Advertising
- In the United Kingdom, Mars had a popular advert for Milky Way that involved an (anthropomorphised) blue car racing a red car. A year or two later, they revamped their campaign by remaking the same advert...but now with blue and red spaceships racing IN SPACE!
- Pizza Hut's "Pizza Head" commercials are Saturday Night Live's Mr. Bill AS A SLICE OF PIZZA.
Asian Animation
- Squirrel and Hedgehog is Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors IN NORTH KOREA!
Comic Strips
- Inspired by Calvin and Hobbes:
- Big Nate is Calvin in sixth grade
- Frazz is Calvin in his twenties note
- Phoebe and Her Unicorn is Calvin as a girl, and Hobbes as a narcissistic unicorn (also, she's real and other characters can see her).
- Pogo is Li'l Abner IN A World of Funny Animals!
Fan Works
- Dark Secrets is a Lifetime Movie of the Week IN THE POTTERVERSE! The Last War is even more so.
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged loves this trope. Jeice is from Space Australia, Vegeta knows about The Three Stooges thanks to Space Hulu, Zarbon wants to call his girlfriend over Space Skype. Oh, and when Freeza goes to Earth, he's going to pick up some space eggs, some space milk, and Blow It The F-ck Up.
- Also Piccolo switched to Spacebook from Myspace "a while ago."
- Decks Fall Everyone Dies is Moulin Rouge!...WITH CARD GAMES! In Jamerica!
- Gonjiki Yasha Meiji Onmyōji Tales
is Onmyōji IN THE MEIJI PERIOD!
- I'm a Marvel... and I'm a DC is Seinfeld and/or Cheers note WITH SUPERHEROES!
- Invoked In Name Only seeing as My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic is just My Little Unicorn: Magic is Believing with a few extra lines and the Aesop of "believing" cut out. It's been reposted again after being taken down, with the author's notes and many of the songs now cut completely. The DeviantArt version brings back some of the songs, and attempts to rewrite some of the dialogue with barbs specifically pointed towards his critics.
- Starhorse is horses...IN SPACE!
- #TRUTHINJOURNALISM
is Man Bites Dog...WITH VENOM!
- Max Headroom in space
.
Networks
- [adult swim] is Nick @ Nite ON CARTOON NETWORK! Oh, and NOT SAFE FOR KIDS!
- Baby TV is Nick Jr. IN THE UNITED KINGDOM!
- The Hub is Nickelodeon WITH HASBRO CHARACTERS!
- When it got renamed as Discovery Family, it's more like an ABC Family clone.
- Nick Mom is Nick @ Nite FOR WOMEN!
- Space Channel is Syfy IN CANADA!
- Teletoon is Cartoon Network IN CANADA!
- YTV is Nickelodeon IN CANADA!
- Nickmusic is MTV from the 80s FOR MODERN DAY KIDS!
- Fox Family was YTV IN AMERICA! And when that didn't work, it became ABC Family, which was PAX AS A CABLE CHANNEL! And when they got tired of that it became Freeform, only now IT'S Darker and Edgier!
Pinballs
- Devil's Crush is Alien Crush in THE UNDERWORLD!
- Done literally with Gottlieb's El Dorado, which was given Science Fiction themes and re-released as Solar City and Target Alpha.
- Jack*Bot is Pin Bot WITH A CASINO THEME AND DCS SOUND!
- Alternately, Jack*Bot is The Casino IN SPACE!
- Medieval Madness is Attack from Mars in YE OLDE DARK AGES! And with more jokes, too, but who cares.
Puppet Shows
- Star Fleet is Terrahawks WITH GIANT ROBOTS! (Or at least would have been had they not been released at the same time.)
Radio
- The Green Hornet and Kato are The Lone Ranger and Tonto IN THE CITY! WITH A COOL CAR!
- Orson Welles' radio production of Julius Caesar IN A POLICE STATE! catapulted him to national fame.
- The Thrilling Adventure Hour's Sparks Nevada is an old-fashioned spaghetti western on Mars
- The Penumbra Podcast features Juno Steel, a noir detective story on Mars
Toys
- Legends of Chima is Thundercats WITH LEGOS!
- Fabuland is LEGO WITH FURRIES!
- The short-lived action figure series K9 Corps recycles the concept of the similarly short-lived Road Rovers... ONLY Darker and Edgier!
- LEGO Space is LEGO, um, IN SPACE!
- Monster High is Bratz WITH MONSTERS!
- Ever After High is Monster High WITH PRINCESSES!
- Toy designer Sillof
has actually made a hobby out of this trope, with a line of fan-made Star Wars action figures that transplants the cast of the original trilogy into different genres
. He first came to prominence with a Steampunk Star Wars line, but has since churned out a Film Noir Star Wars line, a Western Star Wars line, a Cyberpunk Star Wars line, a High Fantasy Star Wars line, a 1940s sci-fi serial Star Wars line, a Jidaigeki Star Wars line, and several others. The results are fascinating, to say the least.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures have series IN SPACE! AND PLAYING SPORTS! AND AS SUPERHEROES! AND SCUBA DIVING! AND AS CLOWNS!? ETC.!
- Transformers does this a lot, usually just to keep the brand fresh and often using just an Excuse Plot for a story. While it is Merchandise-Driven, and has really blatant examples of highlighting the gimmicks of the current toyline at the expense of the plot (looking at you, Unicron Trilogy), more modern entries have begun to focus on the lore and mythos to an extensive degree instead, or at the very least have a proper story beyond just being advertising. Really, how this trope is played in regards to Transformers varies from continuity family to continuity family.