Salt and Pepper



""She was six feet of black dynamite! He was a short Hassidic Jew.""

- Cleopatra Schwartz, The Kentucky Fried Movie

A variation on the Odd Couple, involving a white person and a black person. Usually, the white person is a strait-laced by-the-book type, while the black person is a funky, urban type who doesn't have much respect for authority. Most commonly, they're cops, assigned as partners after their old partners die/get disgusted and walk away. Generally, the two make a fairly good team if they can work out the personality clashes, with the strengths of one covering for the weaknesses of the other.

Salt and Pepper seems to be becoming subverted more often today due to increased racial awareness, so that it is the white person who is a homicidal maniac, and the black person is smart, savvy, and always the one to come up with a solution (occasionally to the point of being a Mary Sue). Another common subversion is for the black guy to be uptight and the white guy to be relaxed. An alternate version is a pairing of a white character with a Hispanic character called a "Cafe con Leche". Please note, however, that being two different races is not enough for this trope. There must be some kind of contrast in their personalities for it to work.

For American media, this may be more common in the movies (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard 1 2 AND 3) than on TV as television shows often seem more segregated.

See also Black Best Friend.

Anime and Manga

 * The Anime and Manga series Blood Plus pairs thin, ultraserious, white David with fat, easygoing, black Lewis.
 * However, despite his personality, Lewis tends to be on top of things and surprisingly competent.
 * This also features a potential inversion/subversion with the reserved and serious (black) James and the flamboyant and affectionate (white) Nathan. Both are Diva's Chevaliers, but they never actually work together in battle. Still, if all the touching and flirting is anything to go by, Nathan certainly wants them to be an Odd Couple.
 * Blood: The Last Vampire, the Alternate Continuity predecessor of Blood Plus, features different versions of David and Lewis.
 * Bleach gives us Urahara and Yoruichi, which play this trope straight and invert it. When it comes to their everyday personalities, Yoruichi is a vivacious flirtatious pepper while Urahara is a hard-to-read trickster salt. However, when it comes to mentoring Ichigo, Urahara is batshit insane white pepper of a Sink or Swim Mentor, while Yoruichi is a calm and controlled black salt whose tests, while equally dangerous, are a lot less wacky.
 * November 11 and April in Darker than Black are, respectively, a cool, collected, and impeccably-dressed charmer currently gracing the Phenotype Stereotype page and an easygoing black Bottle Fairy who dresses like a party girl and dyes her hair bright blue has naturally bright blue hair. They're antagonists, though.

Comic Books

 * Iron Fist (white martial arts master raised in an other-dimensional city) and Power Man (wrongfully accused black ex-con living in Times Square and freelancing as a superhero) in the Marvel comic Heroes for Hire. Both were created in the '70s during the kung-fu and Blaxploitation crazes. Best Odd Couple ever.
 * From the same era are the Daughters of the Dragon: the asian Colleen Wing and black Misty Knight, combining inspirations from Charlie's Angels and Cleopatra Jones.
 * And The Defiant Ones gets another nod in the supervillains Hammer and Anvil, a pair of escaped convicts whose powers and lives are linked by the chain that binds them.
 * Quantum and Woody (uptight middle-class black guy, street smart white guy, sharing a power ala The Defiant Ones) was a later take on the Power Man/Iron Fist idea by Christopher Priest, who used to write the comic. Quantum and Woody are even briefly shown dressed as Luke and Danny during a costume shop montage.
 * Concession skewered this with a fake advertisement.
 * Tom and Sarah Dubois in The Boondocks are an inversion. Tom is the straightest-laced character in the show; whereas Sarah, his white wife, is at least naughty enough to fileshare, and is irked by her husband's irrational fear of getting caught breaking the law.
 * Marvel's Cloak and Dagger.
 * Also from Marvel Comics is Captain America (comics) and his former partner The Falcon. They don't team-up as often as they used to but they invoked this trope, although both are very straight-laced.
 * There is also the USAgent and Battle Star, a b-list Anti-Hero Substitute to Cap and his African American partner. Agent is the more violent of the two while Battle Star is more sensible.
 * Gorsky and Butch - at one point they argued which of them should be the relaxed one. Generally, Gorsky (who, despite the Polish surname is the black one) tends to be the smarter and more experienced - except for his unfortunate tendency to walk right into every Stereotype Reaction Gag that comes his way.

