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Quotes • Headscratchers • Playing With • Useful Notes • Analysis • Image Links • Haiku • Laconic
The Simpsonshangs a lampshade on the trope when, at the opening ceremonies of a nationwide Spelling Bee, celebrity moderator George Plimpton announces, "And now, our unlicensed knockoff of the Olympic anthem."
It also played this one straight, in quite a lot of episodes. Who can forget "Springfield, Springfield," or the whole of the episode "Simpsoncalifragalisticexpiali(annoyed grunt)tious"? The latter was a parody of Mary Poppins, and had some of the best of these you're likely to see anywhere - particularly Barney's version of "Feed the Birds" ("Buy Me a Beer") and the family's version of "Spoonful of Sugar' ('Cut Every Corner").
And "The President Wore Pearls," an Whole-Plot Reference of Evita. Also lampshaded in the closing subtitles, which insist the producers (as advised by their lawyers) "have never heard of a musical based on the life of Eva Peron."
The end of "Life on the Fast Lane" parodies the end of An Officer and a Gentleman; you have to listen very carefully to the BGM to notice it isn't really "Up Where We Belong".
The rambling song Homer sang in hopes of becoming a food critic was based around West Side Story's "I Feel Pretty".
Then there's "See My Vest", Mr. Burns' PETA-unfriendly ripoff of Beauty and the Beast's "Be Our Guest".
In turn, "Be Our Guest" resembles the titular song from Me and My Girl.
Lampshaded again during a Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs parody with a song called "Ho Hi" ("this song's not like any song you know...if Disney sues we'll claim Fair Use").
Some earlier episodes repeatedly underscored action sequences with a pastiche of the "Axel F" theme from Beverly Hills Cop. In fact, they had at least two distinct versions of it.
"Lady Bouvier's Lover" closes with "The Sound of Grandpa", a knockoff of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence".
"Flaming Moe's" has a very funny parody of the Cheers theme.
The James Bond parody couch gag uses an obvious knock-off of its famous opening theme.
The episode where Homer becomes a hippy replaces the end theme with the bass and drums from Tomorrow Never Knows, with a sitar playing the Simpsons theme on top - several years before Giles Martin played the vocals and sitar of Within You Without You over the same, causing the Simpsons version to sound like a Suspiciously Similar Song version of that.
Several early episodes had a bit of incidental music that was a tweaked version of Edvard Grieg's "Morning Mood" from Peer Gynt; it was used to in the same manner as Grieg's original, to denote the dawning of a new day. Since the composition was in the public domain when those episodes were produced, it remains unclear why they didn't use the Grieg original. Even more confusingly, the 8th Season episode "Bart Carny" does actually use the original, untweaked "Morning Mood".
Histeria, an educational cartoon about history, parodied a lot of songs with similar, but original, melodies. In the episode on Teddy Roosevelt, adapted versions of "Wooly Bully" (as "Bully Bully") and "Ghostbusters" (as "Trustbuster") were both used, altered enough to be free of royalties.
Family Guy used to do this in its early seasons — e.g. "Give it Up" from the toad-licking one, which was a pastiche of "You're the One That I Want" from Grease. Lately, however, they've been going with straight lyrical parodies.
The apotheosis: Peter singing about his Diplomatic Immunity with "Can't Touch Me!", which includes the line "so Hammer you can't sue!" while talking to an animated MC Hammer.
"Can't Touch Me" used a Jimmy Hart Version of the music. However, the show has more recently been able to get the rights to almost any music they want; one aversion occurred when they couldn't get the rights to the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon theme, so they had Peter sing the Batman TV show theme (owned by Fox), replacing "Batman" with "Spider-Man". It was actually much funnier that way.
The original MC Hammer song also uses the same bass line as "Superfreak".
The Season 3 episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" has Peter crooning a song called "I Need a Jew", which sounds suspiciously like "When You Wish Upon a Star", from Disney's Pinocchio. The publishers of the Disney song apparently thought so, too, as they unsuccessfully sued Family Guy producer Seth MacFarlane and composer Walter Murphy for copyright infringement.
In the episode "Love Blactually", Brian dresses up as Snoopy for a costume party. When Peter demands that he "do the dance", Brian complies, accompanied by a Jimmy Hart Version of Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts theme, "Linus & Lucy".
In "Saving Private Brian", the music in the US Army commercial is The Jimmy Hart version of the intro to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me".
