Replacement Scrappy

Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Thing and... the Robotic Operating Buddy?

"You think you could ever replace Nunnally in my heart?! You're an imposter!"

—Lelouch, Code Geass

A popular character is killed off or otherwise written out and replaced with a new character who fills their previous role. Regardless of what this new character is like, they're likely to end up with a Hatedom directed at them, just because they're not the old favourite. If he'd been there from the start, maybe the fans could have loved this new character, or at least respected him. But no—he's a replacement. He's not even a Suspiciously Similar Substitute who at least shared some character traits with the other guy, he's a totally different guy, and so every flaw—every trait that makes him not like the character the fans want him to be—drives them crazy with longing and disgust, and all they can do is get angrier and angrier.

In short, They Changed It, Now It Sucks, but with a main character. If lucky, he may be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. Happens to all Anti Hero Substitutes that aren't portrayed as a regular villain in hero's costume.

Compare with Counterpart Comparison.

(Of course, being a Replacement Scrappy does not preclude also being a regular Scrappy. It is entirely possible that the audience would have hated the character anyway.)

Examples of Replacement Scrappy include:

Anime and Manga

• Davis from Digimon Adventure 02. In his defence, he does have a Raiden-like underground of firm fans who found his ultimate personification of This Loser Is You endearing.
• One of many, many reasons that Berry Shirayuki from Tokyo Mew Mew A La Mode is so unlikeable. What's more, Executive Meddling took it all the way - Ichigo's powers mysteriously mutated, so she functions as Berry's powerup item and nothing more.
• Also the initial reaction to Saki and Mai of Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, although this didn't last long.
• This happened to the Retooled versions of Kei and Yuri in Dirty Pair Flash.
• And also to the new versions of the Knight Sabers in Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040.
• Probably the biggest reason many Gundam Seed Destiny fans hate Shinn Asuka is that he's not Kira. The fact that Kira is still a member of the cast does not help, and a few fans don't even consider the Hostile Show Takeover to be enough, stating that the series needed to focus on Kira from the earliest possible moment.
  • It should be noted that a fair portion of the fanbase simply dislike him based on his Jerkass attitude, his blaming others for everything and that he never admits to his own mistakes. Not exactly the most endearing of protagonists, even in a franchise that includes similar whiny jerks Amuro Ray and Kamille Biden.
• Subverted by Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. After Kamina's death, a lot of fans freaked out when they heard that he would be semi-replaced by Nia. However, by the end of her three-episode-long introduction, she had gained a level of popularity rivaling that of the original three, and as more Woobie-tastic Character Development followed, her popularity finally equaled that of the original Power Trio.
  • Also flat-out inverted in the last act of the show, when Viral pulled a Heel Face Turn to become Gurren's pilot, which was most likely because of the character's existing fanbase.
• Sai, who replaced Sasuke Uchiha on Team 7 in Naruto, was hated by two groups of fans. Sasuke fans that hated the idea of someone replacing him. And Sasuke haters who didn't take to the character and even saw him as worse than the guy he replaced. However, Sai proves to be quite different. Sasuke has always been portrayed as the non-smiling stoic and so most fans probably assumed Sai would play the same role. Instead we have someone who always smiles, cracks jokes about Naruto and expresses how he feels from the get-go as opposed to staying silent and generally is shown to be less and less like Sasuke.
  • In-universe, Naruto himself says at one point that he can never replace Sasuke.
  • Madara never gets the end of it from people who can't accept anyone but Orochimaru as the final villain, or who were disappointed that the apparent leader of Akatsuki until then, Pain, was not the main villain either. And it turns out that Madara is not the main villain either! Or at least the series is not going in that direction.
• In the Pokémon anime, some people disliked May because she replaced Misty. Although in the previous arc, Misty's character was largely changed by the introduction of Togepi, who is a major Scrappy in his own right for this reason; fans mainly remember Misty at her peak for being a strong and dedicated female character, whereas May was portrayed as more of a stereotypical girl. (It didn't help that most of her Pokemon were arguably feminine and she was drawn with an oversized chest.) However, May eventually gained a large fanbase of her own, and come next arc, some people disliked Dawn because she replaced May and/or Misty.
  • A good number of fans hated Tracey for replacing Brock, some even making up reasons like "he's a fat pervert" to justify this. (Incredibly stupid considering that Brock, himself, is a blatant pervert.)
  • Cilan averts this trope surprisingly when he replaces Brock for Best Wishes and has become the Ensemble Darkhorse to the fanbase for his FABULOUS nature and bringing something different to the anime.
  • Iris originally suffered this before Best Wishes came out, not because she was replacing Dawn but because she wasn't the female protagonist of Black and White. Fan Dumb wanked her as being a racist character but the tides eventually settled almost immediately when she was revealed to be the last Gym Leader of Pokemon White who could use powerful dragon Pokemon. So, unlike Dawn who was seen as a Replacement Scrappy from the very beginning, it disappeared concerning Iris for the most part.
  • Finally, Paul fans see Ash's new rival Trip as one because in the words of the Fan Dumb, "He's not Paul." The creators are obviously not aiming for another Paul type of character and Trip is seen to be completely different as he's nicer to his Pokemon, does try to help Ash and Iris out on occasion and is not a poor sport like Paul demonstrated himself to be at the beginning. Paul's fans don't care.
    • To give a better example, at the start, everyone complained that he was too invincible for a rookie trainer due to beating Ash twice (the first battle shouldn't count though), but currently, now that he's suffering some losses, they complain that he's not a worty, interesting rival for Ash at all because he's too weak! At this point, it's more likely that these fans just hate Trip for replacing Paul, and will complain no matter what he does and given Paul's fanbase, it's not going to go away.
• Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo, which follows Count D at his new Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday in Tokyo, introduces Wu Fei to fill the role held by Leon Orcot in the original. Many fans who are less than pleased about Leon's absence from the new series are rather disenchanted with Wu Fei as a result.
• Ranma ½: Sasuke the Ninja, who replaces Hikaru Gosunkugi in the anime adaptations of the latter's first appearances. Even if it doesn't really make sense, such disguising oneself as a balcony just to be near Akane during a Romeo & Juliet play. Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja didn't work.
• In regards to Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Lyle Dylandy aka the second Lockon Stratos might become an in universe case, at least in regards to Tieria Erde, who has to remind himself that this Lockon isn't his dead first love friend and teammate Neil Dylandy, the first Lockon * and* Lyle's older twin brother. And fandom sees to be prone to bitch him out a bit as well... We'll have to see how it goes, though.
  • After he drops his nonchalant facade and shows genuine emotions as he witnesses the destruction of the Kataron HQ, people are a bit more forgiving...
    • But after he commits the mistake of having human reactions and an Heroic BSOD after his Manchurian Agent girlfriend Anew is killed, the Unpleasable Fanbase has yet again turned on him. ARGH, the Fan Dumb.
  • A good portion of the fanbase also dislikes Lyle due to the fact that he spends most of the series being almost an exact clone of his brother, to the point of giving up his human identity to become his brother's role at the end even though a crucial point of his character lay in the fact that he was supposed to be his own person and more than just a Backup Twin. A few attempts are made to Hand Wave the writers' laziness but they are either rushed through as in the case of his relationship with Anew) or are subplots which are never elaborated upon (like his involvement with Katharon) except in side materials released alongside the show.
  • Mileina has received a little bit of this as well for replacing the lovable Christina Sierra.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha fans were generally drawn to the series for the following reasons: Action Girl Nanoha and cast who manage to simultaneously be adorable and Badass, and the large amount of Les Yay instigated mostly by Nanoha. So, you can just imagine the massive uproar that occurred when it was announced that the very male Touma will replace Nanoha as the main character in the fourth season. Poor Touma, when the fandom wants you to either die from the get-go or turn out to be female all along, and there are betting pools on how long he'll last before he gets Demoted to Extra, you know you have a tough road ahead of you.
  • Plenty of Nanoha fans were upset with season 3, when Yuuno and Chrono virtually vanished, and the four new characters were given so much facetime. It was necessary to insert most of these characters for the later plot twists. But still, lots of griping about Subaru and Tea.
    • Though mostly outside of Japan and barely so anymore anywhere.
• As suggested by the quote on the page, in Code Geass Rolo Lamperouge becomes a Replacement Scrappy in series for Lelouch after Lelouch discovers that Rolo was sent to replace Lelouch's true sibling, Nunnally.
  • This eventually changes when Lelouch accepts Rolo right before he died, though even then he only accepts him as the brother of "Lelouch Lamperouge", and not of "Lelouch Vi Britannia."
    • What Lelouch means by making that difference is that, although they are not related by blood (Rolo is not a vi Britannia and he didn't share Lelouch's childhood as a prince either), he should have realised sooner that they were indeed brothers anyway (symbolized by the surname Lamperouge, which is equally fake for both and also refers to the time they spent together living happily as ordinary students).
• Patlabor After Kanuka's time with the SV 2 guys is up she goes back to the US and is replaced by one Takeo Kummagmi. Who is overall less than impressive.
• In Bakuman｡, Miura got this in series from the main characters for replacing Hattori as their editor. Mashiro and Takagi preferred not to go into gag manga, while Miura preferred to make more humorous series, partly as a result of a desire to have someone under him get serialized, leading to a few arguments until they managed to work out their issues and get along better together. This also happened when he replaced Hattori (again) as Iwase's editor, and this was particularly infuriating for her because she'd been attracted to Hattori.
• Pokota, the Guest Star Party Member for the fourth and fifth anime seasons of the Slayers anime, is exceptionally unpopular compared to the earlier "guests"- almost as powerful as Lina with many displays of Bratty Half-Pint moments, and rather naive.
  • Zelgadiss and Amelia's replacements in the Light Novel series, Luke and Millina, are no where near as loved or popular as they are; compared to the former two, Luke and Millina have virtually no established background, no Character Development, and are exceptionally bland personality wise: Luke is a less outspoken Expy of Lina, while Millina is a perpetual grouch, and a Shallow Love Interest for Luke. The greater majority of fans outside of Japan have most likely never heard of either of them, and even in Japan they get little love. Case in point: three of the Slayers Special light novels (the prequel to the main series) have side stories for Gourry (Lina's lancer in the books), Zelgadiss, and Amelia; none exist for Luke and Millina.
  • The voice actors for the ADV Films dubs of the movies, especially Cynthia Martinez as Lina, are widely disliked. Also, when Crispin Freeman replaced Daniel Cronin in the first season, he was disliked because of his more "vibrant" voice, but now the opposite (dislike of Cronin's voice) is true. When Veronica Taylor began voicing Amelia, however, she was considered to be a huge improvement.
• Despite being different series, Decoe and Bocoe from Sonic X are often seen as Replacement Scrappies for Scratch and Grounder from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was never even shown in Japan, so the Sonic X creators couldn't have known about Scratch and Grounder in the first place.
• Tenchi Muyo! fans were angry that the role of 'Mihoshi's partner' was passed from Kiyone Makibi to Noike. Noike is hated for a lot of different reasons, but this is the main one that comes up.
• Another in-universe example comes from Gundam 0080, where the Cyclops Team members are pretty open in their dislike for Bernie, who was assigned to them shortly after they lost a long-time member of the team.
• Near and Mello in Death Note, who replace L (particularly Near, who gets the official job.) Made worse by the fact that their appearance coincided with a massive change in the setup of the manga. Light's in charge of the investigation, detective cat and mouse games take a back seat to a more political game, and the overt Foe Yay between L and Light never develops an equivalent with the new characters. Also, the distribution of victories between the sides of Kira and L are drastically different and more one-sided.
  • Or more specifically with the Foe Yay, it too becomes one sided and distictly rapey too, with Near obsessively calling him and then hanging up, the very strange faces he makes while thinking about Light and the reveal in the manga that he wants to KEEP him.
• A lot of Weiss Kreuz fans were not impressed by Izumi Sena taking over Omi's role as the youngest and most idealistic member of Weiss in Weiss Kreuz Gluhen. Interestingly, there was much less backlash against Chloe in the Weiss Side B manga, in spite of the fact that he took over Yoji's role in the team.
• Bleach: The Fullbringers. Not only do they exist to just give Ichigo his powers back after he loses them after defeating Aizen and have unpleasant characteristics and hardly any backstory unlike the Vizards, but they turn out to be Smug Snake enemies that act way too confident for their own good.
• The widely-promoted reveal that the upcoming Kuroshitsuji II would feature a new master-butler duo in Alois and Claude was taken very negatively by the fans. When the first episode rolled out this was revealed to have been a case of the Trolling Creator trope. The beloved original duo came back despite the logistical issues that had made the ruse believable to so many people, leaving Alois and Claude to play the antagonists.