Fan Fic

 * In Keepers of the Elements, there are two notable subversions. With Travis and Milah, Travis is the straight-laced, by the book one and Milah is is the more outgoing, risk-taking one. The other subversion is that of Nasira and Hasim, Nasira being the straight-laced one and Hasim is the fun loving one, who while he doesn't go against the rules, is certainly more flexible when it comes to them.

Film
"Black Hammer: Mine fell harder! White Lightning: But mine were deader!"
 * The Trope Namer is 1968 movie Salt and Pepper, starring Peter Lawford (as Christopher Pepper) and Sammy Davis Jr (as Charles Salt).
 * The 1958 film The Defiant Ones follows escaped, shackled-together convicts Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis, as their mutual hostility slowly turns into an unlikely friendship.
 * Agents J and K, from the Men in Black movies and animated series; in the original comic, both were white.
 * With the occasional lampshade hanging, such as J giving their names as "Mr. Black and Mr. White"
 * To clarify, Will Smith was "Mr. White", while Tommy Lee Jones was "Mr. Black."
 * Further subversion in the Lethal Weapon series: the by-the-book (and black) Roger Murtaugh is nearing retirement from the police force, while new partner Martin Riggs is the titular lethal weapon.
 * Se7en did the same.
 * Displayed in Rush Hour, except with the white character replaced by a Chinese character (Jackie Chan).
 * Maybe it should be called Pepper and Mustard?
 * Parodied in a Show Within a Show during Major League 2 called Black Hammer, White Lightning, with a pair of Salt and Pepper-ish Rambo wannabes. Featured such such Witty Banter as this:

""While she burnt the ghetto to the ground, he light the sabbath candles by night.""
 * Given a Canadian twist in Bon Cop, Bad Cop, with a by-the-book Torontonian cop and a Montreal Cowboy Cop.
 * Jack Cates and Reggie Hammond in the movie 48 HRS.
 * Subverted in the movie Amos and Andrew, with Samuel L. Jackson as uptight Andrew and Nicolas Cage as crazy criminal Amos.
 * Predating most of these examples and the buddy-cop formula were the pairings of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. A key supporting role for Pryor in 1976's Silver Streak (Wilder's lead character is forced to team up with him) was so successful that 1980's Stir Crazy was an out-and-out buddy film. The pair teamed again for See No Evil Hear No Evil (1989) and Another You (1991).
 * Robin Hood and Azeem in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves may qualify.
 * And similar (being an Affectionate Parody), Robin Hood: Men in Tights had the very British Robin Hood with Hatchoo, who is so Jive Turkey that he wears his hat backwards..
 * Parodied beautifully in the Cleopatra Schwartz segment of The Kentucky Fried Movie, with the titular black woman (an over-the-top action hero) married to a mild-mannered Hassidic Jew.


