Expy/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Snow White and Cinderella appear to be married to the same man, Prince Charming, who may or may not be the same man as Prince Phillip in Disney's Sleeping Beauty. We suggest you don't think about it.
    • Snow White and Sleeping Beauty basically have the same plot.
    • This fact is used directly in Fables comic, where Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all are ex-wives of Prince Charming, and the musical Into the Woods, which has has Prince Charming lose interest in Cinderella after they get married and go after Sleeping Beauty.
      • Shortlived TV series The Charmings also played with it, having the Prince's ex "Cindy" show up and make Snow jealous.
    • Similarly, Baloo from Disney's The Jungle Book and Little John from Disney's Robin Hood look quite similar, and are both voiced by Phil Harris.
      • There is, in fact, a reason for this. Disney was in the financial hole at the time Robin Hood was made and a number of scenes in the film (for example, the dancing in Sherwood Forest and Kaa's/ Sir Hiss's hypnotizing of Prince John) were actually trace-overs from cels in older films such as Snow White, The Jungle Book and The Aristocats. Fortunately Robin Hood did well and Disney was able to carry on.
        • -as indeed Maid Marian dancing was a rotoscope of Snow White.
      • House of Mouse's "King Larry", on the other hand, was an Expy of Louie, created to avoid legal issues when the Louis Prima estate charged Disney of not paying royalties to Prima for Tale Spin and The Jungle Book. Baloo, Louie and Shere Khan may have been reframed in a different scenario and time period, but were still the same characters.
          • Interestingly though, Word of God states show exclusive character Rebecca Cunningham to be based on Rebecca Howe of Cheers.
      • The elephants from this movie are actually expies of the elephants from the animated short Goliath II. In fact, all of the elephants' designs from this short were actually reused for this movie!
      • Aversion, Beauty and the Beast: the designs for Belle and the human version of the Beast were most decidedly not Expies of any other Disney characters.
      • The characters Ace "Chicken Little" Cluck and Abby Mallard from Chicken Little look an awful lot like the characters Honker Muddlefoot and Gosalyn Mallard from the show Darkwing Duck, respectively (the latter even has the same last name!).
      • The human cast of Tarzan all appear to be expies of the human cast of Beauty and the Beast. Compare Tarzan with the Beast, Jane Porter with Belle, Professor Archimedes Porter with Maurice, and Clayton with Gaston.
  • The incinerator at the end of |Toy Story 3 is actually an Expy of the Car Crusher at the end of The Brave Little Toaster.
    • Another Pixar example would be the fact that Chick Hicks and Miles Axlerod, the villains of the Cars series films, are actually car versions of Randall Boggs and Waternoose, the villains of Monsters, Inc., respectively.
  • Hank from King of the Hill is an expy of Mr. Anderson from Beavis and Butthead.
    • Similarly, Stuart Dooley is Butthead's expy.
  • The Transformers franchise is constantly rebooted, technically making Optimus, Megatron, Starscream, etc. expies of about eight or so identically-named characters. And then, there are other examples:
  • One apparently short-lived cartoon that was somewhat of a Scooby Doo ripoff was slated to be a Wacky Races spinoff starring Muttley as its main character, but he was changed at the last second to be a trenchcoat-clad Expy named "Mumbly" who could only speak in mumbled sentences.
    • Mumbly reappeared in Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics, now partnered with a Dick Dastardly Expy called the Dread Baron. (At the time, Heatter-Quigley still owned the Wacky Races characters; Hanna-Barbera later bought the characters outright.) anyway. Oddly enough, Mumbly was a pre-existing character that predated Wacky Races, with exactly the same design he had in Laff-a-Lympics, although he was a good guy (and Columbo pastiche) in his series. The similarity was likely just conveniently coincidental for Hanna-Barbera.
      • The snickering dog who predated Wacky Races was Precious Pupp (1965). Muttley and Wacky Races predate Mumbly by eight years.
      • Both of them actualy appeared in the "Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose" movie, where the Baron was actually voiced by Paul Winchell, Dick Dastardly's voice actor.
