Shredder.
• The Three Stooges:
  • Shemp replacing Curly after Curly suffered a stroke. Opinions on him vary, however, as the reasoning wasn't that he was a bad actor but rather that he was very different from Curly and the show dynamic changed because of it. Ironically, Curly was actually the replacement for Shemp, who was the third Stooge during their Vaudeville days, before Curly even began acting. This helped a lot, since his trademark "lovable dope" shtick might not have been the same as Curly's, but Shemp already had built-in comic chemistry with the other two, and was just as game for the physical humor.
  • On the other hand, Joe Besser is universally hated, largely due to Besser's contractual stipulation that Moe couldn't hit him; this was like a kiss of death for any shorts featuring him, since annoyingly clownish characters are tolerable only so long as their annoyance is appropriately punished. Indeed, Joe Besser rather than Shemp personifies this more, as Shemp tends to be more popular than not.
  • Curly Joe De Rita, for the most part, avoided this trope. He was brought in to play the third Stooge during their comeback, and managed to be an effective Stooge in his own right (and despite the name, he didn't act like Curly). It also helped that the guy he was replacing was the aforementioned (and widely hated) Besser, and by this stage in their career the Stooges had already toned down the slapstick violence anyway, as the guys were getting too old to convincingly smack each other around by the 1960's, and were also aiming to be more kid-friendly with their comedy.
• This happens in Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie when Rocky get injured during martial arts practice and has to be replaced by his generally more annoying younger brother. Behind the scenes this was done to help sell the movie to younger audiences and to fill in the blue ranger role after the actor who portrayed Rocky was hurt in a similar way.

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 here, 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 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. The replacement isn't best pleased at his new lot in life.
• Star Wars Legends regularly had characters (especially Luke) being written out temporarily. So Shadows of the Empire readers hate Dash Rendar for his similarity to Han Solo. (It takes place between Empire and Jedi.) And Fate of the Jedi readers hate Kenth Hamner for trying to replace Luke. Oddly, Ben isn't hated, despite often being considered an Expy of Anakin Solo. Parodied with Abeloth, who tries to impersonate Mara and Callista and gets the Replacement Scrappy treatment (and a few fatal lightsaber wounds) from Luke himself for her efforts.
• V. C. Andrews fans don't much like Andrew Neiderman, her ghostwriter after she died. This intensified in recent years, due to the downward quality with each book published.
  • For the actual books, Annie Stonewall from the Casteel Series is this for her mother Heaven in Gates of Paradise. Fans found her to be incredibly whiny and spoiled compared to Heaven, and even fans that liked Gates of Paradise felt Annie was one of the worst parts about the book.
• The Warrior Cats fanbase has had this reaction to a few characters.
  • In Forest of Secrets, the third book in the series, Graystripe's mate Silverstream dies. Ten books later in The Sight, Graystripe, who was captured by humans in Dawn, returns to the Clans with a new mate called Millie. Millie has received a ton of hate, and most of it is for either not being Silverstream, or (among fans who completely ignore the aesop about racism) for being a former kittypet.
  • Cinderheart, the reincarnation of the snarky medicine cat Cinderpelt, is hated for being more optimistic and playful than her jaded previous incarnation.
  • In Sunrise, it was revealed that Hollyleaf, who was thought to be the subject of a prophecy, actually had no connection to the prophecy at all. When The Fourth Apprentice rolled around, Dovewing, the true hero, started receiving bile due to how different she was from Hollyleaf.
• In The Wheel of Time, following Moiraine's Heroic Sacrifice, Rand got a new bossy female mentor-type thing in Cadsuane. Unfortunately, while Moiraine was likeable and seemed to genuinely care about people, Cadsuane was a bossy know-it-all.
  • In fairness, this was likely mostly intentional, as the original was putting the Aes Sedai and co in danger of being sympathetic and the author needed to keep them firmly in antagonist territory for later plot development to work. If Rand thought they were probably inclined to be reasonable and negotiated the series probably would have come in at its original intended length instead of seven or eight times longer.
• The Wicked Years fans haven't taken much of an interest in Liir, who replaced Elphaba after she died. Being Elphaba's son doesn't stop him from being The Scrappy, and may have been even worse for his reputation.