 * Sheriff Bart (black) and the Waco Kid (white) in Blazing Saddles.
 * Running Scared (1986), with CowboyCops Hughes and Costanzo.
 * Detective Virgil Tibbs and Sheriff Bill Gillespie from In the Heat of the Night, both the 1967 movie and its 1988 TV show.
 * Reversed in The Man, featuring all-business Samuel L. Jackson opposite trying-too-hard-to-be-cool-and-failing-horribly Eugene Levy, and used straight in two Queen Latifah movies: Taxi, opposite Jimmy Fallon, and Bringing Down the House, opposite Steve Martin.
 * Osmosis Jones is this, on a microcosmic level- Ozzy is a white blood cell paired with a cold pill. The voice actors being Chris Rock and David Hyde Pierce make it apparent from first glance this is the trope they were implying.
 * Samuel L. Jackson was paired with Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight, first as Scary Black Man and Scared White Captive, then it looked like it would be played straight, then it was inverted after Geena recovered her memory of being a pro assassin, and became scarier.
 * James Belushi and Tupac Shakur in Gang Related. Both corrupt cops, but Tupac's character is the more sensible of the two.
 * There's also Tupac and Tim Roth as drug addicts in Gridlock'd.
 * Police officer Ned Ravine and his black partner in Fatal Instinct.
 * No less than three sets in King of New York: drug lord Frank White (salt) and his right-hand goon Jimmy Jump (pepper), Frank's Bodyguard Babes Melanie (salt) and Raye (pepper), and Rabid Cops Denis Gilley (salt) and Tommy Flanigan (pepper).
 * Rising Sun, with Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery.
 * John McClane and Zeus Carver in Die Hard With a Vengeance. Subverted in that neither one of them have much of a respect for authority.
 * Pulp Fiction has the duo of Jules Winnfield (a Scary Black Man played by Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (a soft-spoken, slightly dorky white guy played by John Travolta). Both are prone to moments of deep philosophical insight, leading to a lot of Seinfeldian Conversation.
 * Just to clarify, "Vega" can be a Russian surname instead of a Spanish one. So this isn't necessarily "Cafe Con Pepper."
 * A good example is The Color of Friendship about Mahree Bok, an snobby white South African who is excited about spending a semester in America and Piper Dellums, her black host family sister who is eager to get back to her African roots.

Literature

 * Detritus and Cuddy (and later Littlebottom) in Discworld are a troll/dwarf partnership. Trolls being naturally stone-cool, and dwarfs being fairly uptight.
 * In the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester. Roz is black, and is deeply cynical and usually the by-the-book type. Chris is white, and very idealistic.
 * Stuck's leads, Tre and Nora. He's a black Genius Ditz with a slacker complex, while she's a white Stepford Snarker who can be uptight at times, depending on her mood. They end up in a happy relationship (which has its ups and downs).

Live-Action TV
"Gus: Let me guess. I'm the pepper, you're the salt."
 * Miami Vice's Crockett and Tubbs would belong to this trope if they weren't both cool.
 * The show also had another occasional salt & pepper combination in Ethnic Scrappies Izzy (hispanic) and Noogie (black), both of whom were two of the worst Jive Turkeys ever to appear on the screen. Possibly their worst moment was when they shared an A Day in the Limelight episode with Those Two Guys Switek and Zito, causing the Scrappy-o-Meter to go off the scale.
 * Not to mention the heroes' Distaff Counterparts, Gina and Trudy (also hispanic and black).
 * Parodied in ads for Bacardi rum featuring "Bacardi and Cola", where Bacardi was the white guy and Cola (naturally) the dark fellow.
 * Bakersfield PD
 * The seasons of Law and Order featuring Briscoe and Green. And then Fontana and Green. And now Lupo and Bernard.
 * It goes back further than that-- the very first A.D.A.s, Stone and Robinette.
 * The seasons of Law And Order: Special Victims Unit featuring Munch and Jefferies or Munch and Tutola.
 * Angel's Wes and Gunn, who notably reversed roles during the show's run. Wes started out as a strait-laced, tightly-wound British stereotype and evolved into a brooding, morally ambiguous badass, while Gunn started out running a vampire-hunting street gang but later, thanks to some Applied Phlebotinum, became a sharp-suited lawyer.
 * I Spy, although as with Miami Vice, they're both equally cool.
 * A Mad TV sketch spoofed this trope in a bit called "Night and Day", about a male black cop forced to partner with an albino woman. They learn to work together while taking cover in the villain's lair, conveniently fronted by a blackboard and whiteboard factory.
 * Reversed memorably on Hill Street Blues, with the rational, mild-mannered black cop Bobby Hill (played by Michael Warren) teamed with loud, white, redneck Andy Renko (Charles Haid.) These uniformed patrol officers were shot and presumed dead in the 1980 pilot episode, but the charismatic pairing appealed to both the producers and audience. Hill and Renko returned to duty from a prolonged hospitalization in time for the first season of Hill Street Blues and were a mainstay of the series throughout its run.
 * A 2006 series of Twinings tea commercials in the UK featured the incredibly English Stephen Fry (the "face" of Twinings since 2005) running a tea shop with a Jive Turkey named Tyrone, who suggested the Earl Grey slogan could be "Feel the zing in your ding-a-ling!"
 * Psych's main characters are the laid-back, street-smart white Shawn and his uptight, eminently nerdy black partner Gus. This was even played upon in a commercial for the show, where they performed "Ebony and Ivory" together. Also, the "Black and Tan" episode.
 * Gus was Tan, Shawn was Black. And how dare you assume otherwise. The one time Gus was allowed to come up with the aliases, all he could think of was "Gus Brown and Shawn White," as it happens.
 * Shawn is laying out the set-up of a restaurant in "Shawn Gets the Yipps". He says that everyone in the restaurant is an object.