The "I'm A Tumor" song in "Petarded" is a JHV of Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus". Of course, The Simpsons Did It first, using the same tune as the basis for "Dr. Zaius" in "A Fish Called Selma".
Jimmy Neutron does this all the time with their montage sequences. One notable one is a couple notes off from "Hey Ya" by OutKast.
Phineas and Ferb, episode "Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Max Modem!": Mr. Fletcher, practicing as Max Modem, plays a riff on a synthesizer that sounds a lot like the intro to "Bloody Tears" from the Castlevania series.
The Perry the Platypus theme sounds an awful lot like the song "Secret Agent Man."
"Meatloaf Surprise" features a song that starts off sounding a lot like "Wonderwall" by Oasis, except it's about the singer's love of meatloaf.
Chowder has done this twice so far. In the episode "Grubble Gum", where Chowder's gigantic, all-consuming wad of gum starts picking up everything in its path: the background music, appropriately enough, is a lawyer-friendly version of the Katamari Damacy theme. The episode "Sniffle Ball" also has one scene blatantly parodying the classic Super Mario Bros. fight with Bowser, to the tune of a variant on the classic underground theme.
The sleepeating episode uses the first few notes of "Thriller".
Another episode involving Schnitzel's obvious Bruce Lee parody used an equally-obvious and suspiciously similar version of the song "Eye of the Tiger".
An early sketch in Robot Chicken features Voltron in a dance-off against a Robeast to "Work It Out On The Floor", an obvious parody of DMX's "Get It On The Floor". On the DVD version and all future airing, the song is replaced with a horribly generic, lawyer-friendly take on the song.
During their "Greatest American Hero" parody, the theme song is "Believe it or don't I'm flying around."
Used in-series when a sketch about the Libertarian Party have them needing to use the Jimmy Hart version of various songs because they can't afford the real ones. Such as "Airborn mini-dirt" (Dust in the Wind) and "We are the Victors" (We are the Champions). They still got sued for "Friend choo-choo" (Love Train).
A large amount of the music used for Robot Chicken are Jimmy Hart versions of many popular tunes from movies, television shows, and even video games. This makes sense as parodies are a big part of Robot Chicken.
The Teletoon-animated seasons of Johnny Test use their own theme song, which is a Suspiciously Similar Song version of... the original Johnny Test theme song (from when the series was animated by Warner Bros.). The "same franchise as the original music" deal strikes again!
Also occurs on the Cartoon Network broadcast version.
And the Netflix Watch Instantly releases.
Incidentally, while the original Johnny Test theme sounds highly styled after your average top 40 rock band, the second series theme song is actually a Jimmy Hart Version of "AmericanCanadian Idiot".
The eighth episode of Samurai Jack opens with a jukebox playing the Jimmy Hart Version of Quincy Jones's "Soul Bossa Nova" (which you may recognize from Austin Powers).
Or, for those Canadians playing at home, Definition.
The FlapjackChristmas Episode begins with "It's the Most Marvelous Time of the Year", which is a several notes-off version of (of course) "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year".
In an episode of The Angry Beavers, "You Promised", Norbert and Daggett race around their dam on bikes to the suspiciously similar, yet instrumental, version of "I'm A Believer" by The Monkees.
"In Search of Big Byoo-tox" featured Dag trying to avoid being seen by Norb to The Jimmy Hart Version of "Hush" by Deep Purple.
Also, one of the instrumentals used frequently in episodes of The Angry Beavers sounds a lot like the beginning of Andy Williams' song, "Can't Get Used to Losing You". In fact, the show's soundtrack is practically a "Best of".
One episode of the Angry Beavers featured a Jimmy Hart version of "Say You'll Be There" by the Spice Girls.
Futurama does some almost indistinguishable please-don't-sue-us versions of songs like "Happy Birthday To You" and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" - the latter has to be listened to very, very closely. The excuse in the director's commentary was 'we thought it'd be alright because the songs would have changed over the years'.
Fry lampshades this during the former by singing "And you smell like one, too!", out of context from the Captain Ersatz version, but in the style of the real song. Of course, that line is not an official part of the song, so there's no copyright violation.
The DVD version of "Dirty Pranking No. 2" wasn't legally allowed to use "I've Had the Time of My Life" like the televised version did. Their own original version mercilessly mocks this fact, and this trope.