Pro Wrestling

• Mitsuo Momota, son of the legendary Rikidozan, was a textbook example in the transition between JWA to All Japan Pro Wrestling. Poor Momota's "legendary" for being inferior in every conceivable way.
• 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 the bookers kept trying, and trying, and trying to get him over... It didn't help that Luger's "Narcissist" gimmick was rather well-liked and was getting pretty over when it was just inexplicably dumped for the "Made in the USA" gimmick. It also didn't help that this happened just after just after the Iron Curtain came down and the U.S. didn't really any Real Life conflicts going on - the Foreign Wrestling Heel ended up being a Samoan guy from California pretending to be Japanese. Thankfully, the booking team eventually got the message and aborted his planned title run, giving it to Bret Hart instead.
• When Crush (Brian Adams) joined Demolition in the WWF and eventually replaced Ax altogether. Similarly, Dino Bravo replacing Brutus Beefcake in the Dream Team.
• A deliberate invocation of the Replacement Scrappy trope was the fake Diesel and fake Razor Ramon (Rick "Big Titan" Bogner, best known for his work in FMW), three months after Scott Hall and Kevin Nash left for WCW. These two were introduced by a freshly Face Heel Turned Jim Ross specifically to embarrass Vince McMahon and the WWF (there were legal issues involved as well). WWF was suing WCW at the time over Hall and Nash's appearance, claiming they were passing them off as Ramon and Diesel (the two were unnamed "invaders" at the time, and weren't named until their first PPV match, at WCW Bash at the Beach 96, where Hulk Hogan turned heel to launch the nWo). New characters with the same names (intentional Replacement Scrappy or not) was a clear sign that WWF intended to use and enforce the trademarked names.
• Jonathan Coachman and, to a lesser extent, Joey Styles got this when they replaced Jim Ross as the play-by-play announcer for Raw.
  • 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 irreplaceable.
    • On the plus side, Matt Striker has taken his place on SmackDown!, but his ECW replacement (Byron Saxton) isn't exactly a perfect substitute, though popular enough.
    • The hatred (and the 'Cole Miners' fanbase) for Michael Cole in 2010-2012 (largely due to his ridiculous fanboying of The Miz) until the writers gave him legitimate Character Development and became a damn near evil heel and gave him a real feud (and WrestleMania 27 match) against Jerry Lawler. That being said, the angle was pretty bad and got dragged out a lot longer than it needed to be. Also the SmackDown table was joined by Booker T. He got turned face again, and saved, possibly for life, after the Lawler heart attack.
  • Michael Cole seems to have somewhat avoided this when Ross was moved to Smack Down rather than simply taken off TV. Mostly because he was already The Scrappy to begin with.
  • And Mike Adamle got this for replacing Styles (who retired from 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.
• While Perro Aguayo Jr. became very popular after only a sort time in AAA, he was met with vitriol by fans attending CMLL shows, who found his father far more entertaining. However, Aguayo's persistence, some clever booking and the Perros Del Mal stable headed alongside Hector Garza lead to him becoming one of the CMLL's biggest stars.
• When Jerry Lawler left the WWF in 2001, his replacement, Paul Heyman, got all kinds of crazed hatred from a fanbase demanding that Jerry be brought back. Heyman actually did a phenomenal job as commentator...which became all the more apparent when Jerry came back and proceeded to completely mail in his performance for the next decade. Heyman started gaining his fair share of fans over his months as an announcer, so when he was booted for the returning Lawler, Lawler got his share of this as well.
• When legendary Japanese wrestler Hayabusa was rendered paralyzed and had to end his career, the FMW bookers quickly grabbed a development talent and gave him a vaguely similar character named GARUDA ("Hayabusa" is the Japanese word for falcon, while Garuda is the Sanskrit word for eagle). Needelessly to say, it didn't work.
• This concept might go a long way in explaining why Xavier is the least celebrated of the men to have held the Ring of Honor Championship belt. The first champion Low Ki was naturally a contender for the most popular man in the promotion but his title reign was over almost as soon as it got started, in favor of a man with a superficially similar wrestling style but lacking Low Ki's distinctive look, aggression, intensity and Baritone of Strength on top of being a Dirty Coward instead of a Spirited Competitor Challenge Seeker. And while a title match between Low Ki and Christopher Daniels would have been the most predictable way to go, it wasn't as if fans would have complained about it.
• In their unexplained release of Daniel Puder, a proven, respected participant of the popular combat sport called Mixed Martial Arts, WWE doomed The Miz, the runner up to the WWE Tough Enough contest that Puder won by fan vote, to this status. It didn't help that Miz talked about having to overcome the stigma of not coming from something like MMA during his early years in the wrestling industry, which only drew more minds to Puder and the program with Kurt Angle that WWE thoughtlessly threw away.
• When New Japan Pro-Wrestling decided it didn't have any more use for most of its masked luchadors, Black Tiger III ended up back in CMLL but in 2005, NJPW decided it wanted Black Tiger again and rather than simply call Black Tiger III back, they made Rocky Romero Black Tiger IV. IV was well received but his existence made CMLL change Black Tiger III to El Bronco, who wasn't. Black Tiger III became a replacement scrappy to himself!
• When WWC found out it could no longer book its long running top star, Ray González, they needed someone to fill his spot. Who did they choose? X-Pac, yes, that one. Oh, and when they couldn't get WWE to let them have more time with Carly, guess who was used to fill in for him? That's right, X-Pac again!
• The Latin American Exchange suddenly had a lot more fans when Mexican America formed in TNA.
• Alex Riley and Michael McGillicutty unfortunately became hit with this status when once again, WWE hosted a fan voted contest, in this case NXT, and once again the voted winner of the contest, Kaval in this case, vanished.
• La Sombra and Volador junior were among CMLL's most loved and hated luchadors in 2013 but their mask vs mask match at the 80th anniversary show of the promotion was not well received by the fans, as to take place it had to deny them of a mask vs mask match between Último Guerrero and the legendary Atlantis, which they had been waiting decades to see.
• Roman Reigns has somehow managed to become this for John Cena, of all people. What it comes down to is the "Superman" character they're both playing, and the fact that whoever is playing that character gets to be THE top guy, which is strange. The character is hated by everybody who isn't under the age of ten or a woman. That's why Cena was such a Base Breaker. That being said, for how much fans hated Cena over it, he at least made it bearable. Reigns' run with the character has gotten so bad that even the smarks miss Cena, and many are starting to speculate (half-jokingly, half-not) that this is all some grand master plan of Vince McMahon to get Cena universally over with the IWC.
• Deliberately invoked with Jason Jordan in regards to The Shield. After Dean Ambrose got put on the shelf for nine months, Jordan's kayfabe father Kurt Angle allowed Jordan to replace Ambrose as Seth Rollins' tag team partner, allowing them to win the RAW Tag Team Titles. Jordan subsequently tried to take Ambrose's place in the Shield. That's where the invoked part comes into play — not only did the fans hate Jordan for trying, but so did the Shield themselves. Rollins can barely tolerate Jordan (with it becoming increasingly obvious how much he wants Ambrose in Jordan's place), only does so for the titles, and finds his patience increasingly worn out by Jordan landing them in unnecessary fights. Roman Reigns can't even bother with that much, having taken Ambrose's injury really badly and blatantly hating Jordan as a result.