 * Tenspeed & Brownshoe a 1980 Stephen Cannell creation starring Jeff Goldblum as Lionel Whitney, a karate-chopping ex-stockbroker private-eye wanna-be that takes all his inspiration and advice from Mark Savage, a fictional character in a series of 40's style detective novels (Stephen Cannel's photograph appeared on the dust jackets as the author of the books). Thrown together in the pilot episode with his co-star, Ben Vereen, playing E.L. Turner a street-wise hustler and con-man, in a caper after E.L. steals a million dollars from the mob, which the mob had gotten by fencing Nazi diamonds. This gets both the mob and the Nazis after him and a confused Lionel, who is about to be married, and whom both groups believe to be E.L.'s partner. 14 episodes were made and this was Jeff Goldblum's only major television role until Raines and Law and Order: Criminal Intent in The Aughts.
 * A funny parody had Larry Wilmore discussing this trope on The Daily Show in regards to Barack Obama's search for a vice presidential running mate. Film clips illustrated how over the years black leads have been teamed up with cops, nerdy guys, dogs, "Gene Wilder...Gene Wilder...Gene Wilder...It was a different time." This leads into a further discussion of the Magical Negro trope (as in The Green Mile, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and Kazaam) as it would apply to Obama.
 * Come ON: Obama, Biden: Biden being, well... Biden we have a very nice real life inversion of the trope.
 * If Obama's presidency was a buddy cop movie Obama would be the uptight play by the book one and Biden would be the loose cannon who plays by his own rules. I guess Hilary would be the police chief who chews them out and takes their gun and badge.
 * Although Red Dwarf is set in the far future where contemporary notions of race may not apply, the extremely uptight Rimmer (played by white British actor Chris Barrie) and the laid-back, slobby Lister (played by half-West-Indian half-Irish Brit Craig Charles) fulfill this trope. (You could probably also throw in Holly and the Cat.)
 * Try contemporary notions of species.
 * Note that Lister wasn't written specifically as a "black character". In fact, when the show's creators first wrote the script they imagined him as looking a lot like Christopher Lloyd in Taxi.
 * Jack and Sky from Power Rangers SPD are something of an example here. The African-American's a chaotic former Robin-Hood type, the Caucasian's excruciatingly by the book in comparison (one episode had him "letting his hair down" in a birthday party setting by unbuttoning the top button of his uniform collar). They're also cops, and frequently have to work together. Keep in mind though, that their personalities were based off Ban Akaza and Hoji Tomasu, respectively, from Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger. Given that it's Power Rangers, it goes a step further with the red/blue motif although it's still important to note that there are three other Rangers on the team.
 * Phil and Lem on Better Off Ted. Lampshaded in one episode, when Ted was using salt and pepper shakers to represent them. They were at first confused about which one was which, but then Lem (the black one) decided he was pepper because he was spicy. Phil agreed that he was "salty, like a sea captain.
 * Not a true example, however, since their personalities are close to identical. (And neither is spicy or salty.)
 * Lem is slightly cooler, but only in the way that Screech might be slightly cooler than Urkel.
 * Turk and J.D. from Scrubs
 * There's also Turner and Hooch (a black and white surgeon duo brought together by Turk and J.D. for the pun on their names) and a Cafe con Leche pairing in Elliot and Carla. Season 9 introduced the Salt and Pepper pairing of Captain Melvis Duncook and Lieutenant Frank Underhill, campus security for Winston University.