Comic Books

• Green Lantern Kyle Rayner had it even worse than most of the above-mentioned characters—not only was Hal Jordan, one of The DCU's longest-running and most respected heroes, disposed of in the stupidest, most demeaning way possible to make way for him, but pretty much the entire Green Lantern Corps was killed off too. So he wasn't just Replacement Scrappy for one (well-known and popular) character but a whole organization. No wonder he was one of the most hated characters in the DCU for some time. That said, he's become a good character on his own merits, and when Hal and the Corps were inevitably brought back Kyle was kept around in a major role.
  • Quite a few Kyle fans acknowledge that is was Grant Morrison's writing on JLA that saved him. Kyle was painted as a basically decent twenty-something with an incredibly powerful weapon trying to get used to the fact that he was now seated amongst, well, gods.
  • Ironically, after Hal's return, and taking the starring role in Green Lantern again, he became something of a Replacement Scrappy himself, in the eyes of the fandom Kyle had built up, since.
  • In Green Lantern First Flight, Hal Jordan is an In-Universe Replacement Scrappy for Abin Sur.
• Spider-Man: Don't forget Ben Reilly who was disliked for no other reason but that he wasn't Peter Parker. (That, and appearing in the story which caused severe Ending Fatigue.)
  • Reilly was hated mostly because of the revelation that he was the "real Peter Parker" and that the Peter fans had been reading for twenty years was really a clone. After the huge fan outrage Marvel quickly backtracked and reversed that decision.
  • Kaine, another Spider-Man clone, was a less explicit form of this trope. He wasn't really a replacement villain for an old one, but his Bridge Drop of Doc Ock solidified him in fans minds as an unwanted fucker who was biting off more than he deserved to chew in casually offing a beloved, classic Spidey villain with decades of continuity to back him up, and prompted cries for Doc Ock's resurrection and Kaine's axing. Basically, Kaine managed to become a Replacement Scrappy for a character whose role he wasn't even taking over.
  • After the One More Day storyline broke up the Parkers' marriage, anyone Peter dated would have gotten heat for not being Mary Jane. But the replacement we got was Carlie Cooper, a Relationship Sue named after editor Joe Quesada's daughter. Mary Jane has become a Shipper on Deck for the pairing, and so has everyone else. Reactions have been negative, to say the least.
    • Also, as pointed out in the Spider-Man Wild Mass Guessing page, all of her Informed Attributes come from other love interests like Mary Jane, Black Cat, and Deb Whitman. Now people are hoping she'll "be like Gwen Stacy" and die.
  • The new Hobgoblin is considered to be this by many fans, especially since he killed off the original Hobgoblin, a fan favorite, after the latter character returned after a decade of anticipation.
• Happened to Nightwing in JLA-Task Force. Note he wasn't loathed by the fans, he was loathed by his team members in canon.
• During Grant Morrison's JLA run Huntress is that to Batman (she was brought in as a last second replacement for Connor Hawke. He eventually kicks her out after her continued disregard for rules leads to her almost executing a defeated villain.
• This may have been a factor in the failure of Robert Kirkman's very well-written Irredeemable Ant-Man series. Insofar as Ant-Man has fans (every character is someone's favorite, right?), they would presumably be fans of Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, or Scott Lang, the second to use the name; Irredeemable was about a third, brand-new character, Eric O'Grady. Of course, it didn't help that Eric O'Grady was an unlikeable dick
  • The funny thing though is that O'Grady only exists BECAUSE Sony has the rights to make Ant Man into a movie and has stated that not only do they want a family friendly film out of the character but were going with the Scott Lang character with Hank Pym as his mentor. So of course, Marvel creates a new Ant Man who's a soulless asshole of epic proportions and shove it at readers, many of which are STILL bitter as hell that Bendis was allowed to kill Scott Lang off to begin with, in such a cheap and petty manner that he did.
• The Sandman: When Daniel replaces Morpheus near the end, this reaction is inevitable and instinctive for readers and characters alike. spoiler:The shock is gently muted as the final arc deals with the other characters - notably the raven, Matthew - coming to terms with the replacement. This openness, combined with Daniel's dignified humility and the knowledge that he had been carefully hand-picked by his predecessor, helps the reader to accept him.
  • It probably helps that the series ends at this point, since one of Daniel's positive qualities is the absence of some of the original character's inner turmoil. He is an easier character to like, and we never really see him in action enough to compare how he drives the plot.
  • It's much easier to accept if you came to the series after its completion and know that it is essentially about the downfall of Morpheus.
• Wildstorm, too - with the replacement for The Doctor.
• There are a lot of fans who hate any character in Runaways who took the spotlight after Gert died. No one gets this more than Klara Prast, for being the only character not created by Brian K. Vaughan, for not having a supervillain parent like every other member of the team, for being introduced in a story generally regarded as a Non Sequitur Episode, for freaking out over the team lesbians, for not having an origin for her powers, for having a punny name...
  • Lampshaded, when Molly remarks that the team eventually gets used to the new recruits by the time someone else dies.
• The Flash has had issues with this very similar to Green Lantern mentioned above. At the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Barry Allen made a Heroic Sacrifice, and Wally West, then the Kid Flash, became the Flash. Wally was not well received at first, whether due to his being young, a Jerkass, or the fact that he was less powerful (he lost a lot of his speed during the Crisis and didn't get it back for years.) While Wally grew into the role and gained acceptance, Barry kept appearing in one-off stories set in the past, time travel stories and one notable "fake out" event as well as a short lived TV series keeping his fandom alive. When Barry came back after 24 years of being dead, fans are split.
  • But when Bart Allen had his turn as The Flash, fans were much more in agreement about their loathing of the character due partly to the Wangst, partly due to his being artificially aged to shoehorn him into the role, but mostly because the character lost his Fun Personified sense of humor and cheerful demeanor.
    • Barry is getting this more now then ever since in the New 52 Wally was not only never Flash, but never even Kid Flash. Even fans that don't like Wally seem to feel that this was a low blow to his fanbase.
• Many people also hate Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle), Jason Rusch (Firestorm), and Ryan Choi (The Atom) due to the killing off or running off of their predecessors. That Jaime Reyes received such a large media push from Warner Bros (appearing in Batman the Brave And The Bold, Smallville and now Young Justice) despite Ted Kord never appearing outside of comics at all when he was alive has managed to exasperate the situation for a number of fans.
  • However, when Ryan Choi was ignominiously killed off, people had gotten over that he wasn't Ray Palmer, and now viewed Ray as this. After a pretty massive racial controversy that got coverage on some non-comic sites, DC retconned Ryan's death during the Flashpoint series and now he is the sole Atom in the New 52 continuity, with Ray being regulated to a scientific adviser for the S.H.A.D.E. organization.
    • An odd in-universe form of the Replacement Scrappy status of Ryan Choi came in Dwayne McDuffie's Justice League of America run, where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman considered asking him to join. Superman is reluctant on the subject, saying that he doesn't want to replace Ray and would prefer to keep the position of the Justice League's Atom open in case he came back.
  • The New 52 continuity not only retconned the death of Ronnie Raymond (the first Firestorm who was killed to make way for Jason) but now made it possible for both he and Jason to become Firestorm at the same time, alleviating some of the tension between the characters' respective fanbases.
  • Holly Granger (as the second (or third?) person to bear the title of "Hawk") also got this reception by fans, though it didn't help matters that writers had no clue what kind of personality she had, or bothered to flesh out a personality or backstory for her to begin with. Being retconned in as "only child" Dawn Granger's sister and an usurper of Hank Hall's Hawk powers only rubbed the salt in further for her hatedom.
• When Marvel Comics bought out Malibu, they cancelled several titles and rebooted many others. Mantra was originally a title about a male warrior reincarnated in the body of female mystic and his struggle to cope with his new role. When Marvel took over, the central character was Put on a Bus by being banished to another dimension and the Mantra mantle was passed to minor background character; a teenaged girl who had appeared as a babysitter in a couple of issues. Needless to say, fans were not impressed. In fact, this seems to be the consensus reaction to everything Marvel did to the imprint.
• In-universe, Jakeem Thunder was seen as this by a number of the original Justice Society of America members. Ironically, he never really received much negative treatment from the fans since his predecessor wasn't a character most readers were likely to be familiar with in the first place.
• When Acclaim bought Valiant Comics, they did this to every main character save Turok, who got more popular because now he was fighting cyborg dinosaurs. Then Acclaim went broke and the whole thing was tossed aside anyway, but by then it was a mercy killing.
• Feral, the angsty Goth in Strontium Dog. He wasn't a bad character in and of himself, but the fact that he replaced Johnny as the protagonist meant he was doomed from the start.
• Averted with Captain America (comics). When Cap's old sidekick Bucky took the mantle after Steve Rogers' death, his portrayal was done successfully and he was widely accepted by the fans. To the point where Steve Rogers' inevitable return disappointed many fans that had grew accustomed to Bucky Cap! Possibly because of this, even after Rogers came back, he declined to take up his shield again and let Bucky continue to be Captain America for a while.
• Batwoman was (and still is in some fans' minds) seen as one of these after she took over the lead female Bat Family role from the Cassandra Cain incarnation of Batgirl, who was moved out of focus. This was largely erased after she starred in a well-recieved, Eisner Award run of Detective Comics.
  • The next Batgirl (Stephanie Brown, formerly Spoiler) has been seen as this as well, due to her being a blonde Caucasian female who replaced one of the few Asian superheroes in all of comicdom (and the only female Asian hero to maintain a long-running solo series). (Oddly enough, Cassandra and Stephanie were Les Yay-riffic best friends in-universe and would probably take offense at this.) Steph would eventually win over a a number fans by being a really fun character. Though her book often had mediocre sales, she managed to win over a very vocal fanbase that protested heavily once she was removed from the role.
    • The New 52 relaunch, where the original Batgirl Barbara Gordon returned to the role, is an interesting situation. Nobody hates Barbara per se, but there is a perceived insult against Steph on DC's part, plus moving Babs away from being the Information Broker and Handicapped Badass Oracle rubs many of her fans the wrong way as stripping her of her unique qualities.
    • Both Stephanie and Charloette Gage-Radcliffe (who later took on the identity of Misfit) both dealt with this from Oracle when they first attempted to take on the Batgirl mantle, with Oracle even slapping Charlie after she made a disrespectful remark about Cassandra.
• The second Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark) is hated by some of the more diehard Donna Troy fans. Some even wish that she weren't a "blonde, white girl" so that she would be killed off easier for Donna to go back to the role. This is especially irritating since in the 90s, Cassandra was a much more friendly, likable character then the Scrappy people see now.
• Done in-universe (They were this trope to the readers as well, but here it was intentional) with the four replacement Supermen that cropped up after The Death of Superman. The first three were: a Cyborg that eventually turned out to be evil; a cold, elitist Kryptonian; and a loud, '90s-ish punk teenager. The fourth was a heroic, moral, upstanding guy...who really, really didn't want to replace Superman.
• At the same time as the Death of Superman arc, Batman also got a Replacement Scrappy in Azrael, who took up the mantle after Batman's back was broken. He went over terribly with the fans, but like Superman, the writers never intended, and the readers never believed, that Azrael would ever be a permanent replacement.
• Tanarus, the guy who's replaced Thor after Fear Itself is got hate immediately, because he looks like a Nineties Anti-Hero, his appearance and Thor's death mean that there won't be interaction between Thor and Kid!Loki for awhile, he's not using Mjolnir at all, but a weird staff with a heavy head (indicating to fans that he's not worthy to be Thor anyways, since a worthy person can lift the hammer), and for not being one of the many established people who could take over for Thor, namely Beta-Ray Bill and Thunderstrike. Oh, and the fact that when the announcement was made Thor wasn't even dead yet.
  • The first and last seem to be annoying people the most, since the first is clearly so Kid!Loki will have a harder time of it without Thor to protect him and the latter is seen as being too much like the DC reboot's treatment of well-liked characters.
  • In-universe, Loki loathes Taranus for this very reason. It's even worse for Loki because he's the one responsible for this situation.
• There is now an odd phenomenon in a lot of comics (mostly ones that have been published for decades by Marvel and DC, where an old character comes back and is actually viewed as the Replacement Scrappy for the RS who replaced them years ago (mostlt done as a case of Running the Asylum).
  • Big cases in DC being Hal Jordan and Barry Allen in DC, because both were gone for at least a decade real-world time, and Hal had even gone evil before dying (Barry had performed a Heroic Sacrifice). So when they came back and "replaced" Kyle Rayner and Wally West (Wally was the Flash for 20 years by the time Barry was back), the readers didn't know or identify with them and for all intents and purposes treated them as newcomers stealing the "real heroes'" spotlight.
  • Another odd case being Barbara Gordon, who was crippled in 1988 and hasn't been Batgirl in the main comics since. She became Oracle, which made her useful to a lot more people, as well as the two newer Batgirls (Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown) who followed her. The fact that she had never truly disappeared meant that reaction to her being Batgirl again were only mixed instead of wholly against it but a lot of fans agree that the writers aren't being fair to Cass and Steph.
  • Really, this happens any time a characters had been gone long enough for their replacement to be accepted as the norm (like with the Ray Palmer vs. Ryan Choi example above). When the "original" comes back, they're seen as the "new" disliked replacement.
  • This happened to Connor Hawke as well of course. And even though fans had warmed up to him, many writers would treat him poorly as he wasn't Ollie. For example he was given a disease that made it so he couldn't hold a bow again, something that seemed to even irritate people who weren't fans of the character. Currently in the New 52 he doesn't even exist, and probably never will.
  • Kendra Saunders is an interesting case. Fans generally seemed to accept her and didn't mind so much that she wasn't truly Shiera. They had the same soul after all. However quite a good number of fans were irritated when Shiera was revived in Blackest Knight and Kendra was set to disappear forever.
• The new Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales, was initially treated like this in-universe. A number of characters such as Nick Fury and Spider Woman felt it was disrespectful of Miles to don the Spider-Man mantle after the death of Peter Parker, but he managed to win both of them over after displaying his heroism during a battle with Electro. However he still routinely deals with cops and civilians who view his actions as disrespectful to Peter's memory.

Fan Works

• Thoroughly discussed in the Criminal Minds fanfiction Voices of the Forgotten, which, as the title suggests, about all the characters who've some or go unceremoniously over the years.

Elle: She at least thought that they would not like her replacement more than her because nobody every likes the replacement...
Jordan: even if they're temporary..
Ashley: or not technically a replacement at all.

Film

• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: Count Dooku is a very cool character in his own right, but at the time many fans dismissed him for not being Darth Maul.
• Indiana Jones: Several fans of the series have complained about the love interests in Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade in comparison to Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, this is given a Lampshade Hanging that produces a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming.
• Detective Clifton Sleigh (Ted Wass) in Curse of the Pink Panther. The plot sets him up as investigating Inspector Clouseau's disappearance, as established in the previous film, Trail of.... Clouseau did a Face Heel Turn and got Magic Plastic Surgery to resemble Roger Moore. Sleigh was an New York City detective who was similarly incompetent, but not as arrogant. The character's a bit bland, but what sank him was a combination of the film itself coming off as lazy and cheap compared to its predecessors and the fact that not only was Peter Sellers' Clouseau a beloved character, but Trail of... used outtakes of Sellers - who had died two years prior - to create a Fake Shemp; essentially, writer-director-producer Blake Edwards was accused of grave robbing just to set up a Replacement Scrappy! Edwards tried again at this 10 years later with Son of the Pink Panther, via a Revision of the events of A Shot In the Dark to bring us Clouseau's illegitimate Italian son (Roberto Benigni), but it also bombed.
• In Star Trek III: The Search For Spock the shiny new starship Excelsior threatens to be the Replacement Scrappy for the Enterprise. This was actually going to happen for real in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, but a backlash from fans caused the powers that be to rethink that plan.
  • Apparently the backlash was so much that it was actually lampshaded in the fourth movie, specifically during shuttle ride through Spacedock, where Sulu claims that he's hoping the former Enterprise crew would received the Excelsior, to which Scotty scoffs at the idea and calls the ship a "bucket of bolts". Then the shuttle turns toward the Excelsior's direction (with the camera following throughout), making it seem like Sulu's wish was going to come true...only for the Enterprise-A to appear behind the Excelsior. You could almost hear the original theater audience's cheers at that point.
  • Ironically enough, the Excelsior would become one of the most popular starships in the ST fandom, both due to its unique design (at the time) and for being captained by Sulu (replacing the original captain Styles) in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. One supposes this was partly due to not becoming the Replacement Scrappy as everyone feared, instead establishing itself as its own "character" from the Enterprise.
• Shemp replacing Curly after Curly suffered a stroke. Opinions on him vary, however, as the reasoning wasn't that he was a bad actor but rather that he was very different from Curly and the show dynamic changed because of it. Ironically, Curly was actually the replacement for Shemp, who was the third stooge during their Vaudeville days, before Curly even began acting.
  • On the other hand, Joe Besser is universally hated, largely due to the stipulation that Moe couldn't hit him; this was like a kiss of death for any shorts featuring him, since annoying characters are tolerable only so long as their annoyance is appropriately punished.
    • Indeed, Joe Besser rather than Shemp personifies this more as Shemp tends to be more popular than not. Curly Joe De Rita could fit in here too.
• Glen Robbins in City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold is a perfect example of this trope, having replaced the much-loved character Ed Furillo from the first movie.
  • To be fair, he's not brought back because Bruno Kirby was allergic to horses. His experience in the original film was an ordeal for him and it could be argued, Kirby should never have been cast in the first place.
• Some feel this way towards the Spinosaurus for replacing the T.rex in Jurassic Park 3.

Literature

• The short story Johnny Come Lately by Marc Singer tells the story from the Scrappy's point of view; based heavily on the Green Lantern furor outlined above, it tells the story of a young man picked at random as the replacement for a well-admired superhero after his death and the destruction of his entire league by the sentient hourglass that was his symbol, who finds his every effort, no matter how sincere, sneered at and put down by ingrates for no other reason than he's the new guy. Needless to say, the replacement isn't best pleased at his new lot in life.
• The Star Wars Expanded Universe regularly has our characters (especially Luke) being written out temporarily. So Shadows of the Empire readers hate Dash Rendar for his similarity to Han Solo. (It takes place between Empire and Jedi.) And Fate of the Jedi readers hate Kenth Hamner for trying to replace Luke. Oddly, Ben isn't hated, despite often being considered an Expy of Anakin Solo. Parodied with Abeloth, who tries to impersonate Mara and Callista and gets the Replacement Scrappy treatment (and a few fatal lightsaber wounds) from Luke himself for her efforts.
• In The Wheel of Time, following Moiraine's Heroic Sacrifice, Rand got a new bossy female mentor-type thing in Cadsuane. Unfortunately, while Moiraine was likeable and seemed to genuinely care about people, Cadsuane was a bossy, knowitall Mary Sue.
• Wicked fans haven't taken much of an interest in Liir, who replaced Elphaba after she died. Being Elphaba's son doesn't stop him from being The Scrappy, maybe even it did worse for his reputation.