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.
• After longtime radio broadcaster Paul Harvey died in 2009, his two radio shows (Paul Harvey's News and Comment and The Rest of the Story) were replaced by similar formats hosted by ABC radio staffers Gil Gross and Doug Limerick, both of whom had filled in for Harvey when he was ill. Despite this, Gross's and Limerick's shows lasted three weeks before being canned for The Huckabee Report.
• Terry Wogan made a truly heroic effort to prevent this when Chris Evans took over his morning slot on BBC Radio 2, aided and abetted by the fact that at least nobody was foolish enough to try to find a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Wogan. Audience reactions were mixed, to say the least, and generally varied, according to whether you could stand the drivetime show Evans had been hosting previously, and how much you missed Sarah Kennedy, whose immediately preceding show was shortened and sidelined to give Evans more airtime. ^note Kennedy left the BBC for reasons which are still shrouded in mystery. Conspiracy theorists still speculate on this.
• What had been Sarah's early morning show - cut in length and pushed back to a far earlier starting time to accommodate Evans - is currently being presented by her successor, Vanessa Feltz, a woman who had an embarrassingly public Creator Breakdown on Celebrity Big Brother. Fans of Sarah Kennedy tend to consider Vanessa is pretty much a Replacement Scrappy.
  • When Chris Evans announced he would leave the breakfast show (in September 2018), it was feared that his fan-base would regard the eventual successor as a Replacement Scrappy and that person was going to have a tough time. This ended up being more or less averted, however; said successor turned out to be Zoe Ball, who got some flak, but not as much as was anticipated.
• American Country Countdown fired longtime host Bob Kingsley in 2005 and replaced him with Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn. Many longtime fans of the show dislike Kix Brooks for his high, whiny voice and "chummy" attitude towards artists, as well as the corporate decision to cut the show from 40 to 30 because program directors were "uncomfortable" with the newness of the 31-40 songs (the show later reverted to 40). He was also derided for modernizing the show too much — while the songs that Bob played between countdown slots could often be up to 20 years old, Kix quickly refused to play anything more than a year or two old. Kix also seems to lack Bob's interest in showing historical behind-the-scenes info on songs, to the point that he constantly gets chart information and even artists' names wrong. Meanwhile, many professional deejays hate Kix for quickly rising in the ranks of professional radio hosts despite a lack of experience. But fans of Kingsley had little to worry about, as he promptly moved over to Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40, which was nearly identical to the format that ACC used when he was still the host and did not change until Kingsley died in 2019.
• The show from which ACC spun off, American Top 40, went through something similar when co-creator and longtime host Casey Kasem left the show over a contract dispute in 1988, and was replaced by Shadoe Stevens, a move that for many fans signaled the beginning of the end for the show. Stevens himself was disliked simply because he didn't have the style, charm, or personality of Kasem (similarly to Bob Kingsley above, many previously-loyal listeners ended up jumping ship to Kasem's Spiritual Successor program, Casey's Top 40, which began the year after Kasem left AT40), but his years on the program were also marred with attempts at appealing to a Younger and Hipper audience. As a result, the show was removed from American airwaves in 1994 and cancelled altogether in 1995.
  • Nine years later, in 2004, Kasem took his second (and final) bow from the program (which had been Un-Canceled in 1998), to be replaced by the current host, American Idol's Ryan Seacrest. There was a lot less said about the changeover this time around, probably because Kasem retired instead of leaving over a contract dispute; still, many longtime fans still don't hold Seacrest (or the current iteration of the show, for that matter) in nearly as high a regard.
• Due to a syndicate merger, two rival shows focusing on classic Country Music were subject to this. Country Gold replaced longtime host Rowdy Yates with Alabama lead singer Randy Owen in mid-2012, while Rick Jackson's Country Hall of Fame was ended entirely due to the syndicate not wanting two similar shows. Under Owen's watch, Country Gold was cut from 5 hours to 4, and listener requests were voicemailed instead of taken live. Randy was criticized both for his sleepy delivery (a far cry from Rowdy's more boisterous tones) and for focusing the show more on ass-kissing stories about fellow artists instead of the historical tidbits that Rowdy offered. Once rights issues were settled, both Rowdy and Rick started new shows, The Original Country Gold and Rick Jackson's Country Classics respectively, both of which were identical to their predecessors. As a result, many affiliates who had been stuck with Randy Owen switched back to Rowdy and/or Rick once their new shows got off the ground. Randy's show struggled to find affiliates, to the point that many doubted that it was even airing anywhere, until a March 2016 announcement that Canadian country singer Terri Clark would take his place and the show would begin focusing more on 90's material.

Sports

• The Because It's The Cup commercials promoting the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs. Pretty good in their own right, but few are happy to see them replacing History Will Be Made.

Tabletop Games

• The Tome of Battle classes in Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 are often acknowledged as some of the best-designed in the game, being fun, reasonably powerful, and very capable of doing their jobs. However, the fact that they seemed to be designed after certain older classes (warblade as fighter, crusader as paladin, swordsage as monk), while also being considerably better than them earned them no small amount of scorn from fans of those classes, who thought Tome of Battle signaled that Wizards was giving up on them. The mild-to-moderate Animesque nature of the classes in question didn't help.

