Like Parent, Like Spouse: Difference between revisions

* ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'' had an episode where Liz's much-younger boyfriend's mother turned out to be the spitting image of Liz, even ''wearing the same outfit''. Creeped out, Liz ended their relationship.

* ''[[Friends]]'' parodied this, where Rachel's father is visiting at the same time as her mother, and as the two hate each other, Rachel has to sleep them in separate rooms. When Ross tries to get Rachel's father's glasses, drink and cigarettes, Rachel's mother notices, and advises Rachel see a psychiatrist as "you've chosen a boyfriend who is exactly like your father."

'''Rachel:''' Yeah, why? }}

* An episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'' in which Carla realizes she's exactly like "Mama Turk" and has a mini [[Heroic BSOD]] as a result.

** Also in ''[[Two and A Half Men]]'', the father of Charlie's semi-stalker, Rose, is [[Casting Gag|played by Martin Sheen]].

* On ''[[Parks and Recreation]]'', Ron has two bitchy ex-wives, both of whom are named Tammy:

* Referenced in ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]''. After psychoanalysing Penny, Leonard's mother tells him that if he wants to have sex with Penny he should use the same kind of cologne her father wears.

** Similarly, Howard thinks it's hot when his fiancee yells at him and sounds ''exactly'' like his mother. (But then, Howard's relationship with his mother is rather abnormal.)

* A lot of baby birds will upon hatching imprint on one of the first things they see. As adults, sometimes they go for their own kind, sometimes... they don't.

** The (nonfiction) book "When Elephants Weep" details the case of Tex, a whooping crane who was hand-raised and, when mature, rejected male cranes for "Caucasian men of average height with dark hair." Whooping cranes are so endangered that it was thought vital to get her into "breeding condition," at which point she could be successfully artificially inseminated. So the director of the International Crane Foundation, who met the necessary criteria, spent many weeks courting her. It worked, making this a case of [[Interspecies Romance]] with emphasis on "romance" in the non-euphemistic sense of the word.

*** On a related note, putting whooping crane eggs into the nest of related sandhill cranes and letting the sandhills raise them results in whooping cranes who are attracted to sandhills. The resulting hybrids are not viable, though.

* This is very much [[Truth in Television]], as psychologists have discovered. The idea is that when you are a child you grow up in a safe, loving environment that sets a template for the future. You look for people similar to your parents because they remind you of the safety you had as a child. [[Fridge Brilliance|Perfectly logical]], and only minimally [[Squick|squicky]], although [[Your Mileage May Vary]]...