Live Action TV

• Some say this happened on Whose Line Is It Anyway? when Drew Carey replaced Clive Anderson as host. Of course, others say this is a subversion. It depends on which side of the Broken Base you're on.
• Mike or Joel? Plenty of people on the 'Joel' side have this trope as their reasoning.
  • Which is rather ironic when you consider that a huge premise of the series is "I should really just relax...
  • And when you consider that regardless of the person onscreen, the show was always equal parts Joel and Mike. Joel created the show, something that will always be true, and Mike was always the head writer during syndication years.
• In Doctor Who fandom, plenty of people have commented on the disappointment and sense of loss felt around a regeneration from one Doctor to another; even though it's basically the same character, the changing actors makes it easy to feel that 'your' Doctor is gone and has been replaced by some interloper instead. Fortunately for the show, for the most part each Doctor has managed to put his own stamp on the show and maintain the fans of the previous Doctor (or at least pick up some new ones).
  • This goes for the Doctor's companions as well, particularly when the departure of one and the arrival of another take place at around the same time. This is Lampshaded when Rose gave way to Martha, as even the Doctor initially seems to consider her an inferior replacement.
  • There was also a whole culture of Replacement Scrappies in the shape of the Cybus Cybermen. They were an alternate-universe version of the Cybermen, created on an alternate Earth rather than Mondas, who replaced the original versions during the Russell T Davies era because Davies wanted to do a Cyberman origin story but also felt that the mass audience weren't interested in any culture that wasn't human. Many old-school fans were quite contemptuous of the Cybusmen because they thought that the replacement wasn't necessary and because the new origin was considered a boring duplicate of the Dalek origin. Steven Moffat has confirmed that the Cybermen in the 2010 and 2011 seasons of the show are Mondasian, leading to old-school fan rejoicing.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation had Dr. Beverly Crusher's one-season replacement Dr. Kate Pulaski. A lot of it has to do with the shady circumstances surrounding the brief departure of Gates McFadden, and there's never been a clear reason for why she left and whether it was due to conflict with the producers or not. Regardless, the show itself treated Dr. Pulaski as a "guest star" despite her role as a major character and after season 2, her character was mentioned again only once, stopping just short of Canon Discontinuity.
  • A lot more common reason for the animosity is that Pulaski was written in to play a major part in episode after episode, a treatment the good Dr. Crusher never had in a single of her six seasons. When Replacement Scrappy is suddenly the focus of the show, there's going to be some pushback.
  • As well as the fact that Pulaski was an abrasive, intolerant, Fantastic Racist who once referred to Data as "it". The plan was to make her an Expy of McCoy, which included the combative relationship the real McCoy had with Spock. Unlike Spock, though, Data couldn't even really understand that he was being insulted and never responded in kind, so Pulaski came off as a bully who kept picking on Data because he couldn't fight back. The fans soon started calling for blood.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had Ezri Dax, replacing Jadzia Dax. While the Dax symbiont was still technically there, the Ezri character was a clearly different woman from Jadzia, and many fans preferred Jadzia.
• Arguably, Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager, as the writers decided to replace Kes, a likable character with a lot of untapped potential, with a Space Barbie. Especially when they could have got rid of Tuvok, who had the same personality as Seven but wore less lycra, or Neelix, who no-one liked anyway (Having Kes inexplicably turn evil and try to kill everyone didn't help).
  • Seven was originally supposed to replace Harry Kim, who was basically an Advertised Extra at that point (notice how Kim is grievously injured in the episode we first meet Seven). However, this was veto'd by the executives after Kim's actor was named one of the sexiest men on television. And so Kim got better, and Kes was Put on a Bus several episodes later.
  • Naomi Wildman was replaced by Itchy—er, Icheb, the super perfect Borg boy. And to add insult to injury, in an episode set in the future future-Naomi was/will be Icheb's obedient minion.
    • Fixed in Star Trek Online where Commander Wildman is the commander of a very important space station and Lieutenant Icheb is just some random quest giver.
• Although she's not really The Scrappy, some Lonelygirl15 fans have complained that Emma "replaced Bree".
• When Chappelle's Show ended prematurely after Dave's Creator Breakdown, Comedy Central quickly filled his time slot with Mind of Mencia, a show that is supposedly similar in content (though Mencia makes it obvious in the first episode he hates the idea of being "A Hispanic Dave Chappelle"). Boy, did the Chappelle fans go ape-shit over this one.
• Everybody remembers Steve from Blue's Clues, right? So where'd this "Joe" guy come from?
  • It didn't help that the show underwent some major retooling not long after he was cast. Naturally, the actor took the brunt of the backlash despite having nothing to do with, say, live-action puppet sequences.
• Jonas Quinn in Stargate SG-1—to the point when a massive Internet campaign was organized to bring Daniel Jackson back.
  • And then in Stargate Atlantis, there was a bit of a backlash when Dr. Beckett was replaced with Dr. Keller. But because Dr. Keller was Kaylee on Firefly, the hate was restricted to "No offense, Jewel, but..." This is also considerably influenced by the reason Beckett was unavailable; many fans were ambivalent toward or even liked Keller, but just hated the way Beckett was killed off.
  • Colonel Cameron Mitchell filled the same job as Jack O'Neill but minus his angst, disdain for science, etc. A well-thought out, unique character, and well-liked character played by a very good Ben Browder. But he was never EVER gonna be Jack O'Neill. Which is why he was a "well-thought-out, unique character" in the first place: because they knew they couldn't replace O'Neill. As such, Mitchell is more an aversion of this trope than a straight example.
• Tara King (Linda Thorson) replacing Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) in The Avengers.
• In addition to this, Stargate Universe faces this, since it replaced Stargate Atlantis.
  • In the series proper, we have Lt. Matthew Scott who one of the creators said was like "The Jack O'Neill of 10 years ago". Fan consensus promptly countered with the fact that we actually liked Jack O'Neill, 10 years ago and still do.
• The opinion of the majority of Beakman's World fans who don't like Liza and Phoebe is summed up in the fact that they're not Josie. Especially Phoebe, who gets the double stigma of not being Josie or Liza.
  • That, and the fact that: 1) Phoebe was more of a Jerkass towards Lester than the other two, and 2) Phoebe was more of a smart-ass than the other two.
• Averted when Colin Quinn replaced Norm MacDonald in the Weekend Update sketch on Saturday Night Live. He started his very first segment with a properly sentimental Lampshade Hanging speech that turned the replacement ire into perhaps one of the show's most notable quotes. (Of course, this was neither the first nor the last time Saturday Night Live had a major cast change, and some have been more successful and well-received than others.)

Colin Quinn: You know how you go to your favorite bar, and your local bartender isn't there? You ask, "Where's Jeff?" "Jeff no longer works here, I'm Steve." Then you're thinking, hey, who's this idiot? I like Jeff. But you still want your drink. And even though Steve doesn't mix your drink the same way you're used to, like Jeff, you still like the bar. You don't want to have to go to a different bar. And even Steve might feel kinda bad because Jeff trained him. Jeff showed him how to work the cash register, where the tonic was on the soda gun, who tips, who doesn't. Well, I'm Steve. What can I get you?