Theme Parks

• In general, whenever a theme park closes a ride for a new one, many fans of the old ride won't be too thrilled with the new ride.
• The above especially applies to Disney Theme Parks. Usually examples are mixed with a nice helping of They Changed It, Now It Sucks! for attractions that get revamps.
  • Disneyland's most well-known example is Light Magic, a rather underwhelming replacement for the world famous Long Runner Main Street Electrical Parade. Being stripped of the Electrical Parade has haunted Disneyland fans for years.^note This is a very good example of why sometimes the They Changed It, Now It Sucks! folks are actually right. The differences can partially be summarized by saying that MSEP was a parade (so all viewers got approximately the same show), while LM was essentially a mobile theatrical performance (so viewers where the floats stopped got the actual show, and viewers in between stops got to watch the floats roll past).
  • Actually, this is true whenever a new Disneyland parade or show replaces an old one. See Parade of Dreams vs. Celebrate! A Street Party. This will usually wear off after a while if the show is any good, though. Subverted with Celebrate!'s replacement, Mickey's Soundsational Parade.
  • Epcot's Imagination pavilion has Nigel Channing, who replaced Dreamfinder as the host of a revamp of its dark ride. Unusually for this trope, he predated the revamp; he was imported from the popular 3-D Honey, I Shrunk the Audience in an attempt to tie all of the pavilion's attractions together. Then again, the Journey Into Imagination revamps are largely They Changed It, Now It Sucks! anyway, thanks in part to penny-pinching on the part of Disney Theme Parks at the time.
  • Also, Stitch's Great Escape!, which replaced The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter. The horror show in the dark premise of the original production was replaced with a comedy show in the dark, which only served to annoy adults while still frightening children.
  • When The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland replaced their Mourning Bride character with the more modern Constance Hatchway, with updated effects and a more sinister personality, casual park visitors responded fairly well to her; but many die-hard Mansion fans did not react well to the new character.
    • Similarly, while casual park visitors enjoy the seasonal Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay, die-hard Mansion fans dislike it based on the fact that Halloween would be the perfect time to enjoy the normal Mansion rather than one themed for Christmas.
  • Needless to say, countless fans were downright outraged when The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure was re-themed into Guardians of the Galaxy - MISSION: BREAKOUT in 2017. At least the Florida version at Disney's Hollywood Studios still exists, and there's also a version at Walt Disney Studios Paris which is an identical clone of the California Tower of Terror^note In fact, if it weren't for California Adventure needing an emergency attendance boost, Paris's Tower of Terror would've been built first.
  • Upon the arrival of Disney's Enchantment in Magic Kingdom, an overwhelming amount of fans were split on whether it was a good firework spectacular. Several fans of the previous show Happily Ever After were very underwhelmed and demanded they bring it back following the 50th anniversary celebrations. Others however, thought it was something among the likes of, "not as good as its predecessor but still a very impressive and well made show."
• In late 2007, Universal Studios closed Back to the Future: The Ride to replace it with The Simpsons Ride. To say that the fans of the former weren't happy is an understatement. This is the reason why the new ride's queue video loop includes an original segment in which Professor Frink attempts to use Time Travel to keep the Institute of Future Technology from being replaced with Krustyland, and instead ensures that it is. From there, Doc Brown takes up Krusty's offer of employment at his park!
• Fast & Furious: Supercharged is this to both Disaster! and Beetlejuice's Graveyard Revue, two long-standing fan favorites that were closed to make room for it. The new ride turned out to be very light on content and action, further upsetting fans.

Toys

• Barbie was with Ken for forty-three years before Mattel decided to have them break up so she could date Blaine, an Australian surfer. Sales meant that their relationship was significantly shorter.
• Way before the BIONICLE - Hero Factory debacle, LEGO received scorn for replacing their original foray into the world of buildable robotic action figures, Slizer, with the much more esoteric RoboRiders, which were weird-looking alien motorbikes instead of posable action figures. The line wasn't a success, and for its follow-up (BIONICLE), they went back to and refined the Slizer formula instead.
• Hero Factory used to be this for many BIONICLE fans, particularly those who were in it for the story rather than the toys. As for the toys, the "CCBS" building system introduced in Hero Factory, which completely replaced BIONICLE's older style, is more divisive with a fair share of supporters, despite what many haters say.
• There's a fair amount of people who didn't take kindly to Hasbro's decision to redesign the Generation 3 line of My Little Pony toys. Originally looking like traditional ponies, the characters all got a Super-Deformed design that some felt was creepy. The negative reaction to these Generation 3.5 ponies may well have reached Hasbro, as the toys ran for only around one and a half years before they released Generation 4, which have proportions much closer to those of the original toys.
  • The official talking Princess Celestia doll is effectively a replacement scrappy for the actual character. Not only has Hasbro admitted that they made her pink instead of white because apparently pink ponies sell better to girls (and making it worse, there's a picture of the actual, white character on the toy's box art), but they replaced her TV show voice actress and her original wise personality with a bunch of vacuous, vain phrases spouted by another actor who sounds more like a Valley Girl than a princess.
• Not a whole lot of Rock Raiders fans were pleased by LEGO Power Miners. Although the quality of the sets themselves had improved, the lime/orange color scheme, less-memorable characters, and goofier Rock Monsters made Power Miners seem inferior to their predecessors.
• From the Transformers Generations "Combiner Wars" line, Alpha Bravo, Offroad, and Rook are seen as this for Slingshot, Wildrider, and Groove respectively. It doesn't help that these new characters got almost no narrative function during the then-running IDW Comics (with Rook even casually being murdered while in a coma), in contrasts to their predecessors who at least had personalities. While an Author's Saving Throw has been made with Slingshot and Wildrider being released later (As Quickslinger and Brake-Neck respectively), Groove (as a Legends class figure) now only appears as an accessory to Defensor.
  • An Author's Saving Throw has now been given to Groove as well, who got a Deluxe toy of his own in Japan, and later in America. And he even got to keep his name, too.
  • Rook also gets off a bit more lightly than the other two with his toy widely considered to be one of the best in the line.
  • The highly unpopular "One-Step Changers", Authentics, and other simplified Transformers merch aimed strictly at very young kids started replacing much of the "regular" toy lines in Europe in the early 2010s. Many large retailer chains carry them in mass quantities, with the more detailed and highly regarded Generations toys, which for years have been unavailable, still being rare and hard to find. The alleged reason for this distribution method is that there aren't as many older fans living in the affected territories as in the States or Japan, and low-quality, simplified toys based on current cartoons or movies are easier to sell to kids.

Web Original

• One of the original Neopets was the Cerpull, a dragon-like creature said to be a ferocious killer. Then in July 2000, it was replaced with the Lighter and Softer-looking Tatsu, with a chubbier body, its sharp edges rounded out, and its spikes replaced with a fluffy mane. This being the year 2000, the relatively edgy Cerpull appealed far more to kids of the day, and former Cerpull owners hated the Tatsu and flocked to TNT with complaints, to the point where it was replaced again a measly six months later with the Eyrie. However, twenty years later, it's starting to gain a small number of fans who felt it was dealt a raw deal due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Inverted with the Eyrie, however, who became even more of a fan-favorite and site staple than the Cerpull ever was, leaving both of its former identities as a mere footnote in Neopian history.

