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Prop Recycling: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Robby1 9254.jpg|frame|[[Lost in Space|And]] [[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.|Many]] [[Columbo|More]]]]
{{quote|''"I actually recognize this wall. It's been redressed a number of times, most recently for a scene in the ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]'' series finale "These are the Voyages...", but it's also been used as a backdrop on a Son'a ship in ''[[Star Trek: Insurrection|Insurrection]]''... This wall, I think, deserves an Emmy for withstanding so much crap."''
|''[[The Agony Booth]]'' [http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Star_Trek/Deep_Space_Nine/Let_He_Who_Is_Without_Sin___.aspx?Page{{=}}5 recap] of "[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Let He Who is Without Sin...]]"}}
The Hollywood version of "Waste Not, Want Not". When elaborate sets, costumes or props are made for one production, they may turn up again and again in other productions that may need elaborate props but don't have the budget to design and build their own.
The prop may be altered by repainting it or adding or removing widgets but it remains recognizable, especially if the original production was well known. While this may be a cost saving measure, there's something about the practice that just screams "low budget".
Most firearms use in modern movies are handled by external armorers who keep guns for use in future productions. For most productions this will go unnoticed, a stock M4 won't be distinquishable from any other stock M4, these companies also keep several specially modified guns ranging from niche filling guns like [[Bling Bling Bang]] or stand-ins for hard to obtain guns to very specific firearms. This is the cause of several entries on [[Rare Guns]].
Can overlap with [[Whole Costume Reference]] if the costume is recycled from an earlier work.
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{{examples}}
== Films -- Animation ==
* The folks at [[Pixar]] are fond of resusing props, sets, even whole characters from their previous movies ([[Early-Bird Cameo|and even from their upcoming ones]]), usually as a [[Shout-Out]], as well as for practical measures. The most famous example is the Pizza Planet delivery truck from ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'', which has found its way into almost every film. Other popular props include the yellow ball with the blue stripe and red star from "Luxo Jr.", as well as both Luxo lamps from the same short.
* Two vehicles from ''[[101 Dalmatians|One Hundred and One Dalmatians]]'' actually made a reappearance in ''[[The Aristocats]]'': The Baduns' truck (as a milk truck the cats ride in at one point while heading back to Paris) and the moving van (as the truck that comes to pick up Edgar and take him to Timbuktu at the end of the film). These were actual physical props, painted white with "outlines" drawn on the edges, that were filmed in front of white backgrounds and photocopied onto the cels in a manner similar to [[Rotoscoping]].
** Cruella de Vil's car also made a brief cameo near the beginning of ''[[The Rescuers (Disney film)|The Rescuers]]'' as the car Madame Medusa used to drive to the airport.
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== Films -- Live-Action ==
* Robby the Robot, as seen in the page image. Originally created for the 1956 film ''[[Forbidden Planet]]'', Robby continued to be reused in many movie and TV productions up to the present day (although since the 1960s a lightweight replica has been used). Its two appearances in ''[[Lost in Space]]'' are particularly ironic in that Robby and Robot B-9 were both designed by Robert Kinoshita. Robby is so memorable that it is less a prop and more of an actual character. Along with all the sci-fi shows he turns up in, Robby also appears in of all things one of the NBC era ''[[Columbo]]'' episodes as a robot built by a child genius at a think tank. He's even [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1119475/ listed] on
* The uniforms from ''[[Forbidden Planet]]'' were used in the sci-fi [[B-Movie]] ''[[Queen of Outer Space]]''.
* ''[[The Matrix]]'' used several sets from ''[[Dark City]]'' (filmed at the same Sydney studio a few months before, and exploring some similar themes), most notably the roof-case from the teaser chase scene and the spiral staircase in the Lafayette Hotel.
* ''[[Airplane!|Airplane 2]]'' had the thing with lights that go back and forth. Seen in the background in some Sci-Fi series. Was also in an episode of ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[Star Wars]]''
** The Homestead set from ''[[A New Hope]]'' was unearthed (as in, literally disinterred from the sands of Tunisia) for ''[[Attack of the Clones]]''.
