Sandbox / Dueling Works Wick Check

Dueling Works is supposed to be "two works with similar premises debuting around the same time", according to both the Laconic and the main description. Many of the on-page examples instead compare two works that don't have similar premises and/or didn't come out around the same time. This wick check was made to determine if the same kind of misuse holds true for off-page examples.

Wicks checked: 50/50, 82% misuse rate

• Correct: 9 (18%)
• Not similar: 9 (18%)
• Not made at the same time: 7 (14%)
• Breaks both rules: 9 (18%)
• Other misuse: 16 (32%)

Correct examples (9/50)

• Trivia.Elizabethtown: With Garden State, another movie about a depressed man regaining his confidence thanks to his romantic interactions with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. In fact, both movies essentially codified this character archetype in fiction. The big difference is that Garden State had a favorable reception among critics and audiences not to mention that it far better at the box office than Elizabethtown which was widely seen as an imitator of that film. The premises for both movies are similar enough, and there's only a year difference in release dates.
• Trivia.The Wire: With FX's The Shield, another gritty crime drama about the day-to-day lives of a special police unit. Both shows even ran for six years and shared some of the cast members. Both shows came out in 2002.
• Trivia.Crash Tag Team Racing: With Jak X: Combat Racing, another combat racer where the characters compete and use various weapons on each other. The two were released only a month apart from each other, so there were some comparisons. Interestingly, Jak X was developed by Naughty Dog, makers of the original Crash Bandicoot games. The Nintendo DS version would have also been this with Mario Kart DS, had it been released.
• Trivia.Scary Movie: For some reason, a group of other filmmakers had the same idea to make a slasher spoof around the time of the first Scary Movie, called Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th. To avoid lawsuits due to the similarities, it was delayed and released direct-to-video. Scary Movie wound up being more commercially successful, better known, and somewhat better received than Shriek.
• Trivia.WKRP In Cincinnati: It debuted a few months after the release of the comedy film FM, which has a similar setting and characters, but a slightly different premise.^Explanation They're both about a rock radio station with a cast of colorful characters, centered on a maverick program director who struggles with his more corporate-minded managers. The station in FM is wildly successful and the DJs are worried about being forced to Sell-Out. WKRP is a failing AM station that starts playing rock out of desperation, and it's the management who feels like they've sold out. While WKRP is sometimes called a Spiritual Adaptation of FM, the pilot was written before the film came out, and Hugh Wilson was concerned that the film might undercut the show's success.
• YMMV.Shaman King: With Hunter × Hunter. Both started publication the same year (with Hunter x Hunter predating it by three months), they both have a magic rule set that allows them to turn everyday objects into deadly weapons, and they both have the hero's friendly rival being a child raised by a family of assassins. Shouldn't be on the YMMV page (Dueling Works is trivia) but otherwise sounds valid.
• Trivia.A Hat In Time: With Super Mario Odyssey, as both are classic-styled 3D Collectathon platformers with a huge focus on hats released in the same month.
• Trivia.Days Gone: With World War Z (2019). Saber Interactive were able to secure the well-known World War Z License and were starting development when they had seen Days Gone. Though they were daunted by the AAA marketing budget, they knew Days Gone would get and though would distract from WWZ's release, and so they approached Bend about making a multiplayer mode for the game using their work for WWZ as a baseline. Bend passed on the prospect, feeling like it'd be a compromise of their vision. Both ended up releasing ten days apart in April 2019 and selling notably well, with WWZ selling over 2 million in its first month and Days Gone ending up #8 in the top 10 sales for North America in 2019, but both also got So Okay, It's Average Reviews. The example doesn't mention this, but both games have the basic premise of the player character surviving a virus that turns people into bloodthirsty monsters. No, I'm not talking about COVID.
• WesternAnimation.The Mask: This show and Freakazoid!. They both ran from 1995-1997, and they both feature mild-mannered everyguys taking on an insane yet heroic persona. Freakazoid was actually a little Denser and Wackier than The Mask because there weren’t really any straight characters (except maybe Cosgrove, and even he’s The Comically Serious). It also didn’t see nearly as much success, unfortunately. Only one problem with this example: why is it on the show's main page?