Web Videos

• When Jon left Game Grumps and Danny of Ninja Sex Party took his place, he initially got hit with this reaction by half the fanbase (the others accepting him and trying to calm the angry half down). Ironically, as time passed and Danny grew into his title as Not So Grump, he would eventually become an inverted example and exceed Jon in popularity.
• Although she's not really The Scrappy, some lonelygirl15 fans have complained that Emma "replaced Bree."
• Party Crashers: In-Universe example. As shown in "they made a good Mario Party game", Nick and Sophist hate Tumble for replacing Toad in Mario Party 3:
  Nick: Fuck you, Tumble! I hate Tumble, bro.
  Sophist: Yeah, who the hell invited Tumble to the party?
• When the eighteenth season of Red vs. Blue, Zero, ditched the old cast (only two reappear right away, and a third shows up during the season), new protagonists Shatter Squad were soon disliked for being nowhere as interesting as the Blood Gulch crew, thanks to having bland and cliched personalities and rushed or non-existent character arcs.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Both Gumbald and GOLB are seen as this to the show's former Big Bad, the Lich, in Season 9. Gumbald is considered an uninteresting antagonist that lacks the Lich's menace and coolness. Meanwhile, GOLB, despite being the Lich's superior and the show's Greater-Scope Villain, didn't get a chance to do much due to a lack of screen time and had no real character to speak of, to the point where he came off as a Generic Doomsday Villain. It doesn't help that the Lich is often considered one of the best cartoon villains of the New 10's.
• The character of Hurkel from the third and final season of The Animals of Farthing Wood is seen as this, due to being a Canon Foreigner replacement for Badger (who died in the second season of the show).
• Beast Machines developed Optimus Primal into a religious leader, while Cheetor stepped up into his place as a Supporting Leader. The new writers introduced Nightscream to fill in Cheetor's old role as the kid. Unfortunately, Cheetor was designed to grow from a naive and hot-headed newbie to a capable fighter and leader, while Nightscream was just a moody teen. It also doesn't help that Nightscream was outright unlikable at times, like when he mocked the other Maximals for losing the Beast Wars to the point Rattrap warned him to shut his mouth, because he lost friends in that war.
• In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Fasttrack is highly disliked among the fanbase, due to his powers and coloration seeming very similar to that of XLR8, who is a fan favorite and a series mainstay since the original show. There had been other "replacement" Omnitrix forms before, but they always had unique traits that let them develop voices of their own; Fasttrack didn't have that. Word of God's claims that he's faster and stronger have provoked a few favoritism accusations. It seems most of the show's staff didn't like him that much either, seeing as he was deliberately left out of the next series, Omniverse, which had made a point to bring almost every form back.
• In Ben 10: Omniverse, the villains of the show suffered this. The first new Big Bad was Malware, a scary and amoral mechamorph who was beloved by fans. When he was defeated, he was replaced with characters like the Incurseans, the Rooters, and Maltruant. None of the new villains were able to generate even remotely the level of interest that Malware had, being seen as pale imitations. One of the biggest reasons for the show's Seasonal Rot was that Malware's absence left a directionless hole that couldn't be filled. Worse yet, the show was cancelled just as Malware was set to return in a big way.
• Fans of Blue's Clues absolutely hate Joe for the simple fact that he replaced Steve, and for only that reason. 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. Steve did make a few later appearances, but Joe still took over his role as presenter, which viewers hated.
• Many assumed that the reason Oopsy was introduced in Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot was to replace Good Luck Bear... which he technically didn't. Good Luck Bear was Demoted to Extra for reasons unknown, which may be the reason for the common assumption.
• In The Critic webisodes, Jay Sherman's new make-up lady/girlfriend Jennifer is this, replacing his original make-up woman Doris and his actual girlfriend Alice Tompkins, both of whom are loved characters from the original TV series. In this case, the substitution itself was mildly justified because neither character's voice actor was available (Doris's had died and Alice's had retired).
• When The Fantastic Four (1978) 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, Reed Richards' assistant robot. The irony here is that Johnny Storm was originally a replacement himself. Oddly, fans didn't mind when HERBIE was added to the comics. The Torch wasn't kept out of those.
• Fans of A Goofy Movie aren't very fond of Mona from Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, who replaces Roxanne as Max's girlfriend. She's also a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, right down to sharing the same voice actress. Apparently she was going to be Roxanne at first, but the animators had a hard time rendering her floppy hair in CGI. So they created a new character, rather than just say that Roxanne got a haircut.
• Invoked with LANOS in Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Partway into the series, the Science Director decides to decommission Aya (over the objections of her crewmates) and foists a new, non-sapient AI called LANOS on them as a replacement. The Green Lanterns all immediately hate him, dismissing him as an annoying, Literal-Minded moron with no real value. Getting Aya back quickly becomes their first priority. And yet, in the end, he ends up being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, in-universe and out; when the Anti-Monitor-corrupted Aya is threatening to destroy the heroes, LANOS bravely gives his life to save his crew and afterwards you can tell everyone feels kinda bad for not giving him a chance to prove himself until it was too late.
• Subverted in-show in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. In one episode, Mandy and Grim replace Billy with a new friend named Bobby. The two of them wind up thinking Bobby is better than Billy ever was, much to Billy's horror. Eventually though, Billy destroyed Bobby with Grim's scythe, and Mandy doesn't even care, showing that even liking someone better than Billy doesn't mean she likes them.