• • Your Mileage May Vary, as Quinn is widely considered to be one of the lesser Update anchors of the last twenty years. It doesn't help that he was preceded by Norm, whose deadpan style was widely beloved, and followed by Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey, whose format was so successful that SNL spent the next few years trying to emulate it after Fallon left.
    • The simple fact is every host tends to have their own fans and detractors. The only Weekend Update host immune to this trope is Chevy Chase and that's because he was first.
• Kennedy was both the Replacement for and the Antithesis of Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • And to elaborate on Kennedy vs. Tara: Tara was quiet and shy, helped ease Willow more into the world of magic, showed genuine love for Willow, was the most selflessly kind person in the cast, and was accepted as a member of the Scoobies in her own right eventually. Kennedy, in contrast, was direct, blunt (not in an endearing Anya-like fashion), insulted the idea of magic to Willow's face, was rude and harsh to everyone she wasn't interested in sucking up to, and basically come on to Willow very strongly simply because she managed to recognize her as a fellow lesbian, with the relationship having pretty much zero buildup and the two characters having nothing in common apart from a mutual friend in Buffy. You can see why the fanbase reacted so violently to her, especially as Tara's replacement only several months (in-story) after her death, which caused Willow to go on a murderous rampage.
  • Don't forget Riley, Buffy's new beau after Angel was Put on a Bus for his own Spin-Off.
  • On Angel, Wesley joined the cast right after Doyle died. Doyle's popularity with fans, combined with the fact that fans weren't exactly eager for Wesley to come back, led to some serious anti-Wesley backlash. There was even a border-line lamp-shading moment where Wesley is called by Doyle's name accidentally and everyone suddenly feels very awkward. By the end of the season, however, he was generally accepted by fans and characters alike.
    • Also on Angel, in season five the simpering Eve replaced the vastly superior Lilah, to much dismay from the fans. She was quickly replaced by Marcus Hamilton, who made no attempt to act as an ersatz-Lilah. Cordelia lampshades this trope in "You're Welcome", referring to Eve as "Lilah Jr."
• Carmen Electra replacing Jenny McCarthy on MTV's Singled Out.
  • An earlier MTV gameshow, Remote Control, had a fan backlash (mild—this was pre-Blog) when the first hostess, Marisol, was replaced first with Kari Wuhrer and then by a string of lesser lights.
• In-story, one of the most cringe-inducing part of the Mexican telenovela Carrusel was when a bunch of third-graders hostilized their sweet, clever and well-intentioned new teacher for just replacing their Team Mom of a teacher. It was very petty from them, VERY badly-acted, and the old janitor of the school, usually the gentlest person in the world, bitched the brats out for treating the poor girl like crap.
• In the PBS show Wishbone, the original main characters were three kids (Joe, Sam and David) and Wishbone, the titular character (a dog). When they were suddenly renewed for a second season years later, the three "kids" had gotten too old for little kids to relate to anymore, so they were replaced by a couple of background character kids from earlier episodes.
• Richard Roeper as Roger Ebert's partner in film critiquing, following the tragic death of Gene Siskel.
  • When Ebert & Roeper was retooled into At the Movies in 2008, now hosted by Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons, the response from longtime viewers quickly escalated into Hatedom. Lyons became the subject of mockery at Efilmcritic.com's "Ben Lyons Quote of the Week", and even Roger Ebert himself called him out for his poor work, not naming him but quoting his reviews from the show—arguably Lyons qualified as an actual Scrappy. A year later, they were dropped and replaced by Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott (from Chicago Tribune and New York Times, respectively).
    • And on certain sites, there was much rejoicing.
• And of course, the age-old question: Dick York or Dick Sargent?
• Bailey was this for Maddie in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
• Edward Tudor-Pole replacing Richard O'Brien as the presenter of The Crystal Maze.
• Dexter Fletcher replacing Dominik Diamond for one series on Games Master.
• Oliver (Richard Mylan) replacing Jeff on Coupling when Richard Coyle would not return for a fourth series.
• The numerous changes on Are You Being Served, resulted in a few Replacement Scrappy cases. Many fans despise Mr. Grainger's first replacement, Mr. Tebbs, even though cast members and numerous other fans have said that he did a brilliant job. More serious was Mr. Spooner's replacement of popular Mr. Lucas after the seventh series, though in the fans' defense, Mr. Spooner's personality was never developed beyond rudeness. Even more-hated was Old Mr. Grace for Young Mr. Grace, which was justifiable since it was tackily executed by pasting a middle-aged actor with loads of old-age makeup.
• Rose on Keeping Up Appearances being portrayed by Shirley Stelfox in Series 1, then Mary Millar in all subsequent series (though this might actually be an improvement...)
• Another anti-replacement Scrappy: Angie, the secretary on The Brittas Empire's first series, for Julie.
  • On the other hand, Penny Bidmead was no Laura Lancing.
• Game shows are known for Replacement Scrappys:
  • On Tic-Tac-Dough, when Wink Martindale could not appear on the show's last season, he was replaced by PM Magazine's Jim Caldwell, who, while the show remained the same outside of a set change, paled to many in comparison to Wink. Jim's obsession about the "red box categories (we'll explain them when we get to them)" didn't help matters.
  • On the other hand, the illness and later death of Allen Ludden prompted Password Plus to attain a new permanent host in Tom Kennedy, who kept the show going another 2 years. A subsequent revival, Super Password, had Bert Convy as the host; some fans consider him a replacement Scrappy due to his chatty nature and frequent bloopers, but Super lasted 5 years under his tenure.
  • On The $100,000 Pyramid, when the show returned from a three-year hiatus in 1991 (but pretty much the same, even the returning champion from the last 1988 show returned), Dick Clark was busy on The Challengers, so hosting duties went to John Davidson, who did not impress.
  • Giving the Family Feud hosting role to rather un-telegenic, gravelly-voiced Louie Anderson in 1999. He was replaced with Richard Karn, who was considered an improvement at first but devolved into a stiff, catch-phrase-obsessed host. He was ousted in 2006 for John O'Hurley, who was considered a marked improvement, and again in 2010 for current host Steve Harvey, who is considered even more of an improvement.
• Many long-time watchers of The Price Is Right were wondering "What were they thinking?" when the show decided to replace the retiring Bob Barker with Drew Carey as host. In Carey's defense, it would be hard for audiences to see anyone replacing Barker, since he had hosted the show for an amazing 35 years.
  • This can also apply to the announcer's booth. After Johnny Olson's 1985 death, Rod Roddy's 2003 death and Rich Fields' 2010 firing, the show tried out various guest announcers on-air before determining the successor. The substitutes are all victims of Replacement Scrappydom to some extent (particularly Daniel Rosen, who was universally hated by both the fandom and the staff for a complete lack of enthusiasm^[1]).
  • Rich himself started to become this over time, in part because he was picked over Randy West (a longtime fan of the genre who is well-connected to the fanbase as a whole) and in part because some thought he just didn't have a good announcing voice.
• Wheel of Fortune had this happen a couple times:
  • Pat Sajak stepped down from the daytime version on NBC in January 1989 to host a talk show (of course, retaining the hosting duties on the still-active nighttime version). Merv Griffin replaced him with Rolf Bernischke, a former football player who had literally no TV experience and was visibly out of his element — to the point that he literally announced on-air that he didn't know what to do when a game ended in a tie. After only six months, the daytime version Channel Hopped to CBS and replaced Rolf with experienced host Bob Goen.
  • After Charlie O'Donnell died in November 2010, a rotation of guest announcers filled in for him. There was little enthusiasm for any guest announcer other than Jim Thornton, mainly because there was little enthusiasm from the voices of the other guest announcers (one of whom was Rich Fields, sounding nothing like he did on Price). Unsurprisingly, Jim got the nod.
• Arthur Petrelli from Heroes certainly qualifies. He is an inferior substitute for the previous season's chief villain, Adam Monroe, and his facilitation of the many horrible sub-plots that Season Three is rampant with have made him all the more despised by the fanbase.
  • Made all the worse by the fact that Angela's precog dream makes it clear that Adam was originally going to be the one in charge of the "Villains". The writers didn't have the strength of conviction to go through with that because Season 2 was poorly received, and so they killed off Adam (along with all but one of the new Season 2 characters) apparently hoping we'd all forget Season 2 happened (despite Adam being possibly the only thing in Season 2 that the fans took a shine to).
    • They failed. The fans hated most of the Season 3 characters (Eric Doyle is the only new "Villain" who got any praise) and there were nonstop complaints on the boards about both Arthur and the stupid way Adam was killed off.
  • Also even though she was there first, fans did not take well to Matt getting back with his ex-wife after Daphne died.
• Dad's Army replaced the character of Walker with Private Cheeseman after the sudden death of James Beck, who played Walker. Cheeseman became unpopular both with viewers and fellow cast members (John Laurie is on record as saying that he felt both the character and actor were fast approaching Spotlight-Stealing Squad status) and was written out at the start of the next series.
• Robin Hood introduced the character of Kate in the third series, to replace the departed Marian and Djaq. Before a single episode featuring her had aired, she was being criticised in the fandom as a poor replacement and a Canon Sue; pre-publicity material frequently described her as "feisty" and hinted that she would become Robin's new love interest. The first episode she appears in was duly broadcast, and the same fans said "See, we were right."
  • Technically, those fans were right. Kate's character was a blatant Canon Sue, as well as a Faux Action Girl, The Load, a Shallow Love Interest, and the centrepiece of several Trapped by Mountain Lions plots. Half the outlaws fell in love with her for no reason, she was constantly getting kidnapped and then inexplicably cross when people rescued her, and had no useful skills or personality to speak of that went beyond " grumpy feisty village girl." Much of the fandom were willing to give her a chance (as well as being sympathetic to the actress playing her) but she never got any better.
  • And let's face it, any original female character who is brought in for the sole purpose of replacing the legendary Maid Marian as Robin Hood's love interest is doomed to be despised for the crime of not being Marian. Why did the writers even try? It may well be the only case in which hating a character for being a replacement is totally justified.
• Randy from That '70s Show was supposed to be a replacement for Eric - he even dated his longtime girlfriend, Donna, after they broke up inexplicably and offscreen. Practically every fan hated him. The writers finally caught on to this; he barely appears in the finale.
  • Even worse, they started trying to make him a replacement Kelso as well as a replacement Eric, despite the fact that the two characters were vastly different. This resulted in Randy being a dumb Nerd, a socially awkward player, and an unfunny clown.
• The X-Files: Agent Doggett, and later Agent Reyes. Doggett has his share of fans, but Reyes...not so much.
  • Spender and Fowley were intentional examples. Fowley in particular wound up one of the most hated characters on the show.
• A series of Replacement Scrappies, most notably Lee Meriwether as Tracy, filled in on Mission: Impossible after Barbara Bain left. Lesley Warren eventually got the role of Dana for the fifth season, and was treated as a Replacement Scrappy by some. Others found her replacement, Lynda Day George, to be more Scrappy-ish.
  • And don't forget that "Secret Agent Spock" replaced Martin Landau.
• Tori from Saved by the Bell.
• Diane Neal as Casey Novak on Law and Order Special Victims Unit, replacing Stephanie March's beloved Alex Cabot. While the fanbase generally warmed to Novak - most fans consider her a pretty great character, with reactions that amount to "We actually like you, Casey, but we want half of our OTP back" - she was Put on a Bus and replaced by Kim Greylek (Michaela McManus), who was so despised that the producers got rid of her before a full season was even up. (They brought back March. There was much rejoicing, particularly from the large section of the fandom who loved the Alex/Olivia Les Yay.)
• Law and Order has had their share of cast replacements over the years, but most have been handled pretty well. Among the more notable Replacement Scrappies are Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest) for Adam Schiff (Steven Hill), Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina) for Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), and Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Rohm) for Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon).
  • Briscoe himself is a pretty notable aversion of this trope; having replaced Phil Ceretta (Paul Sorvino) who himself replaced Max Greevey (George Dzundza), Briscoe went on to become one of the show's most popular characters and a pretty iconic example of a TV cop in his own right.
• Nickelodeon's Salute Your Shorts swapped out Michael for Pinsky in its second season, and fan opinion appears to be fairly evenly divided as to whether he was a more outgoing and fun personality or an obnoxious loudmouth with the aggravating tendency to get portrayed as The Ace.
• Babylon 5's Elizabeth Lochley was doomed to be disliked, as she was the replacement for the widely beloved Susan Ivanova. Combined with her former relationship with Sheridan and the fact that Season 5 is considered the show's weakest, she couldn't really avoid it.
• Another Nickelodeon/Game Show example: Ben Lyons (again) and Australian celebrity Asha Kuerten replaced Mike O'Malley and Moira "Mo" Quirk, respectively, in My Family's Got GUTS. While Asha was praised by some fans for equalling Moira, fans pretty much preferred Mike and Moira/Mo, even though they weren't employed by Nickelodeon at the time and were working on other projects.
• Profiler: Exit Ally Walker, Enter Jamie Luner.
• CSI: When Grissom was replaced by Langston.
  • Many people believe that Langston was a replacement for Grissom, since Langston showed up right after Grissom left. However, while Catherine moved up to fill Grissom's spot in the unit's hierarchy, and Langston was starting at the bottom, he was still heavily promoted as the new "face" of the show and was assigned responsibilities more befitting a shift administrator like Grissom despite being a rookie. It probably didn't help that a lot of people watched the show and thought "Why is Morpheus on CSI?"
• In the third season of Mutant X, many fans hated Lexa when she was brought in to replace Emma
  • The let down of Emma taking a level in badass at the end of season two, only to be killed off screen in the first episode of season three didn't help
• Head of the Class had replaced a bunch of students in its fourth season. Maria Jawaharlal and Janice were replaced by Viki, Alex, Aristotle and TJ. In it's fifth season, Mr. Moore the teacher played by Howard Hessman was replaced by Billy MacGregor played by Billy Connolly.
• Earth: Final Conflict replaced a character every season. At the beginning of the second season, Boone was replaced with Liam, and then Renee replaced Lili, Street replaced Augur, and in the last season, Renee replaced Liam, becoming both the lead and the female. The show suffered each time.
• In the third season of Red Dwarf, the actor playing Holly was replaced with an actress playing Holly. The in-show explanation was that Holly got a face-sex change. The new Holly was never as funny or pleasant to watch as the old Holly, and the show began to feature Holly less and less.
  • Additionally, Kochanski in one of the later seasons replaced Rimmer. Apart from the fact that she replaced the best character in the show, Kochanski herself wasn't funny or interesting at all.
• House losing his entire team at the end of Season 3, and eventually bringing in three new doctors. Thirteen got the worst of it by far.
  • While Thirteen's never really recovered from it, Taub and Kutner did move out of Replacement Scrappy territory fairly quickly, thanks to Taub having a dry sense of humor that could rival House's at times, and Kutner being a loveable dork. What helped their cases was that they basically had half a season of introduction before becoming official team members thanks to House's "auditions".
• Tory Foster in Battlestar Galactica was regarded as this after she replaced Billy who got killed in a terrorist attack.
  • There are several shades to the story, though: Part of the reason why Tory was considered a scrappy was because Billy was seen as a very nice guy and a son figure for Roslin. On the other hand, some people took a liking for Tory precisely because she seemed cold and ruthless. So, she could have gone both ways. Unfortunately, bad writing and the lack of Character Development ruined her. She got barely any exposition on her darker motivations, her relationship with the rest of the Final Five or her past.
• Fantasy Island had this problem; in the final season they replaced the famous Tattoo with the forgettable Lawrence.
• Blue Heelers made the shocking move at the beginning of the seventh season to kill off the much beloved Maggie, and knowing they couldn't hope to match her popularity, the writers didn't try to. Instead, her replacement was the standoffish Tess, who lasted four seasons before Flanderization set in and she was written out for Susie.
  • Aside from that the show generally did well in averting the Replacement Scrappy. After Wayne's death he was replaced by Dash and was an instant success. Then when she left Jo came in as a popular character. Ditto Jack after Adam left. Those who disliked the character however very much cheered his replacement, Jonesy.
• Power Rangers Turbo is a weird variant, as the season is considered one of the weakest in the franchise and one of the cited reasons is that they replaced nearly the entire cast over the course of it (Rocky, Zordon, and Alpha 5 with Justin, Dimitria, and Alpha 6 at the beginning; the other four Rangers midseason). However, most individual characters, while not as fondly remembered as their longtime predecessors, are considered mostly inoffensive - in fact, the second half of the season gets a better rep than the first, and the latter replacements continued on into the highly regarded Power Rangers in Space. Not too shabby for replacements.
  • That said, a couple of the new guys are thought of as Scrappies; but on their own merits and not just because they replaced the old guy. Justin was half the other Rangers' age and bumped up to high school to be with them, thereby reeking of being the Kid Appeal Character and Creator's Pet. Dimitria came from a Planet of Hats whose shtick was Figure It Out Yourself (though she dropped this when the latter replacements came in). Alpha 6 was a Jive Turkey and ruder than 5 was; traits which were thankfully removed in the carryover to In Space.
  • Going back to the first three seasons of MMPR, the Replacement Rangers were not well liked initially. Rocky (for Jason), Adam (for Zack), Aisha (for Trini), and Kat (for Kimberly) were all met with some venom, but most were able to get past it. Poor Kat got the worst of it, since Die for Our Ship was also at play for the Tommy/Kimberly fans.
• Jo Danville from CSI: NY has gained some hate for replacing popular character Stella and being seen as "flirting" with Mac Taylor.
• Degrassi has a bit of this due to a refocus of the show. As a Long Runner set in a High School they had to either move up to college episodes or lose the older members of the cast... they eventually decided on the latter dropping most of the old cast and bringing in a bunch of new young cast members. Between Season 8 being a very weak season and the loss of so many fan favorites, the new cast was not taken well. Most have grown into their own but several never got past this and were dropped from the show. Blue and Leia being the poster children for this issue.
• America's Funniest Home Videos went through this when Bob Saget was replaced with John Fugelsang in 1998 and an assistant, Daisy Fuentes, was added for little more than eye candy. Most fans of the series consider the Fugelsang era the show's nadir. The show then limped along for a while as a "special" set of episodes with rotating hosts, before current host Tom Bergon joined in 2001 and the show became watchable again.
• Pretty much every character in Homicide: Life on the Street who was introduced later than about the fifth or sixth season. Especially Falsone, Ballard and Sheppard, who are often dismissed as being purely there as fanservice for respectively female and male viewers.
• Dr. Billy Peele as a replacement for Dr. Matt Crower in American Gothic. The showrunners have since gone on record that this was down to Executive Meddling by people at the network who believed that Matt wasn't a "strong, heroic" (ie macho asshole) antagonist for Lucas, Completely Missing the Point that the main conflict was over Caleb's moral development rather than any specific situation and that the kindly, gentle Matt was meant to be a demonstration that you can't fight moral corruption with aggression. This led to a spectacularly malicious plot towards the end of the show where Billy was led to believe that he was bringing Selena to a High Heel Face Turn only to discover that she was setting him up as a patsy for Lucas's murder. When even the writers make it clear that they think you're a Scrappy...
• When a bitter Kate Jackson left after the third season of the popular female detectives show Charlie's Angels, the producers scrambled for a replacement for everybody's favorite "Smart Angel". Enter Shelley Hack, who for many Angels viewers practically defines the trope in every sense of the word. Hack portrayed the glamorous Tiffany Welles, a cop from Boston who spoke Latin, and was always fashionable. Unfortunately, Hack wasn't given much to do during her tenure on the fourth season of Charlie's Angels, simply because the writers could not seem to come up with anything for her to do, and as such, she was scarcely seen doing anything of note during the season. Because of this, Cheryl Ladd's character Kris Munroe was given the brunt of most of the storylines, with the occasional Kelly Garrett (Jaclyn Smith) story thrown in, particularly in the season finale. Viewership sank as a result, and Hack was widely blamed for the ratings drop, even though she herself had nothing to do with it, it was in actuality the writers whom were to blame. Hack was immediately fired from the show, and the character of Tiffany Welles was sent back to Boston.
  • Hack's replacement for the fifth and final season of Charlie's Angels was Tanya Roberts as street smart model Julie Rodgers. Though Roberts was received well by critics, she wasn't enough to save the show from cancellation.
• Rossi started out as one in Criminal Minds, but got better. However, JJ's replacement Ashley Seaver plays this out painfully straight.
• When Leverage brought on Tara to replace Sophie in season two (due to Gina Bellman's pregnancy) she became this for many fans. Her insistance on being paid also irritated viewers who didn't like how it contrasted the charitable actions of the main cast. Some sections of fandom still hate her, while others warmed to the character and came to enjoy her as a temporary team member.
• Pretty much everything on Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?.
• The second half of Season 3 of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates had Hetty's husband Robert taking a trip to Australia to help their son and coincidentally his brother Frank staying with Hetty at around the same time. The regular characters weren't too happy with Frank's presence, and from reviews of the series it seems that the fans agree.
• Ben Mankiewicz has managed to be the replacement scrappy on no less than three different projects: replacing Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper on At The Movies, subbing for Cenk on The Young Turks and taking over afternoon introductions for Robert Osborne (while Osborne still does evenings) on Turner Classic Movies. The general opinion of all three happens to be that he's not as good as the originals.
• At the beginning of Season 5 of Becker, Reggie (played by Terry Farrell) suddenly left and the diner was taken over by Chris (Nancy Travis).
• Jool from Farscape. Partly this was a deliberate ploy by the writers: the much-loved Zhaan had been killed off because the actor fell ill, and they decided to create a new character who would roughly fill the same "brainy female character" niche but be completely different in almost every way, including being abrasive rather than kindly and lovable. Some people never warmed up to her as much as the writers hoped, though, to say the least.
• Max Louis in season 5 of News Radio. After Phil Hartman's untimely death, Jon Lovitz joined the show to replace his departed friend for what turned out to be, not coincidently, the show's final season.
• The sci-fi teens show The Tribe had tribeleader and main character Amber replaced by Danni after Ambers' death at the end of season 1. While Amber, arguably, already had Mary Sue tendencies, what with being the Leader, uncountable guys attracted to her and all, but Danni was just downright unbearable. She got Ambers boyfriend and went from total stranger to tribeleader in half a season, which made not only Amber-Fans hate her guts. Luckily, after we find out Amber was never dead at all, she is quickly re-replaced, never to be seen again. None of the other characters seem to mind much.
• Paige from Charmed is a notable aversion. True she was brought onto the show to replace Prue but she was fleshed out into a completely different character than Prue and is quite popular among fans. Most people who say they prefer the episodes with Prue and dislike the later seasons don't have a problem with Paige herself but rather the difference in tone.
  • Dan from season 2 is a straight example. Fans didn't take to the attempt to replace Leo with him and he was dropped after one season.
• Ziva on NCIS started out as this. With all the outrage over Kate's death, the news that Ziva, who not only wasn't Kate, but was the half-sister of the terrorist who killed Kate, was going to be her replacement was not well received. Proving herself a couple of times in season three, most significantly by killing Ari and helping Gibbs recover his memory, she managed to redeem herself in the eyes of the fandom.
• Taylor Townsend was seen as this for Marissa on The OC despite being introduced before Marissa was killed off. Marissa's sister Kaitlyn could also be seen as this.
• Inverted with How It's Made host and pro swimmer Mark Tewskbury. He was the show's first host, and also the most hated, mainly because he did absolutely nothing to fight the common stereotype that all athletes have very dull personalities and voices. Predictably, many people skip the parts where he introduces the show, and hate the fact that they're forced to listen to him drone on during the narration.
• Rudy from Misfits is this to many fans, after being introduced in season 3 as fan-favourite Nathan's replacement, and some have boycotted the series in protest. In fairness, it's hardly the show's fault the actor playing Nathan decided to quit, but so far the most common criticism aimed at Rudy is that he is far too similar to Nathan in terms of personality, but too wangsty and not as funny. On the other hand, some fans like him, leading to a bit of a Broken Base situation.
• Walden Schmidt on Two and A Half Men is seen by many as a poor replacement for Charlie, mainly because Ashton Kutcher's comedy style just dosen't seem to fit in with the the show, and his intreaction with the other characters feels rather forced and unnatural.
• Sliders went through quite a few cast changes, the most infamous of which was the replacement of Jerry O'Connell with Robert Floyd. This was sort of a hybrid between The Other Darrin and an outright replacement: Floyd's character was ostensibly an alternate-dimension double of O'Connell's character, Quinn Mallory. (Why he looked, acted and sounded absolutely nothing like his "double" is Handwaved with a Techno Babble explanation in his first episode.)
• This happens whenever a new lead character shows up on Primeval. After Nick Cutter died, there were fans who didn't approve of Danny Quinn. Matt Anderson got a simlar treatment, though that wasn't to do with replacing Danny, but more the fact that many people found him bland.
  • Averted with Captain Becker. Even though many fans were sad when Steven Hart died, Becker quickly became a popular character in the fandom.

