Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Difference between revisions

For ''very'' suspiciously similar substitutes, see [[Backup Twin]]. Compare [[Discard and Draw]], which does the same sort of thing with superpowers instead of characters. The [[Inverted Trope|inversion]], where the ''same'' character fills a ''different'' role, is [[Same Character but Different]].

 

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Patlabor]]'', Takeo Kumagami replaces Kanuka Clancy after Clancy returns to America. They have very similar skills and fulfill the same police positions, although Kumagami is given a few quirks to distinguish her.

* Scattorshot in ''[[Transformers Cybertron]]'' is an [[Expy]] of Ironhide from ''[[Transformers Energon]]''. Likewise, the Jones family in ''Energon'' is this to the Witwickys from ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]''.

 

== Comic Books ==

** As a long-running tradition in ''X-Men'', the team roster ''always'' has to include one plucky, [[Badass Adorable]] teenage girl who adopts [[Wolverine]] as a [[Big Brother Mentor]]. When the character grows out of the role, she's always replaced by another one. Kitty Pryde started the tradition, and her replacements have included Jubilee, Marrow, Armor, Pixie, and [[X-23]]. Marrow shook up the tradition a bit by having Gambit as her mentor instead, but the writers cut out the middleman with X-23 by making her Wolverine's [[Distaff Counterpart|female clone]] (the closest thing to an actual little sister Wolvie's ever going to get).

* Parodied in ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]: The Black Dossier'', where we're told the British Government, in assembling the 1950s League, tried to find substitutes of the ''entire'' 1890s League. It didn't work.

* Lana Lang started her existence blatantly filling the role of [[Lois Lane]] when they started telling stories about Superman's childhood as [[Superboy]]. Unlike her modern incarnation, she was both the love interest and the nosy inquisitive girl always trying to prove Clark was Superboy.

* The early 1960s ''[[Doctor Who]]'' comics had the Trods, who were a suspiciously similar substitute for the Daleks, who were unusable at the time due to the rights to publish Dalek comics being in the hands of a different company.

 

== Film ==

** This is changed in the [[Animated Adaptation]], where Mauser becomes a good guy, whereas Harris remains an antagonist.

** Also, when Steve Guttenberg refused to reprise his role as Sgt. Mahoney for the 5th and 6th movies, Commandant Lassard's nephew Nick was brought in to fill Mahoney's shoes, while the 7th movie had a cadet named Kyle Connors also fill the very same spot.

* Roman in ''[[Two Fast Two Furious]]'' replaced Dominic from ''[[The Fast and the Furious]]'' as the [[Anti-Hero]] with a criminal past. Though it's worth noting that Brian is now the main character with Roman as his sidekick, instead of co-lead with Dom.

** Both Roman and Dom are back in ''[[Fast Five]]''.

* [[The Three Stooges|The Third Stooge]]. While Shemp was not Suspiciously Similar, Curly Joe was trying to copy the more popular (than Shemp) original Curly.

** Curly had ''two'' Suspiciously Similar Substitutes: Joe Besser and (Curly) Joe DeRita.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[In Death]]'' series: ''Eternity In Death'' has Eve and Peabody questioning the housekeeper who worked for the murder victim. Then they go to see the murder victim's friend, whose housekeeper might have been a clone of the previous one. The story states that the two housekeepers are sisters.

 

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]''. Jonas Quinn was sort of like Daniel Jackson... but from another planet! However, after Michael Shanks decided to return as a regular, Jonas Quinn was abruptly and permanently written out of the series at the beginning of the seventh season.

** Quinn sometimes had knowledge that made very little sense for an alien. Daniel, of course, was a linguist and archaeologist who had spent his career studying Earth languages and cultures. How Quinn, an alien, was able to spontaneously recognize markings on an alien ship as similar to ancient Celtic is unclear.

** This is actually lampshaded [[Incredibly Lame Pun|depres]][[Tear Jerker|singly]] in the episode "Depressing News," when Hawkeye is lamenting to B.J. how the war rolls on even as the people fighting it are killed or replaced (using the surplus tongue depressors that have been shipped to the 4077th as a visual aid):

{{quote|'''Hawkeye:''' Tongue depressors, doctors, soldiers, we're all the same...(''holds up one tongue depressor'') Trapper John goes. No problem, there's plenty more where he came from. (''tosses it aside and picks up another'') B.J. Hunnicutt. Same size, same shape. (''picks up another'') Frank Burns out... (''picks up another'') Winchester in. Just a hair's difference. (''picks up another'') Henry Blake. (''snaps it in two'') Rest in peace, Henry. (''picks up another'') Incoming Sherman Potter. (''to B.J.'') My God, hasn't this elimination tournament gone on long enough?}}

* Capt. Oliver Hudson on ''[[SeaQuest DSV]]''.