• Another voice actor example in Hey Arnold!: Arnold had four voice actors throughout the series (five if you count the pilot episode), but his final voice actor, Alex D. Linz is near-universally disliked by the fandom for two reasons. One, Linz's voice was higher-pitched than the previous actors making Arnold sound too young (much like Myles Jeffery above). Two, he replaced Spencer Klein, who most fans consider to be the Arnold despite the fact that Klein was the third person to voice him ^note though he lasted the longest, his take on Arnold is how fanfic writers usually portray him and unlike his predecessors Toran Caudell and Phillip Van Dyke, Klein did not portray any other character after his voice broke. and played Arnold when he was at his most bland (as Arnold became an Out of Focus, Vanilla Protagonist to allow other characters to develop). Linz only voices Arnold in the last three episodes and when the Grand Finale known as The Jungle Movie was Un-Canceled, they cast Mason Vale Cotton (who sounds closer to the others) as Arnold.
• The Stingers are this to The Misfits in Jem. They're more Base Breakers than true Scrappies though. For one Riot is a male lead singer, when previously all the bands were all-female. More important though is Riot likes Jem. He's indifferent to Jerrica but loves her alter ego Jem, saying she is the perfect women and he is the perfect man so they are destined for each other. Jem was already in a confusing love triangle involving Rio and herself, never mind Riot and Minx (who wants Rio). There's also the issue that the beloved Misfits were put on the bench for The Stingers. Romance was emphasized heavily in the third season. Some fans think The Stingers are why the show was cancelled but the reality was Hasbro wasn't liking the toy sales.
• The Legend of Korra (similar to Star Wars's Sequel Series) had its cast be considered this by certain fans compared to their adored predecessors. Korra’s hot headed immaturity and shallow behaviour as the Avatar in Book 1 made her disliked to a section of fans in comparison to Aang, though to the show’s credit this formed part of Korra’s Character Development afterwards with her growing as a person and moving out of Aang’s shadow. Similarly Bolin was considered inferior to Sokka and Toph whose shoes he was filling as the comic relief and the group’s Earthbender (though Toph herself would come back) but he managed to become one of the show’s most liked characters over time. Probably the one that plays this straight is Mako, whom despite being a clear substitute for fellow brooding pretty boy Zuko, is nowhere near as liked by the fans.
• Legends of Chima is widely considered this by fans of Ninjago (Chima began the same year Ninjago was originally intended to end) and the 2011 version of ThunderCats (the main character of Chima is Lion-O in LEGO form, even though the similarities end there). It's gotten to the point where the art director for ThunderCats 2011 thinks that Chima is a ThunderCats knock-off.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Buddy was a character created in 1933 by then director Earl Duvall to replace the studio's previous star, Bosko, after Harman and Ising left the studio and took the character with them. Both the audiences and the creators absolutely hated Buddy: Bob Clampett described him in an interview as "Bosko in whiteface", and the character had no comedic potential whatsoever. The first short staring him, Buddy's Day Out, was so painfully boring that it actually needed reshoots to add gags, something absolutely unheard of back in the day, and even then the completed product was a slog. Needless to say, a replacement was necessary fast, and Porky Pig managed to save face for the struggling studio during the mid 1930s.
  • The late 1960s crop of characters, namely Cool Cat, Merlin the Magic Mouse, Bunny and Claude and others, while not as bad in terms of humor as Buddy was decades prior, still ended up being pretty lackluster thanks to a combination of issues: low budgets, a minimal team composed of just five animators, a few background and layout men and a single storyman - Cal Howard, whose last experience on writing Looney Tunes characters was in 1938 (1951 if you count the fact that he and Warren Foster co-wrote the short Canned Feud, which is nevertheless one of the most polarizing shorts), but most notably thanks to the director Alex Lovy (who previously worked on Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy shorts) being absolutely inexperienced with the rapid style of the usual Warner cartoon. The situation improved when Robert McKimson took over the studio, creating some pretty decent shorts overall, but that wasn't enough to bring the theatergoers back, and the studio shuttered forever in 1969.
• The Loud House: This tends to happen with the love interests, though they often become base-breaking characters instead of full-blown Scrappies:
  • In Seasons 2-3, Leni dated a boy named Chaz. By The Loud House Movie, she has broken up with him offscreen, and has had feelings for an unnamed boy with cowlicks in "Undercover Mom", and a boy named Scott in the movie, before starting to date a boy named Gavin in Season 7. The unnamed boy, Scott, and Gavin are all sometimes hated by fans who want Leni to stay with Chaz, and Gavin is sometimes hated by people who want her to be with Scott.
  • Ronnie Anne was Ship Teased with Lincoln initially, but "L is for Love" showed him crushing on a girl named Paige, which sparked debate over whether Lincoln should be with Ronnie Anne or Paige (or neither).
  • Lucy had a crush on Rocky Spokes (the brother of Lincoln's friend Rusty) in "Back in Black", but started crushing on another boy, Silas, in "L is for Love". This caused debate, with people who preferred Rocky thinking Silas was too similar to Lucy, and people who preferred Silas thinking Rocky was "just a plot device".
• Many fans of The Magic School Bus weren't happy when The Magic School Bus Rides Again replaced Valerie Frizzle and Phoebe with Fiona Frizzle and Jyoti, respectively. While the elder Ms. Frizzle at least still appears during the Every Episode Ending (and the original series ended with her retirement anyway), Phoebe wasn't so lucky—she receives a throwaway line about "transferring back to her old school" and is then simply never mentioned again, with Jyoti taking her place in the class.
• Miraculous Ladybug has Su-Han. While Master Fu was a Base-Breaking Character, Su-Han is a mediocre replacement at best due to his arguably even greater ineptitude regarding the Miracle Box as well as being absent when he is needed most.
• My Friends Tigger & Pooh:
  • Darby basically takes over Christopher Robin's role as the Token Human, which led to her gaining a few detractors. Later episodes feature Christopher Robin as well, which warmed her up to some viewers, but others still think of her as his inferior replacement.
  • Beaver is often unfavourably compared to Gopher, who was Adapted Out, due to both being small, industrious animals.