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** IG-88's head was originally used as a drink dispenser in Ep. IV.
** Darth Vader's lightsaber in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' is a repainted prop of Luke's saber from the previous two movies (the two props were similar, but not identical, in shape). Apparently the original prop of Vader's lightsaber was stolen.
* The wrecked plane set from ''[[Scary Movie]] 4'' is actually from the movie they were parodying, ''[[The War of the Worlds (2005 film)|The War of the Worlds]]''.
* Likewise, the bathroom from the ''[[Saw]]'' parody was later used by the producers of ''Saw III'' to save money.
* [[Mel Brooks]] reused Kenneth Strickfaden's original electrical equipment from the 1931 version of ''[[Frankenstein (film)|Frankenstein]]'' in his [[Affectionate Parody]], ''[[Young Frankenstein]]''. This was done not to save money but as an homage to the original film.
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** Another reused prop from ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]'' is a console in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Earthshock".
** The griddle-like corridor panels have shown up in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy (TV series)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'', ''[[Blake's 7|Blakes Seven]]'' and ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' ''at least'', and probably in various other productions.
* Old Tucson Studios. Built initially for the movie ''Arizona'' in 1939, its buildings were used as the sets of countless [[Western]] television shows and movies, including episodes of ''[[Gunsmoke]]'', ''[[Little House on the Prairie (TV series)|Little House On the Prairie]]'', ''[[Bonanza]]'', and ''[[Have Gun — Will Travel]]''. It is also a tourist attraction, though most of the original sets were lost in a fire.
* Defied by ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'': all the original props were unavailable for the sequel ''[[2010: The
** In spite of which, the audio commentary for ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'' claims that one of the original ''Discovery'' EVA pods can be seen in Watto's scrapyard on Tatooine. More likely it's the EVA pod built for ''2010''.
* [[Roger Corman]]'s ''The St. Valentine's Day Massacre'' re-used sets from ''[[Hello, Dolly!|Hello Dolly]]'' and ''[[The Sound of Music]]''. Corman actually had the resources of a studio behind him, and probably could have built new sets, but stuck to cost-saving measures out of habit.
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** And so does an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]''. Yes, an ''animated series'' used Prop Recycling.
* In ''[[Mulholland Drive]]'', when Betty Elms arrives at the movie studio for her audition, the car from ''[[Sunset Boulevard]]'' is parked at the entrance.
* Steve Martin's dentist instruments from ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'' were reused as surgical instruments for the backroom surgeon who treated the Joker in Tim Burton's ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]''.
* The monster penis from ''[[Tromeo and Juliet]]'' is reused in ''Citizen Toxie: [[The Toxic Avenger]] IV''.
* The armors from ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]'' gets around a lot...
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* The Room of Requirement in the last ''[[Harry Potter (film)|Harry Potter]]'' recycles basically every set and prop from the previous movies (for instance, the giant chess pieces from the first, Snape's storage from the fourth, and the wedding decorations from part 1 of the seventh). CGI example: Buckbeak's wings are re-used as the wings of the flying horses pulling the Beauxbatons carriage.
* The teddy bear Jack Ryan gets for his daughter at the end of ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]'' is the same teddy bear John McClane was bringing for his kids in the first ''[[Die Hard]]'' film. Both films were directed by John McTiernan.
== Literature ==
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** In ''[[Power Rangers SPD]],'' the gold Krybots trade in their snowflake-shaped swords for what looks a lot like the Chrono Sabers from ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]''.
** In ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]'', the [[Sixth Ranger]]'s [[Transformation Trinket]] was actually the Trinket from ''[[Gosei Sentai Dairanger]]'', a series that didn't get a ''[[Power Rangers]]'' equivalent (though its [[Humongous Mecha]] and [[Sixth Ranger]] were used in the second season of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|Mighty Morphin]]'').