      • In Latin America, they just said "the hell with it" and called them Pierre Nodoyuna and Patán (the Latin American names of Dick Dastardly and Muttley).
      • An issue of the Laff-a-Lympics comic book revealed that the Dread Baron is Dick Dastardly's brother.
    • The characters of most Hanna-Barbera Amateur Sleuth series are Expys of the Scooby Doo gang.
      • Hanna-Barbera made a career of ripping themselves off to the point where no one else would even bother to. They even made a Yogi Bear expy, except it's about a polar bear trying to get cough medicine for his friend seal from a US arctic base.
      • Likewise Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch!, Hair Bear seems to be Yogi except in a zoo, and threatened to have to leave it as opposed to the other way around. Both Hair and Yogi are generally more clever than their antagonist, and they hatch zany schemes.
  • Well, basically Hanna-Barbera has made a career out of exporting characters from wherever! During the Simpsons' episode "The Day that Violence Died" Roger Meyers Jr. says that "Animation is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing The Honeymooners, we wouldn't have The Flintstones. If someone hadn't ripped off Sergeant Bilko, there'd be no Top Cat. Huckleberry Hound, Chief Wiggum, Yogi Bear? Hah! Andy Griffith, Edward G. Robinson, Art Carney." All the characters mentioned to be "plagiarized" versions are Hanna-Barbera's except one (Chief Wiggum).
    • The Flintstones so much an expy of The Honeymooners that Jackie Gleason threatened to sue Hanna-Barbera.
    • 1974's These Are The Days was basically The Waltons animated. It is notable that unlike other HB 'period' pieces (The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and The Roman Holidays) in which the joke is 'what would modern day problems and things be like in those times', they wrote and animated it as realisticly as possible for the period, further making it look like an expy of The Waltons.
    • These Are The Days was created by Earl Hamner Jr., creator of The Waltons.
    • Another H-B character, Snagglepuss, is an expy of Bert Lahr's portrayal of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz Lahr himself even threatened to block a commercial for Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies which had Snagglepuss, forcing Kellogg's to issue a disclaimer that Daws Butler is the voice of Snagglepuss, a rare instance where a voice actor is disclosed in commercials.
  • Ben's alternate forms in Ben 10 Alien Force seem to be Expys of his forms from the original series, albeit with different mixes of Combo-Platter Powers: Swampfire is a mix of Heatblast, Benmummy, and Wildvine, Chromastone is the new Diamondhead, Big Chill is Ghostfreak, Arcticguana, and Stinkfly, etc.
    • Professor Paradox is a blatant Expy of the The Doctor. University professors are normally Doctorate holders and a paradox is a type of contradicting statement(s).
      • Heck, they even went so far as to make his real name a mystery.
    • Some people have compared Zombozo in Ben 10 to Pennywise the Dancing Clown. In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, he's more like The Joker.
    • Will Harangue from Ultimate Alien is a blatant J Jonah Jameson Expy, with some features resembling news pundits like Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, and Bill O'Reily thrown in for realism.
    • After being unable to make any sense of Kevin's change from The Sociopath to wisecracking Anti-Hero, the team behind Alien Force and Ultimate Alien have taken his prior characterization and powers, made it grown-up and mature, and have named it "Aggregor", who is truly a foe to beware.
  • Little Audrey is both a Captain Ersatz and an Expy of Little Lulu, since she was created by the animators at Paramount-Famous, the same studio that animated Lulu. Audrey was created after Paramount lost the rights to Lulu from her creator, Margarie Buell.
  • Looney Tunes character Ralph Wolf (the one who keeps trying to steal sheep) is indistinguishable from Wile E. Coyote except for his red nose. Both characters were created by Chuck Jones, and are customers of Acme Products. They weren't always indistinguishable, but later animators became lazy with the character design after having done so many more Wile E. cartoons than Sam and Ralph cartoons, dropping most of what little differences there had been.
    • In one Looney Tunes comic book, Wile and Ralph meet, turning out to be long-lost brothers. They both realize that they both failed to get their respective targets (the Road Runner and the sheep, respectively), so they team up to catch the Road Runner. And fail.