** Lonnie Henderson is probably a better example, going so far as to step in as Ford's love interest in season 2 to replace Katie Hitchcock.

* ''[[Bedlam]]'' replaces Jed, [[I See Dead People|a man who sees ghosts and works to put them at rest]] and investigating the house's mysteries, with Ellie, a girl who can see ghosts, investigating what happened to Jed.

* In ''[[Mortal Kombat: Conquest]]'', Qali was a female assassin who was a childhood friend of Kitana, and tended to dress in green, much like Jade. In fact, she may have actually ''been'' Jade, using her real name. Reptile had an actual name in the series too, so it's not a stretch to believe that had the series continued, Qali might have simply taken the name "Jade" as a ''nom de plume''.

 

== Music ==

* Current [[Yes]] vocalist Benoït David sounds quite a lot like erstwhile Yes vocalist Jon Anderson. This probably isn't surprising since they plucked him out of a [[Ascended Fanboy|Yes tribute band]]. Trevor Horn, who handled lead vocals on the band's 1980 album ''Drama'', also sounds rather similar to Anderson.

* Country music group Shenandoah had a hard time holding a lead singer after Marty Raybon left. However, one of the replacements was Jimmy Yeary, who sounded uncannily like Raybon.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* ''[[Robotman and Monty|Monty]]'' was once called ''Robotman'', but the syndicate wanted the creator Jim Meddick to [[Long Bus Trip|remove]] the Robotman character.<ref>The syndicate was tired of receiving complaints that ''this'' Robotman was far from the friendly cartoon character of * ''Robotman And Friends'', of which the comic was ''technically'' a [[Spin-Off]]</ref> That done, fast-forward several years, and Monty is befriended by the mysterious eccentric scientist Doc-and his robot sidekick E. B. So far there's no sign that the syndicate wants to dump this new robotic character.

 

== Radio ==

* In ''[[The Navy Lark]]'', Troutbridge's Number One in the first season, Dennis Price, was replaced by Stephen Murray in all the following seasons. They were different characters, but shared some of the same knowledge and responses.

* In ''[[The Jack Benny Program]]'', there were several cast changes over the years: Bob Crosby for Phil Harris; Dennis Day for Kenny Baker.

 

== Theater ==

* Not exactly an apt trope for plays, but there's a very similar feeling in ''Othello'': Brabantio, father of Desdemona, has a role in the first act, then does not follow when the action moves to Cyprus; then in the last act Gratiano, his brother, shows up to announce Brabantio is dead and generally stand in for him as a Venetian authority figure. Heightened in some small productions where the two characters are played by the same actor.

 

== Video Games ==

** From one game to the next half the cast will be this for the previous game. There's a set of archetypes that are well known in the fandom such as the two (occasionally three) cavaliers and the [[Crutch Character|Jeigan]].

* In the PSP Game ''[[Jeanne D'Arc]]'', {{spoiler|Liane is burned at the stake in Jeanne's place, and replaced by Cuisses}}, who is, thankfully, virtually the same. (Because {{spoiler|Liane}} was probably one of your healers)

** In ''[[Super Mario Land]]'', Princess Daisy took up the "kidnapped princess" role Peach normally has in other Mario games.

*** Peach herself was sort of a substitute for Pauline, the damsel in ''[[Donkey Kong]]'', except she's one of the few examples to overshadow her predecessor. When they brought back Pauline in the [[Game Boy]] version, they had to dye her hair color to brown to distinguish her.

*** Pauline's recent revival in ''Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis'' could possibly count as a [[Subverted Trope|subversion]] of this trope, since she's ironically replaced Peach (replacing your replacement?) as Mario's main woman in the game (even despite having Mini-Peaches and not Mini-Paulines). Not to mention, probably very few younger gamers knew who Pauline was, meaning ''she'' was ''Peach's'' replacement... [[Nostalgia Filter|in their minds.]]

**** Some Japanese fans actually consider the ''DK94'' version of Pauline to be a different character from the Pauline in the original 1981 arcade game, since the original Pauline was actually named "Lady" in Japan.