* ''
** The staircase can be seen in "Elegy", "The 16 Millimeter Shrine", and "The Purple Testament".
** The fireplace, and big wooden doors are seen in numerous episodes.
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** The long, thin energy weapons with the ridged undersides on their grips, that taper to a point instead of having a barrel and look vaguely like emaciated vacuum cleaners, initially appeared in an early episode where SG-1 encounter a planet where two religious factions are at war over beliefs concerning their planet's Stargate. Since then, these weapons have become "that one prop", appearing in different, totally unrelated episodes over, and over, and over... until finally from mid-season 3 onwards they completely replaced the Wraith stunner rifles in ''Stargate Atlantis'', which to begin with had original, completely different looking props.
** The Ancient space suits from ''[[Stargate Universe]]'' originally appeared as power armor used by the {{spoiler|rogue Asgard}} in one episode of ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]''.
* ''
** The CIC set for the Battlestar ''Pegasus'' in [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|the 2000s ''
** ''Galactica'' itself averted this trope by auctioning off a huge number of props, uniforms, set pieces, and curios to raise money for ''[[Caprica]]''. [[Shaggy Dog Story|Which was canceled after less than one season.]]
** The
** Scenes from ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* ''[[Star Trek]]''
** The Federation transporter pads in the various series all use parts of the original one from ''[[Star Trek: The
** The propmasters of all incarnations of ''Trek'' were rather quite, well, masterful at prop recycling; most props were recycled either from other shows or movies or even recycled from other episodes of any given preceding ''Trek'' incarnation including itself. Starship models, even in the CGI era, were particularly prone to this, the end result being several different alien races, separated by the entire length of the galaxy or even by centuries in some cases (or even both) used variations of the same ship design in various scales (or their medical scanner or communications relay would bear an odd resemblance to
** Most of the sets from the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' era of ''Trek'' owe their existence to ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture]]''. Almost every single subsequent starship interior, including those of Picard's ''USS Enterprise,'' ''USS Voyager'' and so on, and even Klingon ship interiors, were redresses of the ''Enterprise'' interior from that film (namely, all eponymous ships [but not stations] shared the same hallway interiors, and Klingon bridges were actually the redress of the engineering room from the film). These 30+ year old sets survived until shortly after ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' wrapped up, in which they were destroyed by having accidentally been left out in the rain; some were painstakingly recreated for the final episode of ''[[Star Trek:
** [http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies.htm This site] has a massive list of re-used ''Trek'' props, sets, [[Rubber Forehead Aliens|make-up]], etc. Just scroll down and click on anything that starts with "Re-Used". [http://www.modernprops.com/Details1b.asp?dept=195&category=290&item=1 These bad boys] (a.k.a. the Blinky double tube that serve no purpose) have to be the ''patron saint'' of recycled props.
** This also occurs with special effects and models. A [[Retcon]] was made to justify why both Klingons and Romulans had the same D-7 Battle Cruiser, just so they could reuse the model. The ''Voyager'' episode "Dragon's Teeth" has a series of subspace corridors that was simply a different color and miscellaneous debris thrown into the quantum slipstream drive effect. In the ''Voyager'' episode "Warlord", they reused a ship model from the ''Next Generation'' episode "Unification". And especially as the series tilted towards CG ships, many different ships were recolored, resized and/or slightly modified from prior CG models to save time and money.
** In ''[[Star Trek:
** The bombardier-like window of a spacecraft in one episode of ''[[Star Trek:
** An example that has gone unnoticed for decades: Paramount altered Col. Philip Green's jumpsuit from the ''[[Star Trek: The
** Another bit from ''[[Star Trek: The
* ''[[Eureka]]'' uses props from ''Stargate'' and ''Stargate Atlantis'', especially in the realm of "futuristic" weaponry. Most noticable is a triple-barreled assault rifle first used by the Genii and Satedan against the Wraith, shows up in ''Eureka'' with Jo the police woman holding it.
* ''[[The Outer Limits]]'', an anthology series, does this with their own props so much you can practically make a drinking game of it.