    • Despite the recycled character design, there is quite a fundamental difference regarding how Wile E. and Ralph are each utilized in their respective shorts - Wile E. is a true blue fanatic, totally and utterly obsessed with catching the Roadrunner, while Ralph is very literally a Punch Clock Villain (indeed, outside of work, he and his professional nemesis, Sam Sheepdog, appear to be the best of friends).
    • Interestingly Tabaqui the Jackal of Chuck Jones' The Jungle Book adaptions is near identical to Wile as well.
    • Likewise, Alexander Graham Wolf from Chuck Jones' Raggedy Ann and Andy special The Great Santa Claus Caper is an Expy of the "genius" version of Wile E. Coyote who appeared opposite Bugs Bunny.
  • In the Duck Dodgers episode "Pig Planet", Porky tells a story to his nephews, Porko and Puerco, and his niece, Sow. The three piglets are obvious Expys of Yakko, Wakko and Dot from Animaniacs; even the voices are the same.
    • And there's another nod to past continuity in that Porko physically resembles Porky's comic book nephew Cicero, with his sailor suit and cap.
  • Justice League Unlimited has Galatea, who has the look, costume, and general backstory (being a clone of Supergirl) of DC Comics' Power Girl, though the incarnation is much more villanous and lacks Power Girl's Most Common Superpower.
    • Similarly, the Ultimen consisted entirely of Expies from the Super Friends cartoon, the most noticable probably being Zan and Jayna... That is, Downpour and Shifter
      • The entire episode was a homage to Super Friends; the Ultimen base on top of the skyscraper looking like the Hall of Justice, Long Shadow's cell ringtone being the old theme, even how they only used Superman, Batman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman as the hero team in the episode.
    • Earlier than those two, the Justice Guild was a very thinly-veiled Expy of the Justice Society of America; the villains of the episode were themselves Expies of The Wizard, Icicle, Sportsmaster, and The Fiddler. Their two-part story arc was an adaptation of the first JLA/JSA team-up story set in an Adam West-style World of Ham. This was done mostly because DC wouldn't allow them to use the actual JSA as was planned, thinking that a story presenting the JSA in the goofy (and slightly racist) style that that episode did would shine badly on the recently relaunched JSA comic series. It worked out well for the producers, though, as they were able to use the characters legitimately in JLU later on.
    • There's also Devil Ray, who is basically Black Manta with a name change. His rivalry with Aquaman is never mentioned (due in part to the rights for the character being held up by the WB's plan for Smallville style show focusing on him), instead being matched up against Wonder Woman for most of his appearances.
    • Jax-Ur from Superman: The Animated Series bears little resemblance to his comic book counterpart, drawing more inspiration from General Zod.
  • Filmation's Ghostbusters re-used the character model of Drac from The Groovie Ghoulies for Dracula.
  • Mac, the protagonist of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, is based on an exact clone of a one-time Powerpuff Girls character, Mike (note the names). In that episode, Mike came in as a new student with an imaginary friend (take note) and trouble started brewing afterwards. The students blamed him for causing all this, but it was really his imaginary friend doing the mischief. Mac and Mike look exactly the same except Mike has an outline.
    • And also Mike has shorter hair.
  • Mayor from The Powerpuff Girls is the expy of a science fair judge in "Mandarker", an episode of the show's Spiritual Successor, Dexter's Laboratory. It should be noted that Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter's Lab, was also animation director for The Powerpuff Girls.
  • Mickey Mouse himself is one. He was created simply so Walt Disney could replace Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character he had just lost to his distributer because he refused to take a cut in his budget. Essentially, Oswald was Mickey with longer ears.
    • Epic Mickey is playing on this, now that Disney got Oswald's rights back almost a century later.
  • American Dad took the entire family archetype from Family Guy and transfered it near Washington D.C., as well as replaced the dog and baby with a goldfish and alien.
    • Stan, Francine, and Hayley have less in common with Homer, Marge, and Lisa than they do with Archie, Edith, and Maude.
    • The Cleveland Show borrowed most of its characters from other Seth MacFarlane shows and then turned them Black (Rallo = Black Stewie, Cleveland Jr. = Black Chris, and Roberta = Black Hayley to name a few).