 * Detective Leo Banks and Detective Eric Delahoy in The Unusuals - basically Lethal Weapon-lite
 * Also a Cafe con Leche in Detective Henry Cole and Detective Allison Beaumont
 * Occasionally Jack Carter and Henry Deacon on Eureka sometimes Allison fills in the pepper. His defacto pairing with Jo Lupo also gives us a Cafe con Leche.
 * White Chris Stevens and his black half-brother Bernard on Northern Exposure. The hook being that they are pretty much exactly the same guy, right down to being born on the same day. One episode even revolves around Bernard beginning a relationship with one of Chris's ex-lovers - and she can't detect any difference between them in bed.
 * Homicide: Life On the Street plays it a little differently with Pembleton and Bayliss. Black Pembleton is a tightly wound intellectual with an unforgiving set of morals. White Bayliss was nakedly emotional and always wanted to see everyone's viewpoint.
 * Third Watch. Officers Davis and Sully. Also an example of a Vet/Rookie pair.
 * Inverted by the supporting pair of Guerrero & Winston in Human Target. Winston's the black retired cop, Guerrero's the white semi-retired criminal. Also opposites in size, since Chi McBride is about a foot taller and a good bit wider than Jackie Earle Haley.
 * Ryan and Esposito on Castle.
 * Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas actually call them this
 * The first three series of Teachers had a variation with Brian, who was white, and Kurt, who was Asian. Kurt was, usually, more intelligent, although Brian seemed to 'wear the pants', probably because he was a lot taller. When they were replaced in the fourth series, we got Damien, who was black, and Ben, who was white, although Damien was Brian's Suspiciously Similar Substitute while Ben was Kurt's, although with the slight difference that Damien was perhaps more intelligent than Ben. Not that it really mattered in the end.
 * Firefly's Wash and Zoe. Zoe is a black Badass warrior who cannot be persuaded to stop calling Mal "sir;" Wash is the eminently laid-back white-guy pilot who likes sitting around the ship and play with his plastic dinosaurs. The two are Happily Married.
 * The mercifully short-lived sitcom Listen Up! played this trope painfully straight with Jason Alexander as an uptight white television presenter (complete with wife and daughter who didn't respect him) and Malcolm-Jamal Warner as his too-hip-for-words black sports star co-host.
 * This was actually based on a real pairing. Alexander's character was based on New York-based sportswriter Tony Kornheiser (who the show's concept happened to be based on) while Warner's character was based on Chicago-based sportswriter Michael Wilbon. The two actual persons have had a show together on ESPN (Pardon the Interruption) for nearly a decade.
 * FlashForward did a white guy/Asian guy variation on this, with Mark being the introverted and brooding (and unfortunately prone to holding the Idiot Ball) white guy and Demetri being the more Hot-Blooded and impulsive and competent of the pair.
 * Degrassi had JT and Liberty. JT, the white one in the pairing, was humorous, relaxed, and not very smart. Liberty was a teen genius, didn't have a sense of humour, and was always worrying. They end up falling in love.
 * Also there is the friendship of Jimmy, the cool guy who can rap, dance, and play basketball, with the Spinner who's tough but can't dance because he's white. It's averted with Hazle who tries to be just like Paige.
 * In Community episode The Science of Illusion has Annie and Shirley acting as campus security.
 * Angel Coulby and Katie McGrath from Merlin make a striking pair as Morgana and Guinevere. The latter worked as the former's maid-servant, and where Morgana is passionate, high-strung and easily corrupted, Gwen is down-to-earth, practical and calm.
 * Leverage often features this with Hardison and Eliot

