Suspiciously Similar Song/Music: Difference between revisions

== Music ==

== Radio ==

* ''[[Dead Ringers (TV series)|Dead Ringers]]'' managed to avoid this trope a surprising amount of the time despite being completely based on impressions and parodies, as most of its regular targets were also [[The BBC|BBC]] productions. They did use Jimmy Harted theme musics for some of their one-off sketches, though, such as when they put one of the BBC's most well-known political interviewers into a superhero story to form [http://www.clickteam.info/davidn/music/paxman!.mp3 The Continuing Adventures of Paxman]{{Dead link}}.

* ''[[American Top 40]]'': A Jimmy Hart version of "Afternoon Delight" (by the Starland Vocal Band) was used from 1977-1978 as a cue, while the ending bar of the show's ending theme from 1979-1984 sounded like Raydio's "Jack & Jill."

* The radio countdown show ''Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40'' uses bumpers that are Jimmy Hart versions of country songs. This carried over from when Kingsley hosted ''American Country Countdown'', which uses original-tune bumpers now that [[Garfunkel|Kix Brooks]] hosts it.

* [[Mitch Benn]]'s songs on ''[[The Now Show]]'' are generally to tunes that ''sound like'' the songs he's parodying, since the UK doesn't have a "fair use" exception for parodies.

== [[Stand Up Comedy]] ==

* [[Bill Hicks]] often started his shows with a Jimmy Hart version of "Purple Haze" by [[Jimi Hendrix]].

** Although not a musical example, Denis Leary's entire act was a Jimmy Hart Version of Bill Hicks'.

== Theatre ==

* In the musical ''Dames At Sea'', "That Mister Man Of Mine" has a melody mostly copied from "The Man I Love".

* The "Nightingale Lullaby" from the musical ''Once Upon a Mattress'' includes an obvious pastiche of the Lullaby from Stravinsky's ballet music for ''The Firebird''. It's even written in the same key (and since that key is E flat minor, this is actually significant).

* "Sunday" from ''tick...tick...BOOM!'' is a parody of the song of the same name from the Sondheim musical ''[[Sunday in The Park With George]]'', with the melody turned upside down.

* Since its surprise appearance is in service of a gag, it probably needs spoiler tags: in [[Cirque Du Soleil]]'s ''Mystere'', an instrumental sound-alike of {{spoiler|"Stayin' Alive"}} turns up.

** The bungee music (Il sogno di volare) in ''[[Saltimbanco]]'' sounds similar to the intro of Mozart's ''Requiem''.

* The [[Dastardly Whiplash|Victorian-melodrama villain]]'s theme in the [[Show Within a Show]] in ''Show Boat'' sounds like the Russell Bennett version of [[Standard Snippet|Mysterioso Pizzicato]].

* In an [[Older Than Radio]] example, "With Catlike Tread" from ''[[Gilbert and Sullivan|The Pirates of Penzance]]'' cribs substantially from the Anvil Chorus in Verdi's ''Il trovatore''.

** This troper feels duty bound to disagree with this example (and I am a slave to duty!); whilst "With Catlike Tread" is a clear pastiche of Verdi, that's rather different to saying it's basically cribbed from the Anvil Chorus. Sullivan earlier did a fantastic pastiche of Handel in Trial by Jury, but again there's not a piece it's basically the same as, which is what this trope is surely getting at.

* Used to dark comic effect in "My Psychopharmacologist and I" from ''[[Next to Normal]]'', where a litany of antidepressant medications (and their [[Side Effects Include|side effects]]) is sung to the Jimmy Hart Version of "My Favorite Things" from ''[[The Sound of Music]]''.

* [[Kit And The Widow]] show us [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBXsYNf1l5Y here] how to do this and make great deals of money in the West End, all while taking unsubtle shots at [[Andrew Lloyd Webber]].