      • Cleveland Jr. was actually plumped up to make him a Chris expy.
      • And of course, while the basic character roles may be recycled, their actual personalities are wildly different. Most notably, Rallo is overprotective of his mother instead of insanely matricidal. Nor is he a stereotypical homosexual.
    • Peter and Brian themselves are based on the main characters characters of this old short Seth made for The What-A-Cartoon Show.
  • At least three of the characters in Extreme Ghostbusters are expies of the original Ghostbusters; Eduardo Rivera = Peter Venkman, Garrett Miller = Ray Stantz (at one point, in frustration, Egon accidentally calls Garrett "Ray") and Roland Jackson = Winston Zeddemore. The process of elimination would sugest that Kylie Griffin = Egon Spengler, but Egon is actually IN that cartoon in the background.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures is a combination of this trope and Spinoff Babies, as all the main characters are younger Palette Swap versions of the original Looney Tunes, who are actually there in the background as teachers in Acme Looniversity. Probably the Tiny Toon who's the furthest from her Looney Tunes counterpart is Elmyra. (Basically, she's more of an Evil Counterpart than an Expy.) Unlike Elmer, Elmyra LOVES animals, and is female. Ironically, unlike Elmer, animals find Elmyra genuinely frightening.
    • Babs is the only Tiny Toon that never really had a Looney Tunes counterpart. However, Lola was later added to the Looney Tunes lineup.
      • It can be argued that Babs acts more like Bugs Bunny than Buster does, with her sarcastic wit, Buster seemed more like the required male hero type as the main character "couldn't possibly" be a girl.
  • Several members of the Danny Phantom cast share huge similarities with characters from the Spider-Man mythos, the most obvious being Dash Baxter who serves as an expy for Flash Thompson, they're both Jerk Jocks who bully their protagonist while at the same time being the biggest fan of Superhero (who is also the protagonist.)
    • Danny Phantom is essentially an expy for Peter Parker, both are outcasts who were bullied in school and obtained their powers through a scientific accident.
    • Vlad Masters as well serves as an expy for Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin. Both being rich evil masterminds who have an unhealthy obsession with the Danny and Peter respectively. They both know their secret identies and initially hoped to take them under their wings. Vlad is also an expy of Slade from Teen Titans.
  • Jet from Avatar: The Last Airbender bears a certain resemblence to Mugen, who is an expy of Spike in the first place. Actually, Jet practically IS Mugen, from character design to personality (but with different circumstances). The key difference is that while Spike and Mugen are leading main characters, Jet is only a secondary character, and is therefore less immortal.
  • Cool McCool was created by Bob Kane, so it's fitting that Cool's Rogues Gallery bears an odd resemblance to another certain set of villains. Cool's 'Jack in the Box' bears a certain resemblance to The Joker, 'The Owl' is quite like the Penguin, the Owl's sidekick 'The Pussycat' resembles Catwoman and 'Dr Madcap' is similar to the old school Mad Hatter.
    • Also Bob Kane's other show Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. Just change Bat____ to Cat_____ and the hero's utility belt to an amazing range of guns that shoot everything EXCEPT bullets.
  • Obviously, everyone from Drawn Together is an Expy from their respective animation (or other) genre:
    • Princess Clara is, personality-wise, a generic Disney Princess but in appearance is an expy of Ariel.
    • Captain Hero is Superman. He's a super-powered alien from a planet that blew up, sending him to Earth. Unlike Superman, he feels no sort of responsibility to do the right thing and is an aggressive alcoholic.
    • Toots is an (older and washed up) expy of Betty Boop.
    • Xandir's most notable similarity is Link, but only vaguely. It's a bit of a stretch to call him an expy when the only similarity is blonde hair, pointed ears, a sword and a neverending quest to save his girlfriend boyfriend. He's really meant more to symbolize effeminate video game heroes in general.
    • Wooldoor is an expy of Spongebob Squarepants, even having a similar voice.
      • He was even referred to as "Poorly conceived Spongebob parody" in one episode.