Music

• Many entries here deal with Replacement Scrappies.
• In music there's the fans reactions to the many incarnations of Queens of the Stone Age - "What happened to Nick Oliveri?", "Dave Grohl was a way better drummer than this guy", "Mark Lanegan should be the singer", "Josh should just reform Kyuss..."
• Before the worldwide phenomenon that was Beatlemania, a fair number of their O.G. British fans resented the fact that Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best on drums. The exact reason for Best being fired varies depending on where you hear it from, being either because he didn't fit in with John, George, and Paul, he was too moody, or Brian Epstein not thinking he was a good enough drummer. At the time, Pete was the most popular member of the group in their home of Liverpool, and fans would carry signs saying, "Ringo Never, Pete Forever" at their concerts.
• Many Metallica fans (including the other band members themselves) are guilty of heaping unnecessary scorn on Jason Newsted because he had the misfortune of replacing the late, lamented Cliff Burton on bass.
  • And then redirecting said scorn to Newsted's own replacement, Robert Trujillo.
    • Ironic, considering Metallica have a habit of burying the bass in the mix to the point that it's a bit hard to make out on every album (well, maybe except The Black Album)...
• Sammy Hagar. There's a reason people refuse to call the Hagar-era band Van Halen...
  • There's a fair bit of denial that Van Halen did a record with Gary Cherone.
• Queen with Paul Rodgers. Nearly all fans refused to call the band "Queen".
  • It helps that Queen called themselves Queen & Paul Rodgers not just "Queen"..
    • Similarly, INXS with J.D. Fortune isn't INXS.
• The Finnish monster rock band Lordi has had this problem. To date, they've replaced the bassist three times (Magnum with G-Stealer, G-Stealer with Kalma, and Kalma with OX) and the pianist once (Enary with Awa.) While very few fans can deny that the quality of the music has never diminished after a switch, and has often improved, the new band member's costume can cause fits in the fandom (for example, Enary, the busty blonde valkyrie, being replaced with Awa, the grey corpse-like ghost/witch.)
• William DuVall in Alice in Chains. He's not Layne Staley and most fans just can't accept that.
  • Funny enough, before the band landed on who would be the new singer, fans were worried that they would choose one of Layne's many imitators like Sully Erna, Chester Bennington or Aaron Lewis. When they chose someone who sounds decidedly different, many of the same fans were complaining about how the band chose someone who didn't sound like Staley.
    • DuVall was probably the safest choice (short of not reuniting at all, naturally); he had been singing Layne's parts with Jerry Cantrell's solo band for some time and fans seemed to think he did a respectable job. It seemed like the issue was not DuVall as a vocalist, but as a replacement for Layne regardless of who.
• A large portion of the Nightwish fandom will never forgive Annette Olzon for her inability to be like former lead vocalist Tarja Turunen.
• Likewise, Tim 'Ripper' Owens was hated by many Judas Priest and Iced Earth fans for not being Rob Halford or Matt Barlow, even though he's a very talented vocalist in his own right.
  • However, being fired right around Christmas just to bring back Matt Barlow lead to a thankfully death-free version of Alas, Poor Scrappy. Which was kind of sad because many Iced Earth fans had just started to accept Ripper.
  • Similarly, Blaze Bayley is not Bruce Dickinson.
• Accept lost a considerable amount of fans after replacing vocalist Udo Dirkschneider with David Reece and drastically changed their sound on their Eat The Heat album, after which they wisely took back Udo.
  • Notably averted, however, on their 2010 album Blood of the Nations, which features Mark Tornillo on vocals and has been widely praised by Accept fans, with many claiming it to be superior to the material produced during Udo's second stint with the band.
• Also likewise, Mike DiMeo is hated by Masterplan fans for not being the almost identically styled Jorn Lande.
• After Drowning Pool vocalist Dave Williams' sudden death, a lot of fans found it difficult to accept his replacement vocalist Jason Jones (which likely contributed to his departure from the band), and after Jones quit, his replacement vocalistSoil singer Ryan McCombs was slightly more accepted, though still considered inferior to Williams.
• Even though it's been almost fifteen years, many fans of Helloween still do not accept their current vocalist Andi Deris. Bear in mind that Deris has been with the band longer than both Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen combined! Of course, it doesn't help that Kiske was the vocalist for Helloween's most successful albums, Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt. 1 & Pt. 2.
• An odd example happened early on with the new drummer brought in to back up They Might Be Giants on "John Henry". What was so odd? He replaced a drum machine. Some fans protested the move, although pretty much everyone has since gotten over it.
• Motley Crue, anyone? The band got a lot of negative feedback from fans upon firing frontman Vince Neil, and even more when they replaced him with John Corabi. To add insult to injury, they proceeded to name the Corabi album "Mötley Crüe". Of course, all is made well when their record label pressured the band to fire Corabi to bring Neil back.
  • Then again, the result was Generation Swine...
• Averted HARD by the Thrash Metal band Municipal Waste. They got rid of their original drummer, so they decided to get Dave Witte from the legendary grindcore band Discordance Axis. No one even DARED to complain.
  • Although it sorta sucks if you were a fan of Burnt By The Sun because Witte joining the Waste was probably one of the reasons BBTS broke up.
• Completely inverted by Kamelot as Mark Vanderbilt, the replaced vocalist, is now despised by the fandom, though considering his awful "singing" style and replacement by the classically trained opera styled Roy Khan previously of the Progressive Metal band Conception, you can't blame them.
• Averted to an incredible degree by ACDC. After singer Bon Scott died their first album with Brian Johnson was Back in Black. Back in Black is the second best selling album of all time. (Some Scott fans still don't like him, though)
• Your Mileage May Vary on this, but various people dislike Michael Tait taking over as lead singer for the Newsboys despite him being a decent singer, simply because he doesn't sound like previous lead Peter Furler.
• Averted (depending on who you ask, anyway) by Genesis, who decided to promote drummer Phil Collins to the vocals spot instead of bringing in a replacement for Peter Gabriel, who up until then had been the face of the band with his unique voice, fairy-tale-on-acid lyrics and theatrical stage act. Lots of progressive fans would disagree, since Collins would eventually lead Genesis down the hated road of commercial 80's pop, but the band had run out of good prog ideas in the late 70's anyway, and prog in general had lost steam as a genre by then.
  • Truly averted by the pre-Collins lineup, as nobody really missed Anthony Phillips (well, almost nobody, as he really brought a different sound to the band) and the plethora of session drummers before Hackett and Collins were recruited. The real driving forces behind the band, from early pastoral rock to later synth pop, were always Tony Banks and Michael Rutherford, and most fans of the band seem to realize this.
  • And yet, supported by their poorly-received 1997 album, Calling All Stations, featuring Ray Wilson at the mic in lieu of Collins.
• Derek Sherinian replaced Kevin Moore in Dream Theater (A band who generally avert this) and, rightly or wrongly, effectively became the scapegoat for everything bad about the Falling Into Infinity era. His own replacement, Jordan Rudess, has escaped this. Noteworthy in that Sherinian himself later admitted that firing him after the FII tour was a smart decision by the band.
  • Mike Mangini may be a full-on subversion of this. Dream Theatre's first (and so far only) album post-Portnoy has been generally well received, holding an 8.8 user rating on Metacritic, debuting on the Billboard 200 for albums at #8 (their second highest position ever) and earning the band their first Grammy nomination for "On The Backs of Angels". Considering Mike Portnoy is considered A) one of the best drummers of all time and B) arguably the band's best songwriter, that's quite impressive.
• Among Heavy Metal fans exists such a Hatedom of Grunge that it's now a huge source of parody for many musically-oriented comedies—a number of which don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment. Those who aren't outright screaming "Death to all but Metal" explain that they feel it just represents a devolution of rock music compared to the complexity it reached in the 1980s.
• Averted by Led Zeppelin, reunion with John Bonham's son, Jason, replacing his father on the drums was widely acclaimed. Mind you, the group's fans are so desperate for a reunion, you could probably replace him with a metronome and they'd say it was amazing.
• Guns N' Roses practically embody this trope, with such a high turnover of band members that there's scarcely been a time since 1987 that the fans haven't had someone new to complain about. Only one of the band members survives from the lineup that recorded their first album and many fans refuse to consider anything produced since 1991 as even being by the same band.
  • Not only that, each replacement has their own Replacement Scrappy that fans hate for replacing the replacement. The irony of it all is that Slash was the original Replacement Scrappy of the band, taking over for Tracii Guns (the Guns in Guns N' Roses).
• After 20+ years of the same lineup, New Order's keyboard player Gillian Gilbert retired in 2005. She was replaced by Phil Cunningham. The reaction wasn't pretty.
• British girlband the Sugababes NEED to be mentioned. Over 10 years, they've replaced their ENTIRE band with new members. The worst offense was when founding member Keisha Buchanan was kicked out of the group and replaced by Jade Ewen, who by some, was seen to be a lesser replacement. This caused many arguments between the band's fans - some who supported Keisha and refused to buy any more Sugababes records, claiming they were no longer the same band and some who supported Jade and said Keisha deserved to be kicked out. This also happened to a lesser extent when Mutya Buena left, and Amelle Berrabah replaced her.
• Brandon Bolmer, the replacement for Chiodos's singer Craig Owens, is hated by a very large percentage of the band's fandom, despite actually being a pretty good singer, and the band having good Reasons for booting Owens.
• Averted and not averted by Faith No More. Averted because frontman Chuck Mosley's replacement, Mike Patton led the band to massive commercial and critical success. On the other hand, many fans were disappointed that their reunion tour featured Jon Hudson on lead guitar rather than his predecessor Jim Martin.
• Cappadonna of The Wu-Tang Clan.
• Subverted, inverted, and played straight with Iced Earth. Inverted in that their original vocalist, Gene Adam, was so horrible that people were happy when John Greely took his place. Subverted when Matt Barlow replaced John Greely because Barlow managed to completely avoid the Replacement Scrappy label by being a very good vocalist in his own right (and because Greely was only around for one album). Played entirely straight with Tim "Ripper" Owens.
• Averted with Tomi Joutsen of Amorphis. Not because former vocalist Pasi Koskinen was bad, but because Tomi was just so much better at it.
  • There's also the fact that Pasi Koskinen was already sort of a relative newcomer to the band, since he wasn't with the band until their third full-length, Elegy. Before that, rhythm guitarist Tomi Koivusaari was the band's vocalist (and they had a session vocalist for the clean singing on Tales From The Thousand Lakes)
• Averted with Yes. Most fans agree that replacing Peter Banks and Tony Kaye with Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman improved the band.
  • Later replacements were all up and down the scale.
• Brian Robertson was a fine guitarist, but most parties agree that he was a poor fit for Mötorhead.
• Country music band Restless Heart pretty much derailed once lead singer Larry Stewart left. Although their first release after his departure ("When She Cries", with drummer John Dittrich on lead vocal) was their biggest pop hit, their success came to a screeching halt afterward.
• Inverted with Bomshel, a duo originally comprising Kristy Osmonson and Buffy Lawson. Lawson left over Creative Differences and Kelly Shepard took her place. The Kelly era brought more focused songwriting, comparatively bigger hits and their first full album. The Lawson era is pretty much Canon Discontinuity now, except for "Bomshel Stomp".
• Although their commercial success had long since dwindled to almost nil, most critics were not fond of Cody Collins taking Richie McDonald's place as lead singer of Lonestar. Sure, Lonestar was almost entirely "soccer mom" music for its last few years, but according to the detractors, Cody's more milquetoast, breezy pop, lacking the impact and range of Richie (strident as he sometimes was, he does have a rather forceful voice).
• When Sepultura got Derrick Green as their new singer, fans of the band left them behind and pretended that Roots was their last album. Some people don't even think it's the same band when they hear a song with Derrick.
• Since lead singer Lisa Middelhauve has left the symphonic metal band Xandria, some fans seem to be upset with the band's new singer, Manuela Kraller. Some will say that Manuela's operatic style of singing makes the band sound like a rip off of Tarja-era Nightwish. Compare and contrast this with the backlash Nightwish receives for replacing a operatic singer (Tarja) with a non-operatic singer (Anette).
• Averted with Versailles; their first bassist, Jasmine You, passed away in August 2009, just as the band's career was starting to take off. Officially, he wasn't replaced until late 2010, when the band announced that Masashi, who had been playing support for their world tour, would become Versailles's bassist. Fans have, for the most part, welcomed him with open arms; despite having vastly different styles, he and Jasmine are fairly equal when it comes to skill. There are still fans who hate Masashi for not being Jasmine (and fans who believe that Masashi killed Jasmine to earn a spot in the band), but they're a very small minority.

Newspaper Comics

• As a general rule, whenever a newspaper replaces one of their comics, the replacement will get this treatment from some.

Professional Wrestling

• Jonathon Coachman and, to a lesser extent, Joey Styles got this when they replaced Jim Ross as the play-by-play announcer for WWE Raw.
  • Michael Cole seems to have somewhat avoided this as Ross has been moved to Smack Down rather than simply taken off TV. Mostly because he was already Scrappy to begin with.
  • And Mike Adamle got this for replacing Styles (who retired play-by-play announcing out of the blue) on ECW. When he became Raw's General Manager (ironically, the previous GM William Regal returned from suspension on the same day), his replacement of Todd Grisham is probably seen as an improvement.
  • Joey Styles only got the job for two reasons: 1, WWE failed to snag UFC commentator Mike Goldberg, and 2, the general consensus was that Joey was the only possible choice that would not be seen as a Replacement Scrappy by the fanbase. And, while he still did get a bit of heat over it (Fan Dumb being what it is), most of the criticism of Joey actually came from the upper management, who hated his style from the very start and constantly exhorted him to call the matches more like Jim Ross used to (i.e. with less emphasis on play-by-play and more emphasis on "telling the story" of the match). It seems WWE will never be satisfied with any replacement until they can find somebody exactly like Jim Ross, but younger, less Southern, and more telegenic (in other words: Crockett Promotions-era Jim Ross), while the fans will not be satisfied until they can find somebody exactly like Jim Ross, but better able to call the moves. Either way, it shows why Jim Ross is generally thought to be irreplaceable.
    • God help us when he's gone then.
    • And thanks to Bell's Palsy, He's out for the foreseeable future. On the plus side Matt Striker has taken his place on Smack Down!, but His ECW replacement (Byron Saxton) isn't exactly a perfect substitute, though popular enough.
    • And now it appears that his announcing career is most likely over.
    • If you want more current events, the hatred (and the 'Cole Miners' fanbase) for Michael Cole (largely due to his ridiculous fanboying of The Miz) until the writers gave him legitimate Character Development and is becoming a damn near evil heel and even gave him a real feud (and Wrestlemania 27 match) against Jerry Lawler. Also the Smackdown table is now also joined by Booker T.
• One of the most famous examples is Lex Luger's Face run in WWF, where he was essentially Hulk Hogan's Replacement Scrappy. Despite (or perhaps because of) him playing the All-American Face to an even greater hilt than Hogan himself, the fans still saw him as a cheap imitation and hated him. But they kept trying, and trying, and trying to get him over...
• Another great example was the fake Diesel and fake Razor Ramon right after Scott Hall and Kevin Nash left for WCW. These two were a deliberate invocation of the Replacement Scrappy trope, as they were introduced by a freshly Heel Turned Jim Ross specifically to embarrass Vince McMahon and the WWF.
  • There were legal issues involved as well. WWF was suing WCW at the time over Hall and Nash's appearance, claiming they were passing them off as Ramon and Diesel (the two were unnamed "invaders" at the time, and weren't named until their first PPV match). New characters with the same names (intentional Replacement Scrappy or not) was a clear sign that WWF intended to use and enforce the trademarked names.
• When Jerry Lawler left the WWF in 2000, his replacement, Paul Heyman, got all kinds of crazed hatred from a fanbase demanding that Jerry be brought back. Heyman actually did a phenomenal job as commentator...which became all the more apparent when Jerry came back and proceeded to completely mail in his performance for the next decade.