The works aren't similar (9/50)

• Trivia.Sakura Wars So Long My Love: The worldwide release occurred around the same month as Final Fantasy XIII, another well-known JRPG. Sakura Wars: So Long My Love was originally released in 2005, but ended up with a bad case of Late Export for You. From what I can tell in the pages' descriptions, the plots of these games are completely different.
• Trivia.Half Life 1: More or less in direct competition with SiN, which came out two weeks earlier, and Blood II: The Chosen, which came out the day after. Neither of them really stood a chance. The plots aren't very similar from what I can tell.
• Trivia.Nintendo Wars: At the time of it's original 1988 release, Nintendo Wars had two contemporary rivals. Daisenryaku and Nectaris. Both of them are Turn-Based Strategies that have significant differences from Nintendo Wars. If they have significant differences, how are they supposed to fit the trope?
• Trivia.The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air: With Family Matters. Both series made occasional mention of the fact that James Avery and Reginald VelJohnson looked similar; Avery himself appeared in the closing of one Family Matters episode that lampshaded the similarities. In a later Fresh Prince episode, Jaleel White guest-starred as one of Ashley's boyfriends. Fresh Prince is about a kid from the ghetto moving in with his rich relatives after getting in a fight with a street gang. Family Matters is a more generic show about a working-class family. And Urkel. Hardly similar enough for a true "duel".
• Plot Tailored to the Party: Zoom: Academy for Superheroes, which regrettably came out about the same time as Sky High, shows the skeleton of its plot a little too often. The worst example of this is in the Final Battle, which isn't so much a battle as a recital. The Big Bad talks big for a few minutes, then gets hit by every main character's power exactly once, which puts him exactly where he needs to be so they can Finish Him!. The films have completely different plots; Zoom is about a superhero training a group of kids so they can battle his brother who went crazy, Sky High is about a seemingly normal kid going to a school for superheroes. The entry also reads like complaining, and the pothole doesn't do anything to help it.
• Trivia.Blame It On Rio: This was one of two "boudoir farce" movies of 1984, the other being The Woman in Red. Joseph Bologna appeared in both movies. The plots are completely different; Both movies involve a man nearly cheating on his wife, but there aren't any other similarities.
• Trivia.This Is Spinal Tap: Released a few months after Zelig, the other Mockumentary Trope Codifier. Spinal Tap is about a fictional rock band, Zelig is about a shapeshifter. Just being in the same genre isn't enough to fit the description.
• Trivia.The Postman: Released on the same day as James Cameron's Titanic. You've probably heard how Titanic is one of the highest-grossing movies ever made. These movies aren't even remotely similar.
• VindicatedByHistory.Animated Films:
  • All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) earned about 27 million in the United States market, and professional reviews were mostly negative. The fact that it was released on the same day as The Little Mermaid didn't help either. But it became a smash hit when released on video, considered "one of the top-selling VHS releases of all time". It has gone on to be highly regarded by animation fans. Same as above. Two works simply being released on the same day doesn't matter if the works themselves are nothing alike, per the description.

The works weren't released at the same time (7/50)

• Trivia.All Grown Up: As a result of the Rugrats characters being aged up, All Grown Up got into a duel with As Told by Ginger. In fact, there were brief ideas to tackle more mature themes with the Rugrats characters in middle school, but they opted to keep things relatively light-hearted - as As Told By Ginger was already dealing with those themes. Both shows were made by the same company, and As Told By Ginger predates All Grown Up! by three years.
• Trivia.Billions: With Succession, another cable dramedy set in New York and populated with a cast of rich, scheming, morally bankrupt people. Billions predates Succession by two years.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Both 1960s/1970s TV Westerns The Big Valley and Bonanza had the same thing happening: every time a male character on the show got serious with a woman or got married, she got killed off in some gruesome fashion or died of some horrible disease, or in childbirth, on the same episode. (Exception: Hoss' mother on Bonanza lasted two episodes.) In fact, the Cartwright Curse is named for Bonanza's Cartwright family. The Big Valley was a Dueling Work with Bonanza, and basically the same but with a female lead and a daughter to better represent women. They sound similar enough. But Bonanza predates The Big Valley by six years. It's also pretty general and kinda natter-y, but we're not focusing on that.
• Literature.Escapist Dream: Due to being famous for its pop culture references, it's been compared to a similar novel entitled Ready Player One. Ready Player One predates Escapist Dream by nine years.
• Trivia.What A Cartoon Show: With Oh Yeah! Cartoons due to both blocks consisting of various pilots for potential cartoon shows, though not until the late '90s. What a Cartoon stopped airing new episodes a year before Oh Yeah came out.
• Trivia.Barney And Friends:
  • Wee Sing and Kidsongs, predated Barney by three years ^note The former inspired Sheryl Leach to create the Barney series, but all three were programs using traditional children's songs to entertain and educate young children. Also, like Barney, Kidsongs would get a TV adaptation which added a pair of costumed characters that weren't seen in the videos (for Barney, it was BJ, and for Kidsongs, the Biggles were the characters added). Both also aired on public TV. ^note Kidsongs wasn't neccesarily a PBS program, per se, but rather syndicated by American Public Television, meaning public TV stations not affiliated with PBS could also run the show. When Universal ^note who ironically owns Universal Studios Florida, the home of A Day in the Park with Barney got distribution rights to the Wee Sing videos in the mid-90's, they created two characters named Singaling and Warbly to rival Barney with little success.
  • With Sesame Street. In the first few years of its run, Barney & Friends beat Sesame Street in ratings. Sesame responded by making several changes to their program: the street was brightened and cleaned up for Season 25 (ironically reflecting the real-life gentrification of major American cities) and a new "Around the Corner" setting was added. In addition, a ton of new human and Muppet characters (Zoe in particular) were added to counter Barney's success. Despite this, both shows' production crews were mostly friendly with each other, as evidenced by the "We Are Family" crossover music video Barney appeared in with Big Bird.
  • There was also the duel with shows like Blue's Clues and Bear in the Big Blue House in the late 90's, which resulted in more Fake Interactivity segments being added to the show.
  • Barney and Friends came out in 1992. Both Kidsongs and the first Wee Sing video came out in 1985, Sesame Street came out in 1969, Blue's Clues in 1996, and Bear in the Big Blue House in 1997. There are some aspects of a duel here, but strictly speaking, none of these shows came out close enough to Barney to fit the trope's definition.
• Trivia.Among Us: With the lesser-known Space Station 13. Both games have a similar setting, and both games feature mechanics like Werewolf (1997). There's even an antagonist that is also inspired by The Thing in the form of the Changeling. The game are similar in concept, but Space Station 13 came out in 2003, 15 years before Among Us'' was released, and 17 years before anyone knew about it.