* The final refrain of "Letting Go"("not letting go, not letting go, never letting go, never letting go... of you") from ''Vanities: The Musical'' resembles the ending of "Friend Like Me" from ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]''. The verse and pre-chorus of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPqYpwHRDkg Hey There, Beautiful] are a JHV of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJEE78PUNsQ&feature=fvst Mr. Blue Sky] by Electric Light Orchestra, although the latter has a longer verse melody. "Looking Good" ends similarly to "For Good" from ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]''.

== Web Original ==

* When a [[Web Animation]] series reaches a certain level of success (typically when it starts selling DVDs), the creator often goes back and removes any copyright infringement that was safe when the series was unknown. ''[[Bonus Stage (web animation)|Bonus Stage]]'' is a good example: Matt eventually removed a multitude of unauthorized cameos from his earlier episodes (such as one by the ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' cast) and replaced the ska song in the credits with an instrumental facsimile called "Total Soundalike."

** Speaking of ''[[Homestar Runner]]'', one of the earliest Homestar toons ("Marshmallow's Last Stand") featured a snipet of the theme fom ''The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly''. When the toon was released on DVD, the audio was changed to a JHV of the tune. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Matt Chapman (as Homestar) in the commentary when he tells Mike Chapman "don't listen to this part, we're gonna change it." when the original audio can be head in the backound.

*** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] somewhat in the cartoon "On Break", in which Mike and Matt perform an a-capella rendition of "Yakety Sax" that ends somewhat differently from the original song. Afterwards, one of them asks, "Does it end different?"

** Another would be [[Zero Punctuation]], which originally featured segments of various "appropriate" songs during the opening and closing credits. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] at the start of the first episode with the new theme music.

* The intro music to CollegeHumor's retrogaming series ''[http://www.collegehumor.com/bleepbloop Bleep Bloop]'' is [[The Jimmy Hart Version]] of ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' theme.

* Because [[YouTube]] is so ridiculously litigious about the use of music in parodies, parodists like Venetian Princess now have to find someone like Steve Goldstein to write a Jimmy Hart Version for them. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OG8faNTcwo Example here.]

* Used regularly on ''[[How It Should Have Ended]]'' to imitate the themes of the movies they're parodying, featuring "The Stuff" ([[Transformers: The Movie|"The Touch"]]), and the Terminator beat with an extra note.

* [[Improv Everywhere]]'s [http://improveverywhere.com/2010/05/18/who-you-gonna-call/ video of] their ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' operation uses a Jimmy Hart version of the ''Ghostbusters'' theme.

** Also, rather than use "Who Let The Dogs Out?" for their [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9iq9gdeIE4 Invisible Dogs operation], one of their number composed "The Dogs Were Let Out By Whom?"

* The song in ''[[Charlie the Unicorn]] 3'' is a knock-off of "Under The Sea" from ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'', but with a middle-eight based on the "[[Pokémon|Pokérap]]".

* Since the Mega64 crew couldn't use "Walkie Talkie Man" by Steriogram for their [[Elite Beat Agents]] skit, Josh Jones, theri composer made a similar sounding version with [[Word Salad Lyrics]].

* The intro of Nyan Cat bears some resemblance with the organ intro of ''Light my Fire'' by The Doors.

* The video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ5p9WttVhE Wiley vs. Rhodes] uses melodies very similar to the ''[[Merrie Melodies]]'' theme "Merrily We Roll Along" in the intro and the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' theme "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" in the ending. Justified since the video was a homage to the [[Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner|Wile E Coyote and The Road Runner]] cartoons.

* A tune that often shows up in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hggufTHEgDA The Annoying Orange] is really similar to one of the battle tunes from [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35l0RASPnv8 Serious Sam: Second Encounter].

* ''[[Ashens]]'' uses a vaguely (emphasis on vaguely) ''[[Star Wars]]'' theme style song when reviewing bootleg Star Wars merchandise. This is accompanied by a text scroll with several references to the badly translated box writing on said bootlegs.

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