Theme Parks

• In general, whenever a theme park closes a ride for a new one, many fans of the old ride won't be too thrilled with the new ride.
• The above especially applies to Disney Theme Parks. Usually examples are mixed with a nice helping of They Changed It, Now It Sucks for attractions that get revamps.
  • Disneyland's most well-known example is Light Magic, a rather underwhelming replacement for the world famous Long Runner Main Street Electrical Parade. Being stripped of the Electrical Parade (which has not been performed in its place of origin since its original cancellation and is now at Walt Disney World) has haunted Disneyland fans for years.
  • Actually, this is basically true whenever a new Disneyland parade or show replaces an old one. See Parade of Dreams vs. Celebrate! A Street Party. This will usually wear off after a while if the show is any good, though. Subverted with Celebrate!'s replacement, Mickey's Soundsational Parade.
  • EPCOT's Imagination pavillion has Nigel Channing, who replaced Dreamfinder. Then again, that attraction is largely They Changed It, Now It Sucks anyway.
  • Also, Stich's Great Escape, which replaced ExtraTERRORestrial: Alien Encounter.
  • When The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland replaced their Mourning Bride character with the more modern Constance Hatchway, with updated effects and a more sinister personality, casual park visitors responded fairly well to her, but many die hard Mansion fans did not react well to the new character.

Radio

• Directly addressed in Adventures in Odyssey. Over the course of two loosely-connected episodes, Whit turns out to have left for the Middle East off-camera while his friend Jack Allen is introduced. Jack winds up taking over as manager of Whit's End, as well as approximating Whit's original role to the point where Connie freaks out and accuses Jack of trying to "replace" him. She gets over it by the end of the episode, thanks in part to Jack himself acknowledging that neither he nor anyone else could ever replace Whit.
• Narrowly averted on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. When the much-beloved chairman Humphrey "Humph" Lyttleton died unexpectedly in 2008, the remainder of the series was cancelled, and the future of the series was in doubt. When the series was confirmed to be returning, rather than risk the inevitable disappointment of whoever replaced him, there's a rotating series of hosts—Stephen Fry, Jack Dee, and Rob Brydon, all fairly popular comics who had appeared on the show before.
  • Humph was 87 when he died. It says something that he lived to that age, and everyone was still shocked and felt he went far too soon.
  • The rotating hosts have since been abandoned, and Jack Dee is, as of 2012, the permanent replacement host. Most believe that he's doing well, although some simply find they can't listen to the programme anymore.
• After longtime radio broadcaster Paul Harvey died in 2009, his two radio shows (Paul Harvey's News and Comment and The Rest of the Story) were replaced by shows hosted by Gil Gross and Doug Limerick. Gross's and Limerick's shows lasted three weeks before being canned for The Huckabee Report.
• Terry Wogan made a truly heroic effort to prevent this when Chris Evans took over his morning slot on BBC Radio 2, aided and abetted by the fact that at least nobody was foolish enough to try to find a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Wogan. Audience reactions were mixed, to say the least, and generally varied according to whether you could stand the drivetime show Evans had been hosting previously.
• American Country Countdown, upon firing longtime host Bob Kingsley in 2005 and replacing him with Kix Brooks of Brooks and Dunn. Many longtime fans of the show dislike Kix Brooks for his high, whiny voice and "chummy" attitude towards artists, not to mention the corporate decision to cut the show from 40 to 30 because program directors were "uncomfortable" with the newness of the 31-40 songs. Meanwhile, many professional deejays hate Kix for quickly rising in the ranks of professional radio hosts despite a lack of experience.

Sports

• Whenever a prominent/legendary athlete retires or leaves his longtime team via a trade or free agency, his replacement at that position is almost certain to become this. We say "almost", because the replacement could become legendary in his own right (see Steve Young replacing Joe Montana, for instance).
• The Because It's The Cup commercials promoting the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs. Pretty good in their own right, but few are happy to see them replacing History Will Be Made.

Toys

• Hero Factory is this for many Bionicle fans, particularly those who were in it for the story rather than the toys.
• Barbie was with Ken for forty-three years before Mattel decided to have them break up so she could date Blaine, an Australian surfer. Sales meant that their relationship was significantly shorter.
• There's a fair amount of people who didn't take kindly to Hasbro's decision to redesign the Generation 3 line of My Little Pony toys. Originally looking like traditional ponies, the characters all got a Super-Deformed design that some felt was rife with the Uncanny Valley. The negative reaction to these Generation 3.5 ponies may well have reached Hasbro, as the toys ran for only around one and a half years before they released Generation 4, which have proportions much closer to those of the original toys.
  • The official talking Princess Celestia doll is effectively a replacement scrappy for the actual character. Not only has Hasbro admitted that they made her pink instead of white because apparently pink ponies sell better to girls (and making it worse, there's a picture of the actual, white character on the toy's box art), but they replaced her TV show voice actress and her original wise personality with a bunch of vacuous, vain phrases spouted by another actor who sounds more like a Valley Girl than a princess.