      • There's some similarity in attitude to Stimpy as well.
    • Ling-Ling is a direct expy of Pikachu, right down to having been trained by a boy who looks a lot like Ash Ketchum. We even see Ling-Ling evolve at one point, though the process seems to be very different here.
    • Foxxy Love is a direct (though R-rated) expy of Valerie Smith from Josie and the Pussycats.
    • Spanky resembles various characters from internet comics and flash animations. But mostly he resembles the Napster mascot cat, changed to a pig, right down to the extra-bold lines he's drawn with. His gimmick, "an Internet download" refers to illegal downloads popularized by Napster.
  • Maia Sterling (the other daughter of Max and Mirya) in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, appears to be an expy for Aurora Sterling (the other daughter of Max and Mirya) from the Jack McKinney Robotech novels. So far, Maia hasn't shown any psychic powers.
  • Suzie Chan is essentially a Chinese version of Daphne from Scooby Doo in terms of appearance and temperament. The only difference is that Suzie, being somewhat savvier, avoids falling into the role of the Damsel in Distress.
  • Frankenhole's "Dr Polidori" is is a double-expy: his name is taken from Lord Byron's personal physician, who was involved in the same dare that had Mary Shelley write Frankenstein, and his performance is based on that of Ernest Thesiger as "Dr Pretorius" in The Bride of Frankenstein. The werewolf that appears in the credits and in a couple of episodes looks like the Lon Chaney Jr "Wolfman". Dr Frankenstein, on the other hand, doesn't seem at all like any performance of "Dr Frankenstein" I know, and definitely not that of Colin Clive.
    • The werewolf's name is Stewart Lawrence, a combination of Lawrence Talbot (the Wolf Man) and Jimmy Stewart, who his voice actor is imitating.
  • A rare live action-to-animation example is Calvin and the Colonel (ABC 1961-62), an expy of Amos n Andy. What happened was that by the late fifties Amos n Andy was viewed as racist so the producers responded by taking the same show, turn it into a cartoon, and replace the characters with Talking Animals. An early attempt at doing prime-time cartoons, the show bombed in ratings and was taken off the air the following season.
  • Since The Ren and Stimpy Show gained popularity, the "idiot and jerk" duo is so commonplace, there are several versions of this formula in animations.
  • The Mighty B!'s Bessie is a version of a character Amy Poehler did for The Upright Citizens Brigade: a hyperactive ten year-old Girl Scout. Saturday Night Live's Kaitlin was a watered down version of the character, making her a spiritual cousin of Bessie. In a way, the freedom of animation makes Bessie a purer version of the character than the original! Amy Poehler, who plays Bessie, is one of the credited creators of the show.
  • Detective Ellen Yin from The Batman is an expy of Detective Elisa Maza from Gargoyles - both are female police officers who wear very similar outfits. Some of the creative team from Gargoyles also worked on The Batman.
  • Being a huge homage to The A-Team, the main cast of G.I. Joe: Renegades understandably have some similarities to Hannibal's crew.
  • The Grump of Here Comes the Grump is an expy of another Friz Freleng character, Yosemite Sam. His dragon is an expy of the dragon from the Looney Tunes short "Knighty Knight Bugs".
  • Hank Scorpio was originally going to be the villain of The Simpsons Movie, but instead, the movie has a different character, Russ Cargill. The two have the same voice actor (Albert Brooks), some of Cargill's lines sound like the kind of thing Scorpio might say, and both are pretty Bond-villainish.
  • When created for the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon, Firestar's civilian identity bore a resemblance to Mary Jane Watson. The resemblance was actually remarked upon in the comics some time later. Likewise, her superhero powers make her a clear Expy of The Human Torch, the only difference being the gender swap to give Spidey an Amazing Female Friend.
  • Mom from Futurama is very similar to Mr. Burns from The Simpsons since both are rich, ill-tempered, and emaciated.
  • As pointed out by The Agony Booth, the Nostalgia Critic and Lauren Faust (who worked on the film as an animator) Kayley is, both looks and personality-wise, Belle. Faust, commenting [dead link] on the similarity, goes even further and points out that Garret looks like the human form of the Beast.
