Spotlight-Stealing Title: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

So you've got a TV series, cartoon, comic book or other publication in the works, and of course you want it to succeed. What do you do to get it to catch the reader/viewers' attention? Make use of the character who has the most [[Popularity Power]] or is played by the most popular star by promoting them to the series title, kind of like [[Wolverine Publicity]] but for the team he's already a part of.

 

 

This alone is not an indicator of [[Adaptation Decay]], but generally raises a warning flag to potential viewers. Then again, if [[And the Fandom Rejoiced]] is involved then it's just a mere marketing trick rather than a sign of decay.

 

== Comic Books ==

* In Brazil, O Pato Donald ([[Donald Duck]]) #434 introduced Zé Carioca. The stories became popular enough that Issue #479 Was titled "O Pato Donald apresenta Zé Carioca" (Or Donald Duck presents Joe Carioca), and the series continued to take that title every other issue (So even numbers were Donald Duck and odd numbers were Joe Carioca). Donald's face was removed from the Zé Carioca title logo after issue #527, the words "O Pato Donald apresenta" were shrunk down after issue #539, and removed completely from the title after issue #981 until eventually, this trope was reversed when Zé Carioca split off from Donald Duck, becoming its own individual series after issue #1751. This treatment was quite generous to the character, because even for a while after the split, an issue of Zé Carioca wasn't necessarily entirely Zé Carioca stories.

* From issue 135 to 145, Marvel's ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' comic series was retitled ''G.I. Joe: Starring Snake-Eyes'', with the "Snake-Eyes" portion consuming most of the cover.

* ''[[Sonic the Comic]]'' originally featured comics of various [[Sega]] games at the time. You wouldn't know it from the title though.

 

== Film ==

* The ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' movies added Lara Croft's name to the title.

** Though she already was the only character that matters as well as the titular Tomb Raider.

* The ''[[Rambo]]'' movies are, in order, ''First Blood'', ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'', ''Rambo III'', and ''Rambo''.

 

 

* Parodied in [[Ogden Nash]]'s poem "The Self-Effacement of Electra Thorne":

? }}

 

 

* When ''[[The Green Hornet]]'' was shown in Hong Kong, they retitled it "The Kato Show" due to Bruce Lee's popularity.

* Star Ron Howard and creator Gary Marshall threatening to walk stopped ABC from their "brilliant" idea of renaming their hit show to ''Fonzie's [[Happy Days]]''. But it didn't stop Henry Winkler's [[Breakout Character|ascension from credited at the end of the episode to top-billing star]].

* ''[[The Daily Show]]'' became ''The Daily Show with Jon Stewart'', mostly to distinguish itself from the earlier seasons, which were hosted by Craig Kilborn.

* Even [[Virtual Celebrity|cartoon bands]] are not immune to this. "David Seville and the Chipmunks" had their names simplified to "The Chipmunks" before they officially became "[[Alvin and The Chipmunks]]".

** This was less from fame and more from the fact creator Ross Bagdasarian's stage name was David Seville. After his death, his son Ross Bagdasarian Jr inherited the chipmunks, but did not do much with them for a few years, and when he did, followed in his father's footsteps taking the stage name 'Alvin Chipmunk' and also doing all of the voices of the characters using the same methods as his father. Thus the change in name over the years from David Seville to Alvin.

* [[The Stooges]] became Iggy & the Stooges for quite some time because of Iggy Pop's popularity. Eventually it became just the Stooges again.

* The song "Careless Whisper" was credited as a George Michael solo effort initially in the UK but became Wham! featuring George Michael internationally.

* Rainbow's 1975 debut album was titled ''Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow'', even though [[Ronnie James Dio]] was clearly the [[Face of the Band]].

* [[Face of the Band|Selena Gomez's band]] was (at Gomez's own request) originally just "The Scene" , but to capitalize on Selena's fanbase and name-recognition, it became [[Selena Gomez]] & The Scene.

== Video Games ==

 

** To be fair, unlike the past titles, SpongeBob actually is a focal point of the plot rather than just part of an ensemble cast in the console version. No excuse for the DS version, though.

** In Europe, the series is entitled "SpongeBob SquarePants and Friends" since the beginning.

* The 360/PS3 "sequel" to the ''Sega Genesis Collection'' is entitled ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic]]'s Ultimate Genesis Collection'' in America but ''Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection'' in Europe.

* An inversion: in Japan, the ''[[Castlevania]]'' series is known as ''Akumajou Dracula'' ("Demon Castle Dracula") and with a few exceptions (particularly ''Vampire Killer'' for the Mega Drive, the Japanese version of ''Castlevania: Bloodlines''), all of the games in the series have been released under the ''Akumajou Dracula'' name until the second GBA game, in which Konami attempted to adapt the overseas title of ''Castlevania'' for the Japanese versions due to [[Artifact Title|Dracula's downplayed role in the newer games]]. It didn't quite work out and after fan backlash, the series went back to being called ''Akumajou Dracula'' in Japan.

** In Japan, ''Castlevania'' never had a consistent title up until later games. The second Famicom game was titled ''Dracula II'', the third one was ''Akumajou Densetsu'' (Legend of the Devil's Castle), the first two Game Boy games were known as ''Dracula Densetsu'' (Legend of Dracula) and the Mega Drive was called ''Vampire Killer''. It wasn't until ''Chi no Rondo'' for the PC Engine that the full ''Akumajo Dracula'' name started to be used more frequently in sequels.

* Inversion: the sequels to ''[[Ace Attorney|Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]'' downplayed the "Phoenix Wright" portion of the title after the localization staff realized that the fourth installment would feature a new protagonist, which ended up being released as ''Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney''.

* ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' turned into ''Jak II'' with the second game. Of course, since it went [[Darker and Edgier]] with that game, [[Shoo Out the Clowns|removing the comic relief sidekick from the title]] made sense.

* ''Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing'' (to be fair, half of the confirmed characters are from ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'')

* The Data East beat-em-up ''Dragon Ninja'' became ''Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja'' when it was released in North America to simply ''[[Bad Dudes]]'' when it was ported to the NES. A [[Justified Trope]], since [[Antagonist Title|the titular "Dragon Ninja" was actually the main bad guy]].

* ''Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon'' is a curious example. On the SNES, a game from the ''[[Ganbare Goemon]]'' series was released in English as ''Legend of the Mystical Ninja''. It seems that ''Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon'' was an attempt to keep the Mystical Ninja name for the franchise in the US whilst also having the main character's name in the title. In the European release's logo, the words "Starring Goemon" are much bigger than "Mystical Ninja". So, in a sense, Goemon is stealing the spotlight from himself.

** It's also worth mentioning that the ''Ganbare Goemon'' game featured in the English ''Konami GB Collection Vol. 3'', which uses the same logo, is simply called ''Starring Goemon'' in the game itself.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Winnie the Pooh]]'' spun off ''My Friends Tigger And Pooh''

* ''Rocky and His Friends'' featured ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' cliffhanger shorts. After a while, the name of the overall show became ''The Bullwinkle Show''.

** Which are no longer considered to be canonical by the author, and were ignored for the sequel comic book series, other than the one episode which he worked on.

** Which, it should be noted, originally had no such things as plot or characters. Those were all supplied by the show.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Title Tropes]]