Breaks both rules (9/50)

• YMMV.Dexter: Played with in the case of Breaking Bad's final season. Dexter's final (at the time) season aired alongside Breaking Bad's, and Dexter's was much criticized while Breaking Bad's was loved. Because both shows had a Villain Protagonist, were popular before ending, and airing near each other in time slot, they were compared as if they were Dueling Works. This, even though they're not alike outside of focusing on a bad guy. The example outright admits the shows aren't very similar, plus Dexter predates Breaking Bad by two years. Also "played with" on a Trivia item on a YMMV page.
• Trivia.King Of The Hill: With The Simpsons (which co-creator Greg Daniels used to write for), as those were the only two animated series on Fox before Family Guy, Futurama, and other animated sitcoms^note (a lot of which lasted for all but one season, such as the animated adaptation of Napoleon Dynamite or the American version of Sit Down, Shut Up) or the notoriously awful Allan Gregory, while other shows, such as Bless The Harts, Duncanville, and Bob's Burgers are fan-favorites that have stayed on started appearing. Simpsons writer, Mike Reiss, bashed the show, saying (paraphrased), "if I wanted to not be funny, I'd write for King of the Hill". Doesn't explain how the shows are similar, plus The Simpsons predates King Of The Hill by nearly a decade. The Parabombing and the note inside it are also unnecessary.
• Trivia.Pretty Series: As a whole, with the Aikatsu! franchise, since almost every one of its properties went head to head with Aikatsu's properties. It's terribly one sided though, since the Pretty Series usually wins out. The first Aikatsu game came out in 2014, four years after Pretty Rhythm Mini Skirt. And going by the pages' descriptions, there don't seem to be many similarities outside of both being Japanese rhythm games.
• Trivia.Vectorman: with Donkey Kong Country. Both games drew attention for their use of computer graphics in their sprite work. DKC came out over a year before Vectorman, and "their use of computer graphics in their sprite work" isn't enough of a similarity.
• YMMV.I Hate Fairyland: Not exactly "dueling" since they're published by the same company, but it makes an interesting companion piece to Birthright. They both deconstruct the "child lost in magical world" genre by showing the child grown to adulthood in the magical world, they're both violent and gory, and both feature highly morally ambiguous protagonists. However, while I Hate Fairyland is a Black Comedy set in a cartoonish Crapsaccharine World which the protagonist is trapped in and trying to escape, Birthright is a serious Urban Fantasy story set on Earth which the protagonist is trying to bring the magical world into. The first sentence points out that it isn't really an example; the rest of the entry isn't much better, since the works have wildly different premises aside from the similarities mentioned. Birthright also came out over a year before Fairyland.
• Trivia.A Talking Cat: With Nine Lives (2016). Aside from being a ZCE, the films have completely different plots, and the former came out three years before the latter.
• Trivia.New Super Mario Bros: New Super Mario Bros. Wii to Rayman Origins (and to a lesser extent, Sonic the Hedgehog 4) and New Super Mario Bros. U to Rayman Legends. Also a ZCE, and the only real similarity is that these are all platformers. The plots are completely different. Also, NSMBW came out two years before Rayman Origins, and NSMBU came out one year before Legends.
• Trivia.Ready Jet Go: With Miles from Tomorrowland, another show in which kids explore space. Ready Jet Go is about an alien living on Earth, while Miles from Tomorrowland is about a human family living on a spaceship; if "exploring space" is enough of a similarity, then surely Futurama could also fit here. Also, the latter show predates the former by a year.
• Trivia.Steven Universe: Tends to be seen as this with Land of the Lustrous, especially once the anime adaptation started. This is a bit strange, since they have few similarities, other than the basic concept of humanoid beings made of gemstones (Lustrous is a seinen CGI manga/anime loaded with Mind Screw and Buddhist imagery, Steven is a traditionally-animated American adventure story with a Kid Hero and musical numbers). The example outright admits there aren't a lot of similarities. The Land of the Lustrous anime also aired in 2017, four years after Steven Universe came out.