• Pick a generation of My Little Pony. Expect the main protagonists of future generations to be this to that gen. Noticeable examples tend to be Firefly vs Rainbow Dash and Surprise vs Pinkie, since the latter ponies are heavily based on those ponies.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Despite Sunset Shimmer hailing from a separate series, many criticized Starlight Glimmer for being an inferior replacement rather than having Sunset appear in the show. Besides Sunset's redemption arc being a Tough Act to Follow, Starlight was far more Easily Forgiven for far worse with everyone praising her despite continued bad habits and her redeeming moments requiring everyone else look bad with her getting far too much time in the spotlight (many fans even disparagingly refer to Season 6 as "The Starlight Glimmer show"). This died down during Season 7 which showed she got a different story direction, distinct personality, own characters dynamics, and far less time in the spotlight, but if it redeemed her is contentious.
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders' Story Arc had effectively concluded by Season 7, so in Season 8 they were Demoted to Extra in favor of the Young Six Gallus, Silverstream, Smolder, Yona, Sandbar, and Ocellus. While they had fans and were liked for Worldbuilding their respective species cultures, many found them comparatively Flat Characters who never got the chance to endear themselves like the Crusaders did.
  • King Sombra pulled this on himself in Season 9, his return decanonizing their widely-praised Tragic Villain portrayal from the comics in lieu of generic villainy ^note Though some fans consider this also decanonizing the controversial follow-up where he was redeemed and turned into a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for the King Sombra from the also controversial Reflections arc to be Worth It.. While a Love to Hate character by his own merits, this new take on Sombra also lacked the ruthlessness or competency of his debut that made fans want him to return.
• An In-Universe example from The Owl House, with Darius seeing Hunter as one. When he was younger, Darius was mentored by the Golden Guard, a powerful witch with a massive rebellious streak who he clearly became very close to. The Golden Guard disappeared under mysterious circumstances one day, and while Darius was grieving that loss, the title of Golden Guard was given to Belos's nephew Hunter, a loud, moody teenager who would take orders from anyone if they offered him even the slightest scrap of approval. Darius spent years taking his grief out on Hunter, believing he didn't deserve to have the title that used to belong to his mentor, and wilfully blinding himself to the fact that Hunter was being severely abused by Belos. Darius ends up warming up to Hunter after he disobeys a direct order to protect his new friends in "Any Sport in a Storm" — but by this point the abuse had been going on for years.
• PAW Patrol's "Mighty Pups" saga brought along a new villain named Ladybird, whose shtick is that she steals whatever she can get her hands on. Ladybird was already a Base-Breaking Character for her annoying voice, but something else fans derided her for was being too similar to Sid Swashbuckle, the villain of the "Sea Patrol" saga and one of the series' fan favourites, who had been missing from the series for quite some time when Ladybird made her debut. The producers seemed to have taken the hint, as Ladybird was later retired while Swashbuckle returned to the series.
• Fans of Planet Sketch consider Melville from season 2 a poor replacement for June Spume.
• ReBoot
  • A case of this happening in-series is 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.
  • Parodied in the second 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.
• While not a character example, try finding any fan of Recess who didn't hate Myles Jeffrey's performance as T.J. in Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade and Recess: All Growed Down, the two Direct to Video movies released in 2003 after the show ended. Due to T.J.'s previous voice actor, Andrew Lawrence, going through puberty between the time the last episode was produced and the time the two DTV movies were produced, he was replaced with Myles Jeffrey. Jeffrey, unfortunately, gets tons of flack from almost the entirety of the fanbase due to his portrayal of T.J. having a much higher voice with less of the emotion Andrew Lawrence gave him. Some fans even find it frustrating as at the time (2002-2003), Disney did have some child voice actors who sounded enough like Andrew Lawrence's T.J. This trope was actually previously avoided when Andrew Lawrence replaced Ross Malinger as the voice of T.J. at the beginning of season two, due to Ross Malinger's voice breaking. Some fans even thought that Andrew Lawrence was an even better voice for T.J., which may contribute to the fact that the second season is widely considered to be the point where the show grew the beard.
• The Simpsons:
  • Parodied in the episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet"; when Barney replaces Wiggum in the titular band, Wiggum spitefully organises a gang of fans to picket their next gig shouting "Wiggum forever! Barney never!" at the stage, while Wiggum watches with a smug smile on his face. Then Barney opens his mouth, reveals he can sing ten times better than Wiggum, and the chants immediately switch to "Barney forever! Wiggum never!" Wiggum ends up slinking out of the bar unnoticed. Like most of the episode, this parodies a similar situation The Beatles faced (specifically, when Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best).
  • Also parodied in the infamous episode "The Principal and the Pauper", in which Principal Skinner is revealed to be an impostor named Armin Tamzarian who assumed Skinner's identity when the latter was assumed dead. The real Skinner (voiced by Martin Sheen) takes Armin's place as principal while Armin leaves town. However, despite the real Skinner being a nice and reasonable fellow, the other Springfield citizens decide to kick him out of town (even his mother, who preferred the doormat Armin to the independent Seymour) and get a judge to order everyone never speak of this again under penalty of torture because… they prefer the old Skinner. There's a reason most fans (and some writers) follow suit and pretend this episode never happened.
  • Parodied in the "Behind The Laughter" episode which explains that, while Bart was serving jail time for assaulting a flight attendant, his role was taken by Richie Rich and said episodes proved highly unpopular.
  • Happened to Marge's current German voice actress Anke Engelke – she took over after Marge's original voice Elisabeth Volkmann passed away in 2006. This also happened to Christoph Jablonka, the new voice actor for Homer Simpson since Norbert Gastell, who was almost universally beloved by German Simpsons fans, died at the (admittedly quite proud) age of 86.
  • This also happens a lot in the Brazilian dub, as the studio constantly replaces the voice actors for any reason. The most emblematic case was in 2007, when Homer's voice actor Waldyr Sant'Anna was withdrawn from the series due to a lawsuit he had moved against Fox, due to the unauthorized use of his voice in The Simpsons DVD box sets. Shortly before the movie, he was replaced by Carlos Alberto, who inevitably received heavy backlash from the Brazilian fans.