*** And in the same vein, Foreman Spike from ''[[Wrecking Crew]]'' was Mario's original rival, an irritable tough guy with crazy facial hair and a grudge. Yes, essentially a prototype version of Wario and Waluigi; ''[[Mario Kart]] DS'' even lampshades this by having Waluigi's default kart, the Gold Mantis, be Spike's steamshovel.

* In [[Super Mario Bros.]], Pewee Piranha and Digga Legg from [[Super Mario Galaxy 2]] are pretty much suspiciously similar substitutes to Dino Piranha and Megaleg from the original [[Super Mario Galaxy]]. The former is even found in the same general point in the game as the latter, and defeated in nearly the same way. Also, the Topmen from Galaxy are basically the same thing as the Bullies from [[Super Mario 64]], both being enemies defeated by being pushed off the edge of the platform. They even both have nearly the same boss battles in the [[Mario Kart]] series!

* In [[Yoshi's Island]] DS, about half the bosses and a good few of the levels are nearly the same thing as their equivalents from the first game. The Big Burt Bros are the most obvious, they're literally just two smaller versions of Burt the Bashful, killed the exact same way and found in a level with roughly the same layout. Others include Bungee Piranha (which is very much like Naval Piranha, complete with a castle designed like a sewer system) and Bowser himself, who pretty much acts as a near identical replacement to both Hookbill the Koopa and the giant version of his baby self.

 

== Web Animation ==

* ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' made fun of this trope when, on an episode of the [[Show Within a Show]] ''Cheat Commandos'', Gunhaver [[Put on a Bus|has to go on a secret mission to the moon for an undisclosed period of time]] (and if he ever comes back [[The Other Darrin|his voice might be different]]), and is replaced by Agent Chimendez, who is [[Sarcasm Mode|certainly not]] [[Author Avatar|writer A. Chimendez implementing himself in the show]].

** There's also "Onion Bubs," and the various other versions used to replace "Original Bubs."

 

== Web Comics ==

* Lampshaded in ''[[William Bazillion|The Chronicles of William Bazillion]]'' [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/andrew/bazillion/series.php?view=archive&chapter=25371&mpe=1&fromwhich=1&direction=f here].

* L.D., the ruthless wolf CEO of HerdThinners in ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'', only seen as a pair of slavering jaws, died in the first year and was immediately replaced by R.L., a ruthless wolf only seen as a pair of slavering jaws.

 

== Web Original ==

{{quote|'''Beauregard''':[[Lampshade Hanging|Hey, didn't you used to be Swedish?]]

'''Angelo''': That's-a the other guy! }}

 

== Western Animation ==

** Unlike most other un-substituted SSS's, [[Breakout Character|Butters]] also managed to maintain an increased presence on the show, becoming somewhat of an [[Mauve Shirt]].

*** The ever-[[Genre Savvy]] ''[[South Park]]'' also lampshaded this with Chef's temporary replacement Mr. Derp in the episode "Succubus."

* Whizz The Robot became this in ''[[Noddy In Toyland]]'', where he replaced Mr. Sparks the mechanic. He previously was not this in his introductory series ''[[Say It With Noddy]]''.

* The [[Animated Adaptation]] of ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' mirrored its non-animated counterpart in using Coy and Vance instead of Bo and Duke for one season only, though that season was its first.

** This could easily be considered a reverse example, as Chromastone was something of this or an [[Expy]] for Diamondhead in the first place.

*** A recent episode {{spoiler|brought back Chromastone and revealed his connection to the alien race Diamondhead comes from}}.

*** Though the mentality behind making another very fast character (and similar substitutes in general) could be accepted if one were to consider the idea that of the million aliens connected to the Ultimatrix, it's highly likely that several of them naturally have the same powers.

**** This of course circles back to why sets of 10 were created. [[Fridge Brilliance|Variety without redundancy.]]

* An episode of ''[[Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm]]'' had an OC named Ruby, a female assassin dressed in red. Ruby was a scantily clad [[Badass Princess]], a seducer, and an old childhood friend of Kitana, you know, kind of like the one in the game with the name of a ''green'' precious stone. To be blunt, the likely reason Ruby was used in place of Jade was because the writers wanted her to have a background with Ermac too, and it seemed designing a new character was preferable to them than messing up the core character's background.

* In the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' short ''The Crackpot Quail'' (directed by [[Tex Avery]] himself) the eponymous quail has a sense of humor and personality very similar to that of [[Bugs Bunny]], going so far as to refer to Willoughby the Dog as "Doc" while trolling him.

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters and Casting]]

[[Category:Acting for Two]]

[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]