Music

 * Paul McCartney performed three hit duets with an equally famous black performer in the early '80s:
 * "Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder
 * "Say Say Say" and "The Girl Is Mine" with Michael Jackson
 * "Easy Lover" by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey.
 * Julio Iglesias has performed the following:
 * "My Love" with Stevie Wonder.
 * "All of You" with Diana Ross. (Also a mixed gender example.)
 * A mixed gender example: "I Knew You Were Waiting" by Aretha Franklin and George Michael.
 * "Riding With The King" by Eric Clapton and B.B. King.
 * "Eenie Meenie" by Justin Bieber and Sean Kingston.

Professional Wrestling

 * In WWE, The World's Greatest Tag Team. A subversion in that Shelton Benjamin (the black one) is the relatively straight one (though he's still an insufferable self-centered ass), and Charlie Haas (the white one) is a veritable Jive Turkey (to quote Rory, one of the Highlanders, "I didn't know Charlie Haas was black!").
 * When they were working for Kurt Angle, however, their personalities were pretty much interchangeable.
 * The A.P.A., Bradshaw and Farooq are probably wrestlings most most famous example. Bradshaw is the fun loving Boisterous Bruiser from Texas and Farooq is the non nonsense Scary Black Man from Georgia. When they are not beating people up, they are most likely seen in the back drinking beer and playing poker.
 * The Dudleys are another good example and another interesting subversion. Both of them are dumb, bumbling buffoons who are low on social grace and manners. Though in TNA, Bubba in particular does subvert his character even further by becoming somewhat of a Genre Savvy Magnificent Bastard who is able to manipulate the powers that be.
 * Starting about 2010, this all changed when the brothers split and Bubba (now known as "Bully Ray") experienced a Face Heel Turn. Now Devon (the black one) is a thuggish but still pretty cool guy, while Bully Ray is a loudmouth and coward whom everybody hates. Their racial contrast is no longer important, other than the fact that Devon is now good friends with the Jive Turkey D'Angelo Dinero.
 * For a surprisingly long time, Booker T and Goldust were a successful tag team, with Booker (the black one, if you didn't know) playing the more serious half, while Goldust was... whatever the hell Goldust was.
 * Given Goldust's coloring, though, wouldn't it be Saffron And Pepper?
 * Averted by "Lay-Cool", the heel Diva team of Layla El and Michelle McCool that terrorized SmackDown! from 2009 to 2011. Although Layla was of mixed race (North African and European) and Michelle was white, as a team they more or less behaved the same way (snobby and obnoxious). Before they teamed up, however, they each played the trope rather straight: Michelle was prim, while Layla was spunky.