Video Games

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty intentionally invokes this with Raiden. Maybe he would have been more liked if he hadn't, to make his inherent not-Snake-ness worse, also been a distinctly Bishounen You Suck character who spent a lot of time Narming at his girlfriend over the Codec.
  • This is made even worse in that he remained practically hidden away by Kojima until the Prologue section of the game ended. The opening introduction even goes as far as to either show none of the Plant chapter, or when they had to, only show the villains, or to make sure Raiden isn't very visible.
  • At least, this trope was the case til he gave the fans something to talk about in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Now there are people bemoaning the fact that he's not properly playable. Bonus points if these are the same guys who bemoaned his main character status in MGS2!
    • And now it's come full circle: Raiden will be the main character of the next Metal Gear game. (And now some fans are complaining because it's not Snake. Unpleasable Fanbase all!)
• Inverted, but then played straight in Legend of Dragoon. The substitute for Lavitz is often considered to be just as good if not better. (Part of the reason is that Albert came into the game and actually had some time to get development in.) The substitute for Shana, meanwhile...didn't turn out so lucky. Sure, Miranda does have a small fanbase who adamantly believe she deserves from more love, but she also has a hatedom because she didn't make a good replacement for Shana. Miranda came in at a bad time and didn't have that much of a chance to be developed.
• Apollo Justice Ace Attorney attracted a lot of ire from fans of the old main character, Phoenix Wright; partly because Apollo simply wasn't Phoenix, and partly for necessitating Phoenix to become arguably Not As He Was Known in order to allow him to shine. No one can quite seem to decide what the problem with him is, though; depending on who you ask, the complaint is that he's "almost a carbon copy of Phoenix" or "not enough like Phoenix".
  • The unexplained absence of well-liked support and secondary characters important to Phoenix's character (especially the Feys, Gumshoe and Miles Edgeworth) also upset many fans, which means poor Apollo gets even more dislike directed towards him. It really does not help that in the tutorial case that Phoenix pretty much solved the case himself (players feeling cheated and making Apollo look like a bigger idiot).
• Devil May Cry 4 and "I'm-not-Dante" Nero.
  • Possibly made worse by the revelation that he's actually supposed to be "Not-Vergil" rather than "Not-Dante."
  • Dante from the new DmC is not having a good time either, and the game isn't even out yet. Especially since this Dante has black hair and looks like an emo poser.
    • It certainly says a lot when the main feature that everyone's waiting on is the shifting environments as opposed to the story or even playing as Dante again. If you don't believe me, pick any random review site or video game magazine; chances are the Dm C article will showcase the "non-static" setting while taking only a minor note of everything else.
  • There's also Lucia from Devil May Cry 2, who many saw as a poor replacement for Trish. Then again, that whole game can be considered a replacement scrappy of the first game.
• The title character of Mega Man X7 was demoted to Optional Party Member so the apparently 13-year old reploid Axl could steal the lead role.
• Midori from Guitar Hero III, as noted by Yahtzee in his review of the game. She was added to the series' third installment while Clive Winston, Eddie Knox, and Pandora were removed. While Midori is a perfectly fine character and the player's choice of avatar has absolutely no effect on the actual gameplay, people are still bitter about the removal of their beloved Pandora.
  • Strangely enough, Eddie Knox and Lars Umlaut could both be seen as replacements for Clive Winston (who got shoved into being an unlockable character in the second game before being removed in the third), but neither got anywhere near that much heat.
  • Rectified in Guitar Hero 4.
  • Due to the choice to remove nearly the entire line-up of original Guitar Hero characters in favor of unlockable real-life stars, Guitar Hero V has the interesting potential for the likes of Shirley Manson or Kurt Freaking Cobain to be Replacement Scrappies, if you liked any of the characters that were dropped.
• Johnny from the third installment of the Shadow Hearts series was a poor stand in for Yuri, the protagonist of the previous two entries.
  • However, any fan of the series would realize Yuri is unavailable for the non-trivial reason that he's dead, damnit. He's not coming back. No one found the body. He's got his Stable Time Loop and he's happy.
    • On the other hand, the fact that Halley is never even mentioned at all is a little harder to rationalise. Particularly since he moved to the USA after the events of the first game, and would seem a fairly reasonable choice for a cast member given his psychic powers and prior experience of fighting at least one Cosmic Horror.
• Emil from Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World... is an unhappy subversion because Lloyd never had that much fans and the problem the fandom has with his is his Wangst, not being unable of living up to Lloyd's non-particularly high standards.
  • What DIDN'T help was the fact that Emil's game came around the same time as Yuri Lowell's. Yuri himself is so popular, he managed to knock Ensemble Darkhorse Leon Magnius's long-held #1 spot on the annual Tales of Popularity poll. Tough Act to Follow, indeed.
• Joshua, your partner for Week Two in The World Ends With You, is a Replacement Scrappy on both sides of the fourth wall. The players hate him for being condescending, smug and having all the self-defense skills of wet paper for quite a while, in addition to replacing Shiki; Neku hates him for... exactly the same reasons. But some forgive him.
  • Then again, he's also pretty much the strongest and easiest partner to use for the post-game stuff, especially after he unlocks his aerial combo late in the week.
  • Plus, aside from the fact that his Jerkass status is deliberate and commented upon, other people love him for the same reasons, finding his winding up Neku to be hilarious, especially in Another Day ("Shut up and walk, dear.")
  • And then there's the fact that he is Jesus, and can DROP THE FREAKIN' MOON!
• This gets leveled against all the Suspiciously Similar Substitute additions to Super Smash Bros Brawl in some circles, although most of the removed characters were just duplicates of other characters who remained. Perhaps the one who gets the most heat is Lucario, though, as he replaced Mewtwo, who didn't have any clone in the game. The fanbase still has arguments as to whether Mewtwo was a hopeless character that got replaced by a superior character in every way, or replaced by someone meant to hype the at-the-time latest versions of the Pokémon games and abandoned instead of retooled.
  • On a side note, Lucas was thought to be a Replacement Scrappy for Ness until Ness was confirmed to return.
  • Played straight with Toon Link though, since there are still a lot of Wind Waker haters out there, who went berserk when Young Link was replaced by him. (Though replaced may not be as correct as "given the Wind Waker Design in place of the Ocarina of Time Design and a new name", since the two are absolutely identical otherwise. Canonically even in terms of age.)
  • In a non-character related examples. Many of Wario's random moves in Brawl got a lot of ire directed towards them for replacing moves used in Wario Land. In particular the "Corkscrew" move is disliked for having nothing to do with the "Corkscrew Conk" from Wario World.
• In The King of Fighters, lots of people hated May Lee for replacing Jhun Hoon. And lots of people hate K' and Ash Crimson for not being either Kyo or Iori. K', however is less Scrappy than Ash because he only links himself with Kyo's story once (in 1999, whereas actual Kyo clones appear, but even they don't play much to the story/main fighting) and doesn't bother with him much. Ash, on the other hand, had it worse due to his extremely flamboyant style, as well as him becoming a Creator's Pet by starting to actually UPSTAGE Kyo and his crews by stealing Chizuru's powers, and later Iori's, in EVERY game he's in.
  • May Lee is an interesting case. She was reviled (at least in Japan) when it was revealed in The King of Fighters 2002 that a newbie had "stolen" King's spot, and placed alongside the veterans of the Women Fighters team (Mai and Yuri). Other than that, the fans seem to love her.
  • On the basis of K', his Scrappy status (if he even had one) pretty much died by the time of XIII, when the fanbase collectively squeed for his return. Ash, on the other hand, may have been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap by revealing his true nature as a Guile Hero fighting to counteract his Evil Twin identical ancestor/evil half/evil something and then commiting a Heroic Sacrifice that erased himself from existence. Debating his status as a God Mode Sue, however, is less negotiable by a country mile.
• In the Soulcalibur series, rabid Hwang fanboys (and Hwangx Mina fangirls) won't stop bashing Yun Seong for replacing Hwang in Soulcalibur II.
  • Which is pretty weird, since Hwang himself was a originally a replacement for Heishiro Mitsurugi in the Korean localization of Soul Edge (where depictions of samurais are banned for historical reasons). On top of that, he's an unlockable bonus character in nearly every game since.
    • Part of the hatred was that in addition to knocking Hwang out of the roster, Yun Seong is a scrappy on his own merits, being considered pathetically weak in his debut game and afterwards prone to a series of repetitive stories in the following games. His movelist improved so that he didn't suck nearly as bad after II, but II-IV all featured him suffering from Aesop Amnesia about acquiring Soul Edge being nowhere near worth it and requiring more popular characters like Mina and Talim to keep trying to save him from himself.
  • It's the same with Maxi, who is similar to Li Long, although it has to be said that Maxi's fighting style is more developed. Berserker and Assassin in Soulcalibur II have the same moves as Rock and Hwang (who are not in SCII) did in Soulcalibur. They aren't strictly Scrappies because they're not canon to the game's story.
  • Natsu, one of the newcomers in Soulcalibur V is shaping up to be this, as she's going to replace series stalwart Taki. Fans are not pleased.
    • Plenty of the new characters in V are getting this. Xiba for being a Goku Expy who only ever thinks about food, the above-mentioned Natsu for being arrogant and cocky rather than Taki's cold, get-the-job-done attitude, Patroklos for being a self-righteous Jerkass (even though he does get better later on in the story mode), along with Pyrrha for being a massive Spotlight-Stealing Squad to the rest of the characters... the list goes on. The fact that none of the new characters besides Patroklos and Pyrrha get more than token appearances in the story mode and that the game's creator himself admitted that the game was unfinished isn't really helping.
  • An in-universe example occurs between Tira and the new Nightmare. While Tira had Undying Loyalty to the Nightmare of 3 and 4, that Nightmare was destroyed by Siegfried. Tira has since refused to accept the new and more subtle Nightmare, considering him a coward; instead, she plans to bring the OLD Nightmare back by using Sophitia's daughter Phyrra as Soul Edge's host.
• Von Bolt from Advance Wars: Dual Strike, the Big Bad replacing Sturm. Being a crippled asthmatic old man in a hovering wheelchair, and a subpar CO that was ludicrously easy to defeat on top of it, rankled somewhat when compared to Sturm; Sturm being essentially Darth Vader with a paint job who dropped meteors on people and had a Leitmotif with an electric guitar solo.
  • There are those that look upon the entire Days of Ruin cast in the same way.
• In the Donkey Kong games so far, Tiny in Donkey Kong 64 (for replacing Dixie) and Kiddy Kong in Donkey Kong Country 3 (for taking Diddy's place) have been seen as this. This changed the gameplay as well since Kiddy isn't as nimble and more specifically doesn't have Diddy's cartwheel.
  • Tiny is an interesting case - she was actually designed before Dixie, while Dixie was a stand-in for Tiny until Donkey Kong 64 was finished. This makes her a replacement for her own replacement.
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns was announced And the Fandom Rejoiced. Then it was announced that the Kremlings were going to be replaced by the Tiki Tak tribe and the fandom went'splodey.
  • Prior to that, this was the reaction towards a lot of the cast of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat for replacing the other Kongs, Kremlings and long time enemies. It was only one game, but Donkey Kong Country fans have not at all forgiven most of them for this (especially the animal buddy replacements).
• A lot of Naruto fans hate the Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 game, because the creators decided to give North America some exclusive characters like Kurenai, Asuma, Yugao, Baki, and Bando (the last one being an Expanded Universe character created solely for the game, the others (save for Asuma) have never been in the Clash of Ninja series, even in Japan). The thing is, in order to add these characters, they removed some old ones like Iruka, Kimimaro. and the Third Hokage. The thing is, if they kept those characters, the fans would just accuse TOMY of being lazy. Unpleasable Fanbase at its finest, people.
• A lot of Drakengard fans regard Nowe, the hero of the sequel, as a Replacement Scrappy for Caim... and even most of Nowe's fans admit he just can't compare as a character.
• Inverted in Knights of the Old Republic 2 with the Exile. While fans of the game don't outright hate the character, the characters in the game certainly seem to! Just being present at the site of a major catastrophe will cause everyone to blame you for it and even doing good deeds (incidentally, one includes fixing the problem that you didn't cause but were still blamed for) still fails to earn more than a smidgen of respect. Instead every character in the game seems to want the protagonist from the original back.
  • Also inverted in that while most fans don't resent the character for replacing her predecessor, they DO loathe the (incoherent and just-outright-unfinished game) for how badly it fails to meet its legacy.
    • So in a sense, the Replacement Scrappy of the series is Obsidian, who replaced BioWare as the developer and ended up hated by fans for not being as good.
  • Many fans of the male Exile refuse to consider the female Exile canon. Not sure if it officially qualifies, except that until then, all the characters where the player picked the character's gender, from Rookie One to Revan, were all canonically male. This has led to people being banned from Wookieepedia for editing the Jedi Exile's page to make her male.
• The new Prince in the Prince of Persia series is getting this already. Never mind that there were Princes before the Sands of Time Prince; the Fan Dumb is disinclined to budge on that aspect.
  • There is some legitimacy to these complaints, however, as some fans dislike the 2008 Prince's cocky, Han Solo-esque, one-liner spewing personality compared to the charismatic yet somewhat naive Prince from Sands of Time.
  • It has more to do with the Prince's new companion being capable of exactly the same acrobatics as the Prince, as well as having access to powerful magic, which is the mechanism you are rescued with when you screw up, along with the plot critical powers needed to undo the corruption. Also, that magic is how all boss fights are best dealt with. In short, the new Prince is more or less extraneous and serves as little more than a meatshield, and is probably closer to being a damsel in distress what with him constantly having to be rescued from fatally stupid acrobatics.
• One Gamespy Daily Victim character complained about the disappointment he felt when, as a child, Clyde was replaced by Sue in Ms. Pac-Man.
• Mass Effect is an interesting case. In the first game, minerals were gotten by exploring unimportant planets with the Mako, a vehicle with shoddy controls and a tendency to get stuck in the terrain. In the second game it gets replaced by a tedious and slow scanning minigame about as fun as watching paint dry. So it's a case of Replacement Scrappy Mechanic.
  • A character aversion would be Wrex's replacement, Grunt. Wrex was a Blood Knight, Deadpan Snarker, and pretty much a fan favorite. At first, the trailers for Mass Effect 2 show Grunt as a simple Blood Knight, the krogan hat. However, Grunt was grown in a tank to be the ultimate krogan, leading to some existentialist angst (not Wangst) that helps flesh him out, and goes away as part of his loyalty mission. Additional Character Development led to fans accepting him as a good character in his own right. Ironically, the reveal that James Vega is a Soldier who's skillset focuses on defense at first led to him becoming a proper replacement scrappy for Grunt. Like Grunt however, he has since become an aversion once the game was released.
  • Mass Effect 3 gives us the option to have a reporter on the Normandy. Many were hoping for the popular Emily Wong, but instead we got Diana Allers, while Wong got killed offscreen and never even mentioned in-game. In addition, Allers is voiced by Jessica Chobot of IGN, which prompted accusations of Bioware pandering to the media, and is a very underdeveloped character with a weak romance.
    • Allers is not only voiced by Jessica Chobot but her character model is based on Chobot's real-life appearance. It was rather blatantly pandering.
• Inverted in Kingdom Hearts II. Roxas starts with a lot of these traits (he's the first person you play as, he plays like Sora did in KH1, and Sora is nowhere to be seen), but the creator probably realized he had a potential reverse-Raiden on his hands (playable at the start but not for the main game, which was the opposite for Raiden) and promptly Dropped a Bridge on Him at the end of the Prolonged Prologue. Some players played this trope straight with their reaction to Roxas, while others actually would rather have spent most of the game as Roxas instead of Sora. Thankfully, it looks like Roxas will be getting his own game soon, so fans of his can rejoice.
  • People who aren't fans of his, on the other hand, have their feelings toward him increased. This review outright describes Roxas and his game as "Scrappy Doo getting his own show."
  • Similarly, Namine of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories fame was either hated by Kairi fans for replacing Kairi, or loved by Kairi haters for replacing Kairi. Once more, the fact that the two are the same being is ignored.
• After Nintendo's contract with Mike Tyson expired (which, contrary to popular belief, was unrelated to Tyson's legal troubles), they replaced him in the game formerly known as Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! with Mr. Dream, a fictional boxer, while retaining the boxing style. To say the least, fans were unhappy with the perceived generic character.
  • Part of the problem was that people found fighting Mike Tyson cool enough to justify his insane difficulty (the game he appeared in is considered extremely hard largely because of how hard he is), but throwing a replacement that was exactly the same gameplay wise caused people to see Mr. Dream as cheap replacement.
• The cast of Left 4 Dead 2 seem to be receiving this. Their game being what was supposed to be downloadable content for the original probably isn't helping them.
  • Things get worse with Rochelle, whom almost everyone hates because her personality comes off as dry to most...or because she's not like Zoey.
  • Nick and Ellis have been received rather well, and most people feel neutrally about Coach. Three out of four generally accepted into the fanbase isn't too bad.
    • Rochelle's popularity has seen a spike, thanks to the release of the DLC The Passing which gave her a more fleshed out personality.
• Final Fantasy V has the Badass Grandpa Galuf die and be replaced (at his insistence) by his Token Mini-Moe granddaughter Krile. Many players felt the switch to be a downgrade since this makes the player party three-fourths princesses (and alongside the kind of girly-looking Bartz making it the girliest RPG party ever), or because they simply preferred Galuf over Krile. She does, however, get all of his skills, jobs and stats, so it doesn't affect gameplay much (Krile's base stats are SLIGHTLY different than Galuf's, but it's just a few points here and there).
• When Pokémon Generation II remakes HeartGold/SoulSilver was announced, everyone assumed Kris from, well, Pokémon Crystal would return as the female protagonist. Instead, another character named Lyra was introduced as the new character. Quite a bit of backlash ensued, with debates ongoing as to which character had the better design, despite the fact that Kris was technically never a part of the original Gold/Silver games in the first place, though she was the first female player avatar.
  • Kris not being part of Gold/Silver is often used as an argument as to why she was replaced, but then you have to wonder why Eusine, also not in Gold/Silver, was included.
  • Applies to some of the Pokémon themselves, albeit mostly in Pokémon Black And White due to its reboot-ish nature. Examples include the hideous Timburr/Conkeldurr line for the Machop/Machamp line, and the fairly weak Pidove/Unfezant line for the much more versatile Starly/Staraptor line. Inverted in many cases, however; fans were happy to see the Zubat and Geodude lines replaced with the Woobat and Roggenrola lines, respectively (with the latter also getting an unusually Badass-looking final evolution, Gigalith).
  • It was later revealed that Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 would have new protagonists instead of bringing back Hilbert and Hilda. The new male protagonist has become a major case of Love It or Hate It. He mostly receives hate for appearing to be more immature than Hilbert. The female has been received a bit more warmly, but that doesn't stop some from disliking her for being more girly in appearance than Hilda.
• In the Backyard Sports series, Samantha Pearce. This was probably because some other girls had the natural athlete personality, but didn't look the part, and was removed in favor of a new character. Soon after Samantha's debut, she became the most annoying character in the entire series (besides Joey, of course).
• Contra: Legacy of War, the first of the much maligned 3D installments in the Contra series by Appaloosa, recycled the plot of Hard Corps while substituting all of its characters with new ones, with the sole exception of Ray Poward (who didn't look anything like the original character from the Genesis game). Sheena was replaced by Tasha, Brad was replaced by Bubba, and Browny was replaced by CD-288. Even the antagonist, Colonel Bassad, is just a ripoff of Colonel Bahamut.
• Umineko no Naku Koro ni:
  • The fifth arc introduces Erika, a little girl who floats to Rokkenjima practically out of nowhere, and proceeds to solve the epitaph and possibly figure out the murderer for the arc she was introduced, attracting some visceral reactions from fans who have been puzzling over this stuff for a bunch of arcs and have scrambled brains to show for it. She then proceeds to kill the previous antagonist and attempt to be the new protagonist of the story by turning Battler into a Decoy Protagonist. Fandom was... not happy. Played with, though, because Battler is still the protagonist, just under a And Then John Was a Zombie situation. Erika is being set up as an antagonist, and so it's likely that the author was actually trying to get that reaction.
  • In the seventh arc, Willard H.Wright substitutes Battler and Erika as the main character. Subverted in that most readers in fact liked him more than they liked battler. It helps that Will had a Moment of Awesome or two pretty much every scene he was in.
• World of Warcraft:
  • The Cataclysm expansion features Garrosh Hellscream becoming this for Thrall. To clarify, Garrosh was already a Scrappy and a Weasly, making him replace Thrall as the Warchief just made things worse.
  • Cairne doesn't get killed solely by Garrosh. They duel, but Cairne dies from being poisoned by the Grimtotems. There's no word yet on how popular his son and successor Baine will be. Though going by The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm, he seems to be making a good start of it.
  • Ironically, the announcement that the last patch of Mists of Pandaria would feature a raid in Orgrimmar in which Horde players would seek to oust Garrosh Hellscream and restore Thrall as Warchief was also met with disdain. This was not because Garrosh had been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, but rather because Thrall has become something of a Scrappy himself (mostly due to his spotlight stealing plots that bordered dangerously close to Black Hole Sue territory in Cataclysm). Instead, players have been asking that Garrosh be replaced by Vol'jin, Saurfang, or even Sylvanas.
  • On the Alliance side, Varian Wrynn is a borderline case. He replaced Bolvar Fordragon (probably the most popular of the Alliance faction leaders) as the leader of the Alliance, but he existed for as long as Bolvar, who ruled Stormwind in his absence. His formal introduction into the game was one of the events leading into the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and he has been as destructive towards the fragile peace between the two factions as Garrosh since. Funnily enough, Wrynn has never gone to direct conflict with the Horde (though he has ample reason to) out of some respect for Thrall, Jaina, and Saurfang. He still despises them (ditto above) and is unlikely to back down in the face of Garrosh's inevitable aggression against Gilneas and Ashenvale. With the most reasonable Horde leaders being shoved aside, it seems that Varian is getting new respect from the playerbase.
  • The entire thing can be largely summed up by Blizzard becoming aware that all the huge threats facing Azeroth that force the Alliance and Horde to work together and respective faction leaders who try to forge a delicate peace seemed to decrease the impetus for the player-versus-player, Alliance-versus-Horde conflict. Seeing as they could not have that happen, the replacement faction leaders were needed to be Hot-Blooded enough to get the Conflict Ball rolling again, even if that meant pushing more level-headed and well-loved faction leaders to the side.
• Half the Disgaea fandom will declare any main character that is not Laharl to be a Replacement Scrappy. Adell from Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories got flak for being a Hot-Blooded Idiot Hero He-Man Woman Hater, while Mao from Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice got flak for being too much like Laharl (he isn't, but makes a similar first impression). So far averted with Valvatorez from Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten. According to Word of God, they tried to make Laharl and his cohorts the central characters again, but ran into a wall, eventually deciding that they'd already come up with everything they could with them. In turn, in order to attract more people, they had to come up with new faces, new locations, new everything.
• Though the Super Mario Bros. series isn't typically seen as character-driven, it nonetheless has a few of these.
  • In Super Mario Galaxy 2, the lovely, mysterious, and compelling Rosalina was replaced by Lubba, an obese purple Luma who won't stop telling bad jokes except when he gives you generic words of encouragement. The same words of encouragement. Even after you've already heard them. Right after completing a Prankster Comet stage, which will not leave you in the mood for his rambling.
  • Bowser Jr was seen as the replacement for for the original seven Koopa Kids, with their distinctive appearances and (slight) personalities; at least for a while. Once he appeared alongside them in New Super Mario Bros Wii, it tended to dissipate.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, some fangirls see Linebeck III as a poor replacement for his Grandfather, captain Linebeck from The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. It doesn't really help that his clothes look an embarrassingly lot like a Sailor Fuku. Thankfully, he's only in a short part of the game.
• Jack Marston from Red Dead Redemption is considered to be this. The fact that he replaces no one less than his father, John, who is killed in the climax of the end game, as the playable hero, is probably one of the main reasons.
• In Soldier of Fortune II, Taylor is assigned to replace the late Hawk from the first game. However, she is obviously a poor substitute, never seen in combat, and is bumped off halfway through the game.
• Possibly intentional in Sam and Max Season 3 Episode 3, where Sam is forced to animate Max's body with the brain of a boy pharaoh, thus replacing him. Sam likes the pharaoh enough (he refers to him in dialogue as a 'nice kid'), but the player is supposed to hate him because of what he spends the third act doing.
• Some were annoyed by Anders apparent attempt in Dragon Age: Awakening to take over Alistair's 'adorkable' role. But the most hate was leveled at Velanna for replacing Morrigan's Dark Magical Girl, mixing in Our Elves Are Better and a half-hearted attempt at Well-Intentioned Extremist, only lacking the good intent. Or any redeeming qualities at all. Also lacking what makes a successful subversion of The Chick; attractiveness.
• The Spyro the Dragon reboot only included three characters from the original series. No revised versions of Bianca, Professor, Elora, Nasty Gnorc, or Ripto. It has its own cast of characters, which hasn't settled well with old fans.
• Some fans of the original Prototype are very vocal about how little they like James Heller, the sequel's protagonist replacing the original's Alex Mercer.
• In The 3rd Birthday, Eve Brea may have the looks of Aya Brea, but she can never have her fire.
• Example mostly occurring because of gameplay reasons in Dungeon Keeper, where in the 2nd game the dragon, considered to be amongst the best creatures in the original, is replaced with a much less useful creature called the salamander. Fans weren't pleased.
• Golden Sun fans expected Saturos and Menardi, the villains of the first game, to return after their obvious Disney Villain Death for the second. But that miracle never happen; instead, The Lost Age introduced two new members of the same clan, Agatio and Karst, to be the antagonists. Karst ended up even more popular than Menardi had been due to her stronger storyline, Character Development, and fanservice... while Agatio got all sorts of vitriol from the fandom for years because he was considered not to be as cool as Saturos was.
  • On a more meta level, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is getting some hate for not being what the first two games were.

Webcomics

• The Sins - The new "Envy" Flattery is so annoying that even the other characters think he is the Replacement Scrappy.
  • Then again, previous "Envy" Desire purposely replaced himself with someone less awesome then he is.
  • Lampshaded when "Gluttony" got replaced and Pip said "Everyone will love the new Gluttony! Just like how they all love the new Envy!"
• Sluggy Freelance averted this hardcore with Sasha, who endeared herself to fans pretty quickly, and even Gwen's fans wouldn't wish her on Riff. Then it was done intentionally with Monica; even years after Sasha had left, Monica brought up fresh, fond reminiscences of her.
• Averted in Something*Positive: Word of God says that after Davan broke up with the very popular character Branwen he decided to wait several years before introducing Vanessa, partially to avoid this trope. This was not completely successful, however: there were hints that Branwen might come back one day, and a very popular Fan-Preferred Couple exists between Davan and his friend Pee-Jee, though the creator is on record that they'll never hook up.
• Homestuck has an in-universe example with Rose and Roxy. Jaspers belonged to Rose first, and was later appearified by Roxy and became her pet. While he did eventually come to love her too, he never loved her as much as Rose.