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* ''[[Remote Control]]'' used game stage props from earlier seasons as decorations in the [[Studio Audience]] section in later seasons; the show also used props from ''[[Finders Keepers (TV series)|Finders Keepers]]'' on the set.
* ''[[The Munsters]]'' episode "If It's a Martian, Hang Up" features a gag at the end of the episode in which one of the alien suits from the original ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' makes a cameo appearance.
* The producers of ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]'' struck a deal with KOED to build a news set in their studio. The Tulsa network used the set for their own broadcasts for a couple years afterward.
* The [[Cold War]] [[Day of the Jackboot]] mini-series ''Amerika'' has the [[Dirty Communists]] flying over the United States in helicopters reused from ''[[Blue Thunder]]''. Except they're [[Black Helicopter|no longer blue]].
* Most of the set from the failed 2001 revival of ''[[Card Sharks]]'' was reused for ''[[Whammy (TV series)|Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck]]'', as was announcer Gary Kroeger.
* One of ''[[Ultraman]]'s'' earliest monster battles was against Jirass, a monster that was very clearly a old [[Godzilla]] costume painted green and a neck frill added. Said frill is ripped off very early in the fight, presumably because the scriptwriters knew they wouldn't be fooling anybody.
* In season 25, ''[[Wheel of Fortune]]'' introduced a special electronic wedge called the Big Money Wedge, which featured neon and a video screen that alternated among dollar amounts. When it was retired at the end of the season, the wedge was recycled for a redesign of the Jackpot Wedge.
* ''[[The Love Boat]]'' literally ''will not'' "be taking another run". [https://web.archive.org/web/20120504191325/http://now.msn.com/entertainment/0309-love-boat-ship-scrapped.aspx It was scrapped (recycled!) in March of 2012].
* At the end of the ''[[Charmed]]'' pilot episode "Something Wicca This Way Comes", Prue is seen holding the same newspaper from ''[[Mrs. Doubtfire]]'', [[Line-of-Sight Name|where Daniel Hillard gets his eponymous alias from]].
* After Pancor's demise the sole existing Pancor Jackhammer was obtained by Movie Gun Services before eventually being sold to a private collector. Movie Gun Services rented it out and it has appeared in more movies than there ever were Jackhammers produced. This was compounded further by the company offering 3D scaning, letting it appear in even more video games.
== Puppet Shows ==
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** Used more straight, the cow from that same episode can be briefly seen in the third episode of ''[[Wallace and Gromit]] Grand Adventures''. Although it's hidden behind a door, you can see it and it's extremely obvious it's the same cow since it doesn't fit the art style at all.
* There are obviously re-used props in ''[[Call of Duty]]: [[Call of Duty: Modern Warfare|Modern Warfare]] 2'', like American police cars from the Virginia levels appearing on the tarmac at a Moscow airport. Or American taxicabs [[Mind Screw|appearing in Afghanistan]].
* [[Valve
** Valve in general reuses props, textures, and [[Stock Sound Effect|sound effects]] across franchises whenever they can; this is due in a large part to the fact that nearly all of their games started out as mods of the others. Since every game except ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' has essentially the same visual style, and the engine itself does not support significantly higher-detail graphics than it did when it was first created, it still looks natural. Open up Hammer's prop browser for either of the ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' games or ''[[Portal 2]]'' if you're so inclined; many of the props that were lifted from ''[[Counter-Strike]] Source'' are still in folders named for their respective maps.
** The "Aperture Science High-Energy Pellet" in ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'' uses the same sprite and sounds as the Combine orbs in ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]] 2''. The orbs used to fuel the security systems, at least, appear to be completely harmless, so they can't be the same as the [[One-Hit Kill]] High-Energy Pellet, not that that stopped this editor (who had played ''Portal'' first) from panicking when he hit it with the Gravity Gun and it started bouncing all over the place...
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** The good doctor's freeze/death ray is an Alliance stun gun from ''[[Firefly]]'' held upside-down. The gun later appeared on an episode of ''[[The Middleman]]''.
** And his lab coat was from the ''Firefly'' episode "Ariel".
* Gets an offhand mention in [[
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