Video Games

 * Zip and Alister in Tomb Raider: Legend.
 * Jonathan Ingram (white) and Ed Brown (Black) in Policenauts, as direct reference to Lethal Weapon. Ed is older, but other than that they're pretty much exactly as wacky as each other.
 * The Tales (series) loves to play around with this one, which is fitting as several of its games really get into the guts of race, and discrimination, tropes and often end up subverting or deconstructing the crap out of them.
 * Tales of Eternia features the mages Keele, a Deadpan Snarker who always has to have the last word and more or less exemplifies The Smart Guy and Meredy, the ditzy seven year-old living in a teenage body. Eventually deconstructed when it's revealed that a) Meredy knows a lot more than anyone realises: she just doesn't "get" Inferian culture (due to coming from a world that's very far down the "Emotions" side of Emotions vs. Stoicism), and b) the reasons as to why she became such a Cloudcuckoolander are horrifying.
 * Tales of Destiny has multiple examples:
 * Stahn being a naive, silly but well-meaning white pepper to Woodrow/Garr's calm, collected black salt.
 * Stahn is the Salt when he's paired up with Kongman/Khang... but only because Kongman out-hams absolutely everybody.
 * Another inversion happens with Woodrow and Chelsea. He's still the Badass yet wise black salt to her hyperactive, fangirlish white pepper.
 * Rutee and Mary are a played-straight example. Mary is also shown to have this dynamic with.
 * Tales of Destiny 2 gives us another inversion. Kyle is a Hot-Blooded white Kid Hero who will not stop harping on about how he's going to be a true hero some day. Loni is a much calmer Chivalrous Pervert Big Brother Mentor Black Best Friend who generally tries to keep Kyle out of trouble with mixed results. Loni has a similar dynamic with his love interest, the Fiery Redhead Hot Amazon Nanaly.
 * Played straight with the villains; Elraine and Barbatos. However, this one proves very much that Tropes Are Not Bad because it was the latter who went on to become a Memetic Badass (in hindsight, Norio Wakamoto's voice may have helped) while Elraine is largely forgotten by the Tales community.
 * Tales of Rebirth is another inversion. Eugene, the closest thing the 'verse has to a Scary Black Man, looks like the pepper but turns out to be an extremely sane Team Dad. The whites, on the other hand, are varying degrees of Idiot Hero, Hot-Blooded and Leeroy Jenkins. This evades the potential Mary Sue problem, however, through the fact that the naive idealism of the latter ends up saving the day just as many times as the former's logic. Furthermore, after the Disk One Final Boss,
 * A played-straight example from the same game is Saleh (salt) and Tomah (pepper). However, it's worth noting that in this case they're both Complete Monsters who run around the world kicking puppies, manipulating innocents and tormenting anyone they can victimise just because they can.
 * Played with with the Halfs (yes, they're the same race, but it Makes Sense in Context) Hilda and the darker-toned Militsa. Hilda is a white pepper effectively trying to pass as salt, while Militsa is a black salt who clearly wishes she could be more peppery but just finds it easier to bottle everything up and be a by-the-book Punch Clock Villain. The dynamic continues even after Hilda's Heel Face Turn.
 * It's different planets as opposed to ethnic backgrounds in Tales of Symphonia, but Lloyd Irving, who is steadfastly committed to his principles of goodness and righteousness, and Zelos Wilder, a Chaotic Neutral Chivalrous Pervert, clearly have the makings of this trope going on. In the same vein, so do Love Freak Colette and Action Girl Sheena.
 * In terms of race, the elf Genis is the salt to Lloyd's pepper.
 * Yet another villainous example occurs in Tales of Legendia. Interestingly enough, both are Big Bads but don't work together so much as one plays off the other's mistakes to further their goals; making for an exploitive inversion of how the trope is usually meant to work. Of the two, Vaclav is the Ambiguously Brown brawler who has no regard for even the rules of his own country, never seems to have much of a plan beyond "Kill 'em all and let the flames sort it out" and has a much more relaxed attitude (although he's far from Affably Evil). The pasty-skinned, on the other hand, is a textbook chessmaster who exploits the flaws in Vaclav's plans to lay the foundations for advancing his own goals. A straight, heroic example would be Jay and Moses.
 * For exactly the same reasons as, Jude and Alvin are an inversion. Played straight with Milla and her Loony Fan Ivar, although ultimately deconstructed as her being so salty results in her refusing to take him seriously due to his extremely peppery nature, They both learn from it.
 * Dragon Age II plays it straight with the naive but well-meaning and culturally-loyal (well, from her perspective) Merrill and the Ambiguously Bronze pirate Isabela, who is both savvy and totally unconcerned with anyone's rules but her own.
 * Even though 90% of its characters are Petting Zoo People, Breath of Fire 2 still has a straight example with Nina and Katt. The former is a lawful, almost Caucasian-like Black Magician Girl while the latter is a darker-furred Hot-Blooded Action Girl. She averts being her universe's equivalent of a Sassy Black Woman, however. She's too busy being a heroic Blood Knight.