  • Gil Gunderson is often seen as one for Lionel Hutz, as he fills the same role of an incompetent authority figure who's usually on the side of the family. After the tragic death of Phil Hartman, Gil tended to assume the role of the family's attorney in any court-related episodes, but with Hutz's charming idiocy and slimeball panache replaced by a whiny Straw Loser. It doesn't help that Gil's debut episode also happened to be Hutz's final episode before becoming Demoted to Extra.
• South Park:
  • Parodied when Kenny died "permanently" (he came back after one season), the three remaining boys took a previously minor character, Butters, as his replacement. They then proceeded to manipulate and torture him, constantly comparing him to their sadly missed Kenny to try to force him to do things their way. After a few episodes they "fired" him for not being good enough, and replaced him with another minor character, Tweek. Interestingly, the boys warm up to him a lot quicker (aside from Cartman), even though he also vanished after a few episodes. Meanwhile Butters, despite being officially "demoted", actually wound up being a subversion both in and out universe – even after Kenny's resurrection he continues to be a major character on par with the others, as well as quite the Ensemble Dark Horse, his relationship with the other boys is also developed somewhat (only a season later it is made clear the others at least like him a lot more than Cartman).
    • Also parodied much earlier in "Succubus" when Chef quits his job as the school chef and is replaced with a skinny white Cloudcuckoolander named Mr. Derp, who has No Fourth Wall and believes that the viewers will love him as much as Chef.
    • Within the fanbase, both Butters and Tweek had actually received backlash from fans that missed Kenny. When Butters had been replaced with Tweek (although it too wouldn't last long), his fans also cried foul and directed their anger at the other character. In the end after all was said and done, Butters' role continued to grow in the series while Tweek's appearances decreased, culminating in him vanishing from the classroom scenes in season 15, though he did begin to regain a role as a supporting character outside the main boys after the show became serialised.
  • Detective Yates gets this treatment for replacing the much funnier Officer Barbrady. Being an unmitigated Jerkass Idiot Houdini who's a Rabid Cop at best and a Killer Cop at worst doesn't help either.
• Many Super Mario Bros. fans 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, though granted, he didn't appear in the original Super Mario World game), despite the fact that no cavepeople, including Oogtar, ever appeared in the Super Mario World video game. Didn't help that the cartoon already had Yoshi for that kind of role, meaning Oogtar was completely pointless.
• During the ninth season of the original Teenage Mutant 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, many fans found that he lacked the charm of his predecessors.
• Teen Titans (2003): After threatening and iconic villain Slade was seemingly defeated for good at the end of season 2, hammy and incompetent Brother Blood took his place in season 3 as the Arc Villain. Thankfully, Slade was brought back in season 4.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • Emily was considered to be this by some fans for a while, as her role of the eighth Steam Team member left Duck Demoted to Extra. The "Emily replaced Duck!" issue was acknowledged in a rather cruel light in Season 18's "Duck and the Slip Coaches", where Emily comes to the sheds twice and finds them full due to Duck taking residence for those nights.
  • Nia and Rebecca get a lot of flak for replacing Edward and Henry as members of the Steam Team, and being underdeveloped.
  • Longtime fans of Jack and the Pack have not taken well to Brenda taking Byron's position as the Sodor Construction Company's bulldozer in the Digs & Discoveries special.
• Toonami gets hit hard with this: the first 3 TOMs 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 & Friends, and his limbs looked like vacuum cleaner hoses. And they replaced SARA, his AI sidekick, with a couple of 'explorer robots'. Much earlier, TOM himself got hit with this when he introduced himself as "the new Moltar" though fans quickly warmed up to him.
• The Total Drama fandom went through this phase with the announcement of the fourth season and the fact that there would be a new cast replacing the old one, and needless to say, it did NOT going well for fans of the original cast.
  • When it was announced that Don would be the host for "The Ridonculous Race", many fans that liked Chris McLean did not take the news very well.
• The Transformers:
  • 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, but he was partly responsible for the death of his predecessor (his attempt to help Optimus during his climactic battle with Megatron just gave Megatron a chance to fatally wound him). Worse, he was sometimes insecure over his leadership abilities, when he wasn't also being sharply sarcastic. However, 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.
  • Most of the Season 3 cast developed strong followings, mostly thanks to getting a lot more Character Focus compared to the Cast Herd of earlier seasons. However, very few defenders exist for Daniel and Wheelie, who filled the "younger robot and Tagalong Kid" slot previously filled by Spike and Bumblebee. Spike and Bumblebee are considered by a lot of fans to be how to do a Kid-Appeal Character right, with their understated roles, genuine competence, and charming eagerness. On the other hand, Daniel and Wheelie are considered to be how to do it wrong - Daniel, for being too young, constantly crying, and acting like an idiot, Wheelie, for his dorky design, constantly rhyming, and having the tracker/survivalist elements of his character constantly downplayed in favor of making him Robot Dennis the Menace.
• Ultimate Spider-Man is seen as this for The Spectacular Spider-Man by many. Even though Spectacular's fate was sealed, Ultimate gets a lot of flak for being Denser and Wackier, with the drama and dark tone replaced with slapstick and fourth wall jokes, and not being faithful to any existing version of Spider-Man.
• The VeggieTales spin-off VeggieTales in the House introduced Ichabeezer, while long-time cast member Mr. Nezzer disappeared. Many fans were disappointed. While Ichabeezer is voiced by Rob Paulsen, that's really the only thing long-time Veggie fans tend to like about the character.
• Winx Club:
  • Roy's fate was sealed from the moment the fandom's infamous Nabu fangirls first discovered his existence, thinking it would ruin any chance of the latter just hiding. It also didn't help that he was a massive Flat Character with no personality.
  • The selkies seem are this for the pixies, being essentially rehashes without anything that made the pixies likable. Thankfully they don't return after season 5.