Web Original

• Dave from Shadow of the Templar was automatically relegated to this role in-story when he was brought in to replace a member that had been on Team Templar for quite some time. It didn't help that he was initially timid and all but screamed to be used as a punching bag. He manages to develop out of this status by becoming more self-confident and joining in the regular pranks pulled by the team. (Ironically, readers didn't dislike Dave nearly as much, probably because the character he replaced hadn't been very popular in the first place.)

Western Animation

• When Transformers: Beast Wars started airing, this was at the exact magnetic center of much of the controversy, better known as Trukk not munky.
  • Before that, there was Rodimus Prime, formerly Hot Rod, who took over as leader after Optimus died in The Movie. Rodimus was not only not accepted because he wasn't Optimus, was partly responsible for the death of his predecessor and sometimes insecure over his leadership abilities, when he wasn't also being sharply sarcastic. However, Your Mileage May Vary as Rodimus Prime also has a share of fans who like him better than Optimus, for the very same qualities he's hated for. To a lesser degree the rest of the 1986 Transformers cast brought in after the movie suffered from this, as many of the beloved older characters had been killed off to sell toys or just weren't shown anymore.
    • Rodimus did however, notably have a big Jerkass moment in one episode where unable to free an alien planet from the Decepticons, he instead choose to blow it up, and then commented Cybertron would be a better for "not being so perfect" after one of the other Autobots lamenting the fact they just depraved an entire alien species of their home.
  • Hell, Transformers in general suffers from this, as every new series, new character, new toy, and so on inevitably gets compared to GEEWUN. The Classics and Universe lines have taken it to whole new levels, with Astrotrain and Powerglide's color schemes receiving Replacement Scrappy status.
    • An old joke: How many Transformers fans does it take to change a lightbulb? Ten: One to change the bulb, and nine to complain about how much better the bulb was in the eighties.
  • Speaking of Beast Wars, Beast Machines developed Optimus Primal into some sort of religious leader, while Cheetor stepped up into his place as a Supporting Leader. The new writers introduced Nightscream to fill in Cheetor's old role as the kid. Unfortunately, Cheetor was designed to grow from a annoying and kinda dumb newbie to a capable fighter and leader, while Nightscream was just annoying and kinda dumb.
  • Transformers Animated, despite the usual reaction it got from the Unpleasable Fanbase, quickly became a fan favorite - and then, it was swiftly cancelled - toyline and all - for a very... polarizing movie, and the next series is already catching some flak for being extremely Movie-based if the preview images are anything to go by. Needless to say, Animated fans are not pleased.
    • And, now that more designs have been revealed, many of them very Animated-like, fans are STILL annoyed; now, they've begun to see Prime as some kind of copycat, an inferior, pandering substitute at best.
      • And, now that the show has actually started airing, many fans changed their mind about the ordeal, and call Prime the best thing ever, especially those that hated Animated to begin with. But never mind that, even some (former) Animated fans are declaring its cancellation a good riddance!
    • Shortpacked sums up the knee-jerk reaction with a puppy analogy.
    • This is about par for the course with the Unpleasable Fanbase of Transformers. Every new series is the worst ever until you get used to it and see it for more than just the changes. That's when Hasbro, being Hasbro, pulls another reboot just as the series is spreading its wings (they prefer to overhaul the toyline every couple of years or so.) and the process repeats. And of course there are always those who consider it their religious duty to hate everything that isn't G1 just for not being G1.
• A case of this happening in-series is in ReBoot when Enzo has to replace Bob as guardian. Despite being just as competent at saving the day, the people think of the most inane reasons to dislike him. Like being green instead of blue.
  • Also, in a bizarre case of meta-trope, certain Bootniks hated Matrix for "replacing" Enzo, despite him being the older version of Enzo. The abrupt transformation was just too much for some oldschoolers to parse.
  • Parodied in the second ReBoot movie where Bob is believed to be a copy when another Bob, who looks and sounds more like the original, shows up. This is particularly highlighted in the opening scene which takes place in front of a live audience. The audience cheers when any other character enters, but when Bob arrives, all we hear are the crickets chirping.
• Toonami gets hit hard with this, it probably would have been better if they kept more than the name TOM, or at least not change it from TOM3 to TOM4.
  • A bit more detail. The first 3 TOMs have had changes, but still kept the basic structure (a somewhat humanoid robot with a cool motorcycle helmetish head). More importantly, the TOM models have increased in awesome over the years. TOM4's head and torso looks like they were ripped off Thomas The Tank Engine, and his limbs looked like vacuum cleaner hoses. And they replaced SARA, his hot AI sidekick, with a couple of 'explorer robots'.
• The Batman could more or less be considered this for an entire series, as many hated it not being Batman the Animated Series. There's also the fact that its existence prevented Batman villains from appearing on Justice League Unlimited, even though the writers said that didn't mean that much, not to mention that if one does the research, they'd see that The Batman itself had it's own Executive Meddling it had to go through (Robin wasn't allowed to be used for a long time because of Teen Titans, and the villains of Batman Begins, Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul, could never be used.)
  • When Batman the Brave And The Bold got similar reactions, Bat-Mite showed up and broke the fourth wall in an episode countering such attitudes:

Bat-Mite: Batman's rich history allows him to be interpreted in a multitude of ways. To be sure, this is a lighter incarnation, but it's certainly no less valid and true to the character's roots than the tortured avenger crying out for mommy and daddy.

• • In another DC Comics example, Young Justice has gotten some flack from Teen Titans and Justice League fans who are still bitter about the latter being Screwed by the Network, and not too fond of the fact that the cast of Young Justice doesn't have any DCAU or Teen Titans voice actors reprising their roles. Teen Titans fans also don't like it for its lack of fun, instead focusing on being Darker and Edgier than both the original Young Justice comic and the Teen Titans show, despite the fact that Teen Titans comics are Darker and Edgier since 1981.
• Parodied on South Park: When Kenny died "permanently" (he came back after one season), the three remaining boys took a previously minor character, Butters, as his replacement. They then proceeded to manipulate and torture him, constantly comparing him to their sadly missed Kenny to try to force him to do things their way. After a few episodes they "fired" him for not being good enough, and replaced him with another minor character, Tweek. Interestingly, the boys warm up to him a lot quicker (aside from Cartman of course), even though he also vanished after a few episodes. Meanwhile Butters, despite being officially "demoted," actually wound up being a Subversion both in and out universe---even after Kenny's resurrection he continues to be a major character on par with the others, as well as quite the Ensemble Darkhorse, his relationship with the other boys is also developed somewhat (only a season later it is made clear the others at least like him a lot more than Cartman).
  • Also parodied earlier on with Mr. Derp (the replacement for Chef after the latter quits at the school), who has No Fourth Wall and believes that the viewers will love him as much as Chef.
• Subverted in-show in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. In one episode, Mandy and Grim replace Billy with a new friend named Bobby. The two of them wind up thinking Bobby is better than Billy ever was, much to Billy's horror. Eventually though, Billy destroyed Bobby with Grim's sythe, and Mandy dosen't even care, showing that even liking someone better than Billy doesn't mean she likes them.
• Many Super Mario Bros. fans greatly dislike Oogtar the caveboy from the Super Mario World cartoon, who was essentially an obnoxious replacement for a major character from the games (Toad).
• When the 1978 The Fantastic Four cartoon was in development, a prior contract with Universal was already in place for a potential Human Torch movie, which kept him from being used. So they replaced him with... HERBIE (above pic), Reed Richards' assistant robot. To say that he wasn't quite a suitable replacement for a guy who sets himself on fire (and the brother of one of the characters, not to mention best friend of another) is an understatement.
  • Oddly, fans didn't mind when HERBIE was added to the comics. Of course, the Torch wasn't kept out of those.
• Dimmy from The Snorks was written out of the scripts after season two. At the same time Corky, Big Weed and Lil Seaweed were introduced.
• During the ninth season of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, the Shredder and his crew were replaced by invading alien Lord Dregg, who took over as Big Bad during the show's last two seasons. While capably voiced by Tony Jay and arguably more menacing and effective than the Shredder, many fans found that he lacked the charm of his predecessors.
• In The Critic webisodes, Jay Sherman's new make-up lady/girlfriend Jennifer is this, replacing his original make-up woman Doris and his actual girlfriend Alice Tompkins, both who are loved characters from the original TV series. In fact, she replaces almost the whole cast from the show.
• Parodied in The Simpsons episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet"; when Barney replaces Wiggum in the titular band, Wiggum spitefully organises a gang of fans to picket their next gig shouting "Wiggum forever! Barney never!" at the stage, while Wiggum watches with a smug smile on his face. Then Barney opens his mouth, reveals he can sing ten times better than Wiggum, and the chants immediately switch to "Barney forever! Wiggum never!" Wiggum ends up slinking out of the bar unnoticed. Like most of the episode, this parodies a similar situation The Beatles faced (specifically, when Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best).
  • Also parodied in the infamous episode "The Principal and the Pauper" where Principal Skinner is revealed to be an impostor named Armin Tamzarian who assumed Skinner's identity when the latter was assumed dead. The real Skinner takes Armin's place as principal while Armin leaves town. However, despite the real Skinner being a nice and reasonable fellow, the other Springfield citizens decide to kick him out of town (even his mother who preferred the doormat Armin to the independent Seymour) and get a judge to never speak of this again under penalty of torture because...they preferred the old Skinner.
  • Happened to Marge's current German voice actress Anke Engelke - She took over after Marge's original voice Elisabeth Volkmann had passed away in 2006. There is no telling, however, what kind of backlash a new voice actor for Homer Simpson would be facing in case Norbert Gastell (age 82), who is almost universally beloved by German Simpsons fans, left the show.
• Within the Disney fandom, many fans of A Goofy Movie are not fond of Mona. Roxanne was his high-school sweetheart, the girl he strives to get the entire movie. Come the sequel, she's nowhere to be found though that's due to the fact Max goes to college. The last time she was seen was in an episode of House of Mouse. Come Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas, he's exiting college and has a new girlfriend, Mona. Mona comes off as a Replacement Scrappy, though almost ten in-series years has passed since A Goofy Movie.
• The Total Drama Island fandom is currently going through this phase with the announcement of the fourth season and the fact that there will be an entirely new cast replacing the old one, and needless to say, it's NOT going well for fans of the original cast.
• Pick a generation of My Little Pony. Expect the a main protagonists of future generations to be this to that gen. Noticeable examples tend to be Firefly vs Rainbow Dash and Surprise vs Pinkie, since the latter ponies are heavily based on those ponies.
  • In fact, Gen 4 originally intended to recycle Firefly and Surprise, but couldn't because a) Firefly's name and likeness were tied up in a trademark dispute at the time and b) they didn't want both pegasi on the show to be hyperactive over-emoters and so the original plan of Surprise (pegasus) and Fluttershy (earth pony) was junked for the canon of Pinkie Pie (earth pony) and Fluttershy (pegasus).
• In Ben 10 Ultimate Alien, Fasttrack seems to be somewhat disliked among the fanbase, due to his powers and coloration seeming very similar to that of fan-loved alien XLR8, with the only difference being his species. Word of God's claims that he's faster and stronger have provoked a few favoritism accusations.

Real Life

• One of the reasons Heather Mills is so hated by Paul McCartney fans is that she and Paul got married very shortly after the death of Paul's long-time spouse, Linda Eastman.
  • Way back in the late 1960s, there were people who hated the Lovely Linda because she wasn't a classy Brit like Jane Asher, Paul's previous significant other. It took decades for fandom to learn her good points.
  • Ringo was a Replacement Scrappy himself in the old days. Check the entry under Music.
• Tiberius was never really able to rise above Augustus' shadow. The public grew to hate him in large part for not being Augustus, which would be a tough act to follow for anyone. Later Roman Emperors got compared to Augustus, and later, Trajan, usually unfavorably.
  • Partially inverted in the case of the Nervan-Antonian dynasty, where several Emperors adopted their right-hands as sons and heirs based on their capacity to get the work well-done (yes, some of these emperors had no children, but still). Nerva and Trajan, Trajan and Hadrian, etc. Incidentally, the Nervan-Antonins were among the best Roman emperors ever (with the exception of Aurelius's son Commodus, but even he wasn't as horrendous as Gladiator says).
    • That was the main problem with the Roman Empire, namely that the first Roman Emperor never really put in a way for his successor to be named. It got really weird when the emperor's own Praetorian Guard strangled him at one point and sold his throne off to the highest bidder.
• The American Presidency is an especially apt example of this (could be the Trope Namer for this and/or Suspiciously Similar Substitute). Many Presidents are judged less on their policies and more on comparisons to their predecessors. George W. Bush is seen by some as a Replacement Scrappy to his immediate predecessor, Bill Clinton. Barack Obama is considered a replacement scrappy to Bush by some, and his successor will no doubt be considered this, too. Every President is seen as a Replacement Scrappy by some. Every president is seen as The Scrappy by some.
  • Not unusual. Whether inheriting a position, appointed or elected to it, heads of state and government are always compared to their predecessors. Typically unfavorably. Even from people not even living in the same state as the individuals compared. Both Aeschylus and Herodotus unfavorably compare Xerxes I to his father Darius I, for example. It helps that people tend to forget or
  • Herodotus was from Halicarnassus, which was part of the Persian Empire, though.
• This happens a lot in families. After a death or divorce, a remarriage happens, and a family member ends up "replaced". No matter the strengths of the new person on his own merits, other family members often compare him/her to the "original", usually unfavorably. Can lead to family rifts going on for decades.
  • Also seen in beloved household pets - especially if the deceased/given up was a first pet or a pet from the person's childhood. "Gee Mom, Fluffy never peed on the carpet..."
• This ended up launching the rise to prominence of one of baseball's more disliked broadcasters in Tim McCarver, who was added to ABC's coverage of the 1985 World Series at the last minute as a result of ABC Sports management becoming angered at main analyst Howard Cosell's controversial 1985 book, "I Never Played the Game". This would lead to his becoming a lead analyst not only on ABC, but later CBS and currently on FOX opposite fellow Hatedom recipient Joe Buck.
  • Buck received his Hatedom mainly for replacing Pat Summerall on the football side. John Madden's replacement, Troy Aikman, seems to have avoided it.
  • That, and the fact that many fans tended to be of the opinion that Joe rode the coat-tails of his father, legendary broadcaster Jack Buck.
• Any person in theater that isn't the first role, or the most well known role, is likely to become this to people.
• Two words for you: New neighbors. They just happen to move in near you and for some reason they tend to be a lot more annoying than the family who used to live there and who you are used to. Especially if you are friends with the former neighbors before they moved away.
• A joke among Oregonians is that the state's Welcome signs used to read "Welcome to Oregon - now go home!"
• Anti-immigrant sentiment might be a most triumphant example of this trope directed towards entire ethnic groups.
• Another potential most triumphant example: When Alice leaves political ofice and Bob replaces her, Alice's party will blame Bob for everything, even things that began when Alice was in power. No exceptions.
  • Oh, this happens in reverse, too. Incoming politicians will gladly pass the buck to their predecessors, even for the direct results of legislation they themselves passed.
• Often times at certain jobs, if you come in on a project already in progress, you're already late and anything you touch is instantly your property, and hence, your fault.
• New Coke.
• Those who love using Microsoft Sam, the text-to-speech generator, DESPISE Microsoft Anna, his replacement for Windows Vista and after.
• Substitute teachers.
• The newest Nickelodeon logo. One thing that was constant from 1984 to 2009 was the orange splat that could form into many different logos, that was still a point of interest, even after someone's favorite show ended or got cancelled. And then we went from this to this. The fact that this new logo was introduced with the beginning of Fanboy and Chum Chum has done little to appeal to veteran fans.

1. ↑ not to mention spamming fan forum Golden-Road.net with about 50 sockpuppets praising his own performance