  • Being an Affectionate Parody to superhero movies in general (and a VERY good one at that, seeing that it won two Oscar Awards and all), it shouldn't be a surprise that The Incredibles thrusts a whole lot of superhero expies in your face from start to finish.
    • The family is very nearly the Fantastic Four: Mr. Incredible is the Thing, Elastigirl is Mr. Fantastic, and Violet is the Invisible Woman. Only Dash lacks a direct parallel, though he's certainly Hot Blooded enough to be a match for the Human Torch. The ending shows Jack-Jack has highly variable superpowers (among these, lighting himself on fire like the Human Torch), and Franklin Richards, the child of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman had very ill-defined but vast superpowers. Even their costumes and name (Fantastic/Incredible) are similar. Their villain, Syndrome, is a somewhat more rotund Doctor Doom, a villain whose primary superpowers are simply being so good at super-technology that his super-suit is more powerful than the family combined.
    • Dash is basically The Flash and even calls himself "The Dash" when he gets his suit.
    • Frozone is basically Iceman from the X-Men comics as played by Samuel L. Jackson. They even have the same way of getting from place to place: creating ramps of ice to skate everywhere.
    • In a more extreme example, Gazerbeam and The Underminer basically are Cyclops and the Mole Man in all but name. The DVD special features on the minor heroes in the movie even parodies Cyclops' infamously bland personality by having Gazerbeam be an incredibly dull person.
    • It even extends to the comic, which has featured among the expanded rogues gallery a Gorilla Grodd expy and aliens resembling the tentacles. And the Humongous Mecha piloted by the Underminer in an effort to frame the Incredibles resembles The Iron Giant with a red paint job.
  • Dr. Rockzo, the cocaine-addicted rock & roll clown from Metalocalypse is an expy of David Lee Roth.
  • The Dating Guy was (allegedly) created from Teletoon execs using the original pitch for a Least I Could Do animated series. As such, you can see the original characterization of the LICD characters in The Dating Guy, but most of them were shifted to adopt things suggested to the LICD creators in the original pitch.
  • Lizbeth Zaragrosa & Kitty Ko are eerily similar. Both are young Asian girls with strong crushes on young idiot superheroes who are oblivious/disinterested in their advances with shows that are broadcast on YTV.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh One is pretty much a ten-year-old Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
  • Family Guy had this in one episode with Penelope, a one year old girl who is basically Stewie if he was still overly violent and kept trying to take over the world.
  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic was originally intended to be a Continuity Reboot of the very first series. It turned out, however, that the copyrights on most of the original ponies had lapsed, and so Lauren Faust was forced to create similar substitutes of the original mane 6, with the exception of Applejack. Some of them became a Composite Character. Eventually, they evolved into their own distinctive personalities.

Twilight Sparkle: Twilight/Twilight Twinkle
Pinkie Pie: Surprise
Rainbow Dash: Firefly, with g3 Rainbow Dash's colors
Fluttershy: Posey
Rarity: Glory/Sparkler

    • Discord, a villain from season 2, was conceived after Lauren Faust had done an Archive Binge of Star Trek and was very much modeled after Q; the plans were originally to get a soundalike of Q's actor John de Lancie but they ended up getting de Lancie himself (turning it into an Actor Allusion as well). He also shares some traits with a villain from one of Faust's previous shows, Him from The Powerpuff Girls (Faust even says that her husband, PPG creator Craig McCracken, helped her with Discord's character design.)
  • Inspector Gadget the title character is very much an Expy of Maxwell Smart, right down to Don Adams doing the character's voice. In fact, that was a big reason why the show was created, as Adams was getting too old to play Maxwell, an animated version being the perfect move.
  • Dr. Director from Kim Possible is an obviously-intentional Gender Fliped Expy of Nick Fury
  • In Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, Chelsea van der Zee's similarities towards the heroine from The Little Mermaid could not be more obvious, and as the Big Bad of the story (who uses this outward innocence for evil and selfish purposes), has quickly earned the nickname "Evil Ariel" online.
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