Whenever another DCAU hero shows up on Static Shock they are accompanied by a Suspiciously Similar Song version of their theme... it's even more jarring than the Off-Model moments that tend to accompany them.
Superjail--as explicitly pointed out by the bumps on Adult Swim--could not get the rights to "Love Shack", so the Warden sings the royalty-free, lawyer-friendly, not-gonna-get-sued-for-it "Love House" during the episode where they build a bar in the jail.
For The Little Rascals' Christmas Special, a 1979 animated holiday special featuring Our Gang, the producers didn't get the rights to use Leroy Shield's classic theme music, so the special's music composer wrote a Jimmy Hart Version of it.
Doug used Jimmy Hart versions of the Raiders March from Raiders of the Lost Ark, for Race Canyon, Superman's Theme Tune for Quailman, the James Bond theme for Smash Adams, the Mission Impossible theme (in Doug's Secret Song when Porkchop is sneaking into Bebe's house), a JHV of "U Can't Touch This" in "Doug Can't Dance"(starts after Mr. Dink stubs his toe) among others,
For instance, there's one episode where the adults put on some Cher. The song on the stereo sounds a lot like Cher's "Believe."
When Stan's grandfather wanted Stan to understand how awful it is being old, his grandfather puts on a song that sounds a lot like Enya's "Orinoco Flow".
When Randy is incapacitated from being "served" and Stan visits him in the hospital, a tune almost identical to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" starts playing.
Subverted in the episode "Canada on Strike." The Star Wars Kid is shown, but instead of John Williams' Star Wars theme, it seems to be a knockoff. It's actually John Williams' Superman theme.
Pretty much the entire soundtrack to the The Powerpuff Girls episode "Meet the Beat-Alls" is suspiciously similar versions of (you guessed it) songs by The Beatles, including "A Hard Day's Night", "Eleanor Rigby", "Across the Universe", "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", "Strawberry Fields Forever", and "The Ballad of John and Yoko".
The finish of "Part of That World" in The Little Mermaid ("Out of the sea / Wish I could be / Part of that world") is Ashman and Menken Jimmy Harting one of their own songs, "Somewhere that's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors ("Far from Skid Row / I want to go / Somewhere that's green").
The Episode Sentries of the Lost Cosmos from "Batman Beyond" is full of Jimmy Hart Star Wars music.
The long-awaited Daria DVD set occasionally opts for Jimmy Hart versions in place of the more generic cues that comprise the majority of the music. One of the odder cases was Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" - MTV had apparently tried to license the original due to how important it was to the episode it appeared in, but Lauper no longer allows the song to be licensed and they were forced to do this instead.
"Happy Hop" bears a resemblance to "New Haircut" by Justin Roberts.
And, there's also some incidental music in the series that (along with the theme song to Peep and the Big Wide World) sounds similar to "A Noun Is A Person, Place or Thing" from Schoolhouse Rock.
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic of all things has a not-quite version of Yakety Sax. You can see it for yourself here. There have been many others, both with and without lyrics, ranging from Aaron Copeland's Rodeo to Sondheim showtunes to... "The Hokey-Pokey."
The crowning jewel of this is Art of the Dress, which is a Jimmy Hart version of Putting It Together.
The scene where the sun is setting in Lesson Zero has a Jimmy Hart Version of the "Dream is Collapsing" theme from Inception.
And in the scene immediately following, The Princess' Speech is emphasized by music from... The King's Speech.
"Find a Pet" is a take on "Fabulous Places" from the 1967 Dr. Dolittle (fittingly, considering who sings it).
The music playing at Iron Will's seminar in "Putting Your Hoof Down" is actually Eye of the Tiger with one note changed.
In the same episode, when Fluttershy realizes she's become a monster, the Lonely Man theme from The Incredible Hulk starts playing.
During the scene in the episode "It's About Time" where Twilight Sparkle meets a future version of herself, the background music is suspiciously similar to "I am the Doctor" from Series 5 and 6 of Doctor Who.
Sym-Bionic Titan has an interesting version of this trope in the episode "Roar of the White Dragon". When Mike Chan/White Dragon shows up at the school, we hear some music that sounds suspiciously like the song by the Teriyaki Boyz called "Tokyo Drift (Fast and the Furious)". Compare the two here and here. Fitting...still weird tho...