ZCE/Other misuse (16/50)

• Trivia.Ka Blam, under What Could Have Been:
  • A Nicktoon spinoff for Stewy the Dog Boy was planned but didn't surface thanks to Disney's Teacher's Pet. One of the works in this "duel" never got made, so it seems awfully one-sided.
• Completely Different Title.Italian: Norm of the North is titled Il viaggio di Norm (Norm's Journey), because it was released in Italy in the same month as The Good Dinosaur, so they hoped that inattentive kids would watch the latter. Doesn't explain how, or even if, the films are similar.
• Trivia.Captain Blood: With Mutiny on the Bounty, another naval epic. Doesn't explain if the movies are simiar besides both being "naval epics".
• Not Wearing Tights: [PROTOTYPE] too, being a Dueling Game with inFAMOUS. Although Alex does gain the ability to grow a really cool full-body armor halfway through the game. Full-body armor that looks like Guyver! ZCE for both tropes.
• Trivia.The Silence 2019: With A Quiet Place. Textbook ZCE. A Quiet Place came out a year before The Silence, by the way.
• Trivia.Schitts Creek: In what was pure coincidence, the season finale of Season 5, which was called "Life is a Cabaret" and featured the Show Within a Show of Cabaret aired the same week as the premiere of the drama Fosse/Verdon which was also called "Life is a Cabaret" and portrayed the making of the film. Sounds like it would fit better under a completely different trope. If it was pure coincidence, there probably wouldn't be a duel.
• Trivia.Fuzzy Memories: The closest thing the series has to an official rival of sorts is with fellow writer, Dark Arcanine 33's stories. However, all three writers are actually good friends, so it's less so a rivalry and more like a friendly competition with one another. You know an example is bad when it doesn't even say the name of the competitor.
• YMMV.I Dream Of Jeannie: With Bewitched. Ironically, many foreign dubs (the Italian, the Japanese, and the German dubs) changed Jeannie to be a witch. It is rumored that the dubbers mistook the show for a spin-off (or tried to retcon it into being one). This would be a good example if it actually had the proper context.
• Film.The Godfather: Two projects depicting the making of the film are in active development as of 2021 - the Barry Levinson movie Francis & The Godfather, starring Oscar Isaac as Coppola, and the Paramount+ series The Offer, based on the experiences of Godfather producer Al Ruddy. There can't be a duel if one (or in this case, both) of the competitors haven't been released yet.
• Creator.Netflix: As of the early 2020s, Netflix faces competition from other major streaming services with huge back catalogs and heavy incoming original content, Disney's Disney+/Hulu combo, WarnerMedia's HBO Max, and Prime Video, while others like NBC-Universal's Peacock are furbishing arms. The "streaming wars" have begun. Streaming services aren't works.
• Trivia.Game Theory: With Gnoggin and Vsauce. ...And? Vsauce doesn't even talk about video games.
• Trivia.SNK:
  • Dueling Games: As noted on the main page, SNK was the big-name rival of Capcom back in the 1990s. This rivalry was plasmed in the most predictable way possible. Aside from the pothole (which isn't allowed), game developers aren't works.
• Trivia.Juno Songs: How a lot of fans see him and Man on the Internet, when in reality, the two have to repeatedly clarify that they aren't this. Seems awfully subjective for a Trivia page...
• Trivia.Love Island: With Big Brother UK. The original Love Island ended because more viewers were watching Big Brother; ironically, the revival of Love Island has better ratings than Big Brother, so the rivalry works both ways. Lists no similarities between the shows. The only thing I can figure out is that Big Brother UK came out years before Love Island.
• Trivia.Geronimo An American Legend: Walter Hill blamed the film's failure on a rival made-for-TV Geronimo biopic that aired on TNT around the same time. Again, it's not a good example if it doesn't state the name of the competitor.
• Trivia.Citizen Kane: For a long time, Citizen Kane competed for #1 on a film list with Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game. The 2012 list saw it finally replaced from Sight and Sound's Best Film List. The critics list placed Vertigo ahead of it, while the directors list placed Tokyo Story ahead of it. ...What? This isn't even close to what the trope is about.