Web Original

 * Roommates black Toni Chandler (Chaka) and white Nikki Reilly (Fey) in the Whateley Universe. Chaka is also way more relaxed about their mutual problem, while Fey is wound tight enough that she accidentally pops out hobgoblins regularly.
 * Also Chaka (smart-alecky black girl) and Bladedancer (Tao-driven Oriental girl), most blatantly when Bladedancer went home with Chaka for Christmas.

Western Animation

 * On The Simpsons, there are two Salt and Pepper pairs -- Lenny and Carl, and Lou and Eddie. Though none of them seem to be funky or by the book; they're more "barely competent" and "not that bright all around".
 * Subverted with Lenny and Carl, in that Lenny is a loser and Carl seems to have it more in control.
 * Lenny's not a loser. Have you seen his flat?
 * The flat where one wall, a glass wall at that, is shared with a Jai Alai court?
 * There is also Richard and Lewis, two of Bart's playground friends from school.
 * The Simpsons also had another pair on the show within a show "Police Cops".
 * Parodied in Futurama, with a Jive Turkey robot cop, partnered to a white human.
 * Parodied when one episode of Clone High involved the Gandhi clone and the George Washington Carver clone making a buddy cop movie, in which they played strait-laced, Harvard-educated Leon Black (Carver) and Tandoori Jones (Gandhi), "...a typical Indian cop who plays by his own rules: none! Together they are Black and Tan!"
 * Numbers 2 and 5 of Codename: Kids Next Door; though 5 is general the street-wise and straight one, with 2 largely being a book-smart wannabe.
 * Taken further in the Distant Finale..
 * Justice League features the inversion with uptight ex-marine John Stewart/Green Lantern paired up with goofball Flash.
 * On Total Drama Island, the lanky white nerd Harold with Sassy Black Woman Leshawna. He also has a huge and obvious crush on her which she seems to eventually reciprocate.
 * Though they were never a team until Total Drama Action.
 * Parodied as well as being a Shout-Out to Men in Black on Johnny Test with (white) Mr. Black and (black) Mr. White.
 * Static Shock with Static being the funky, quick-tongue, while Gear was the more calculative and nerdy one.
 * They were both pretty nerdy actually, and Richie only became smarter with his power, whearas before Virgil was much smarter.
 * There are more than a few shades of this on Galaxy Rangers when Goose and Doc are paired up. It also helps that Doc is a high-class gentleman and The Smart Guy while Goose is an Artificial Human designed for combat.

Real Life

 * Since 2009, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
 * Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, the (white) starting quarterback and (black) top wide receiver for the 1992 Dallas Cowboys football team. Aikman liked country music and beer, while Irvin was into hip-hop and marijuana (plus a few other things probably best left unmentioned here!). But they had a real rapport both on and off the field, inspiring Aikman to quote the lyrics to Paula Abdul's then-popular song "Opposites Attract" to explain their relationship.
 * Brigadier General Robin Olds, USAF. An Ace Pilot who flew P-38s and P-51s in World War II, he went on to fly F-4 Phantoms in The Vietnam War, alongside his wingman, a black pilot named Daniel James, Jr. They had the nickname of "Blackman and Robin." Together, they were responsible for Operation Bolo, a mission where F-4 Phantoms would pretend to be F-105 Thunderchiefs on bombing missions, pouncing on North Vietnamese MiGs that thought they had an easy kill coming. The success of this operation lead to the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing being known to this day as the Wolfpack.