In Billy And Mandy's Big Boogie Adventure, music that sounds almost like the Monkey Island theme can be heard playing during the race.
"Got A Bunch Of Bones" manages to mash up with Boyz II Men's "Motownphilly," "Do Me!" By Bell Biv Devoe and the refrain sounds similar to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Nikolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson.
"The Band Plays On" sounds like a cross between "Love Makes The World Go Round" from The Powerpuff Girls, and the theme to Hero Elementary
"I Need To Rock" is supposed to be a parody of "I Need A Freak" by Sexual Harassment, but it's similar to "Mental Purgatory" by The Tony Rich Project.
"Bubblecity" is the most complicated song written, piecing together "Tomorrow" from Annie, "That's What I Do" by Axie, "Naughty" from Matilda, just listen for yourself...
"My Smile" is basically extracted from Kirk Franklin's "I Smile."
Animaniacs did this frequently with their numerous song parodies. For example, "Yakko's Universe" is a JHV of "The Galaxy Song."
The song "If You Can Dream" by the Disney Princesses is actually a suspiciously similar version of Mya's "Where the Dream Takes You." Guess which animated Disney movie that song is from!
There was once a recurring ocarina riff during confrontation scenes, modeled closely on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And in "One Good Turn", the sting when Bill and Ben meet face to face is basically the Dragnet theme.
In an episode "Who's Geoffrey," we start with music that sounds similar to "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" by Paul, Cathy and Danny.
The song "Let Me Be Your Wings" from Don Bluth's Thumbelina is actually a Jimmy Harted version of the song "A Whole New World" from Aladdin.
Just missed: "Lucky Seven Sampson" from Schoolhouse Rock sounds similar to Gavin DeGraw's "Chariot."
Peg + Cat: "13 You're Bad Luck" features parts similar to Camille Saint Seinns' "Danse Macabre" and "Siggi Sæti" from Áfram Latibær!
The title theme to The Mask is a JHV of one of the songs from the movie
Some of the music from Monsters, Inc. is actually a JHV version of "Sing, Sing, Sing."
"If I Didn't Have You" sounds like "You've Got A Friend in Me" from Toy Story, too.
An episode of Tiny Toon Adventures featured a parody of Super Mario Bros. called Super Pluckio Bros. which played over a JHV of the overworld theme of the original Super Mario Bros game. Adding to this was the fact that sound effects from the actual game were actually used in the episode.
The music that plays during the credits for Action League NOW is a pretty obvious take on the James Bond theme.
Superman the Animated Series - its Awesome Music theme bears a striking resemblance to a sped-up version the Aaron Copland masterpiece "Fanfare for the Common Man" melded with bits the John Williams theme from Superman The Movie. Given that the series was heavily influenced by the John Byrne era Superman (Clark is the real person, Superman is his disguise, and Clark sees himself as a perfectly normal person who happens to have extraordinary powers), this probably wasn't unintentional.
The opening theme for Sabrina's Secret Life sounds a lot like the Pink song "Get the Party Started."
The theme song to Waynehead sounds very suspiciously similar to Naughty by Nature's "Hip Hop Hooray".
The Zula Patrol
The theme song contains what sounds similar to The Flintstones.
The "Clouds Song" by Audra McDonald sounds similar to "Lifetime" by "Maxwell."
One piece of incidental music (used in "Chili Cook-Off" when everyone ditches Multo at the end and "Journey to the Center of Gorga" at the end when they're all covered in batter) sounds similar to an uplifting Alps tune, later used as alarms on various Cricket phones.
Curious George: One episode, "Curious Goes on a Scavenger Hunt" has a piece of incidental music (sol la sol mi fa sol fa re mi) that sounds SO much like "Little Chicken" by Rudy Trubitt & Collin Jordan-Brody, which plays when chef Pisghetti wins the contest at the end. Said piece was also used in Bobby's World and the 2019 Austin PBS logo.
The episode "Cooking With Monkey" uses incidental music sounding similar to "Tomorrow" from Annie.
At least one episode of The Smurfs '21 has a music cue sounding similar to "Woo-Hoo" by The 5678s from Kill Bill of all movies. Not the first time a Kill Bill joke was made in a show produced in Los Angeles.
Just missed:The Ollie and Moon Show has a great example: When the duo goes to another country, the music sounds EXACTLY "Crash and Burn" by Thomas Rhett, and in fairness, that's a song about love and a relationship damage.
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