History Main / WellIntentionedReplacement

* Played with on ''{{Scrubs}}''. Carla has ruined Turk's stuffed dog Rowdy. Janitor (a known taxidermy freak) manages to get a replacement stuffed Golden Retriever, but it's not quite as big. Luckily Carla can "[[DistractedByTheSexy distract]]" Turk before he can quite realize the discrepancy.
** In another episode, JD has been assigned to videotape the birth of a friend's child. Too bad JD used the tape that was already in the camcorder, which had the protection tab removed. Thus JD didn't tape anything. Efforts to videotape another baby's birth and swap the tapes fail miserably.
*** To convince Jordan perhaps. It seemed to fool the parents.

* In ''{{Manga/FAKE}}'', Bikky saved up money to buy some expensive jewelery for Carol and even bought it, but on the way out met a kid crying because he'd just been mugged and couldn't buy something for his mother. So of course Bikky goes back into the shop, returns the gift, and gives the kid the money. Carol winds up with sunflowers Bikky cut from his foster dad's window sill (and since she was following Bikky and saw the whole thing, she's just as happy with that).
* ''[[KikisDeliveryService Kiki's Delivery Service]]'' has another subversion. Kiki has lost the stuffed cat she's supposed to deliver, so her cat Jiji (who happens to look identical) is called in to play mime while Kiki finds the toy. A more dramatic use of this trope occurs later when Kiki is forced to borrow a streetsweeper's broom to fly to Tombo's rescue.

* In ''{{Meet the Parents}}'', Gaylord Focker accidentally sets the cat of his parents-in-law out of the house and the cat escapes. He then fakes 'finding' the lost cat by getting a similar looking cat at a shelter, then spraypainting its tail to completely the resemblance. Not only is he found out when a neighbor finds the real one, but the fake cat pees on the bride's wedding dress.

* In the {{Discworld}} novel ''[[{{Discworld/Hogfather}} Hogfather]]'', Albert kicks this trope in the nuts. ''Hard.'' He talks about how he wanted a rocking horse as a kid, but his parents could never afford it, so his dad carved him a little wooden horse instead. When Death asks him if that was more important because of the effort the dad put in, Albert snorts and says that's how ''adults'' think. You're a greedy little bastard at 7-years-old.

** In another episode, it's Valentine's Day and the gals are trying a cleansing ritual to rid them of lousy dates. Phoebe has a book with very precise ingredients, too bad Monica doesn't have any of them.
--->'''Phoebe:''' Now we need the sage branches and the sacramental wine.
--->'''Monica:''' All I had was oregano and a Fresca.

[[AC:{{Theater}}]]

* Much of the autographed memorabilia you can buy on the open market is fake. As an example, Penny Marshall, a big NBA fan, was showing Kobe Bryant her basketball that she had bought with his autograph on it, complete with certificate of authenticity. Kobe told her, "That's not how I sign my name," then turned the ball over and signed it for her as proof.

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* This was the entire setup for ''DayOfTheTentacle''. Inverted, because they start with an inferior item breaking and have to replace it with something better. MadScientist Dr. Fred makes a time machine, using a giant cubic zirconium instead of a real diamond. It shatters, stranding one kid a century in the past, one kid a century in the future, and one kid doesn't go anywhere. The kid in the present has to find a way to get a real giant diamond to fix the time machine to get his buddies back.
** A running gag in ''MonkeyIsland'' games is that Guybrush has to use replacement items that are widely unsuited for the job like using a live monkey as a replacement for a monkey wrench. He also often uses subpar voodoo ingredients and the final product tends to backfire on him.
** Pick any adventure game; 9 times out of 10 you'll have to bodge together random objects to make a thing because the original thing is unavailable somehow.

* ''StarTrekVoyager''. Holodoc has beamed himself halfway across the galaxy, leaving Tom Paris in charge of sickbay. He's bored out of his mind and going through withdrawal from not piloting the ship, so he asks Harry Kim to make a new emergency medical hologram. It's easy enough to duplicate the body, but reproducing the immense knowledge and skill base required for a ship's doctor only resulted in a sputtering, unresponsive hologram that recited Gray's Anatomy until it glitched itself out of existence.

* Something similar happens in ''That70sShow'' when Hyde is left to watch his dad's house for a weekend and his dad's prized possession (an autographed guitar) is damaged. When they get the guitar repaired, someone cleaned the autograph from the guitar, thinking it was graffiti. In a panic, Hyde scribbles the autograph back on the guitar.

* In ''{{FAKE}}'', Bikky saved up money to buy some expensive jewelery for Carol and even bought it, but on the way out met a kid crying because he'd just been mugged and couldn't buy something for his mother. So of course Bikky goes back into the shop, returns the gift, and gives the kid the money. Carol winds up with sunflowers Bikky cut from his foster dad's window sill (and since she was following Bikky and saw the whole thing, she's just as happy with that).

* In ''ThroughTheLookingGlass'' Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee are about to do battle (over a water-soaked rattle, LONG story...), but they don't have any real armor or weapons. Their strategy? Strap pots and pans to their bodies! Yeah, I'm sure that's the same...

* Played with on ''{{Scrubs}}''. Carla has ruined Turk's stuffed dog Rowdy. Janitor (a known taxidermy freak) manages to get a replacement stuffed Golden Retriever, but it's not quite as big. Luckily Carla can "distract" (IfYouKnowWhatIMean) Turk before he can quite realize the discrepancy.

* A running gag in ''AceAttorney Phoenix Wright'' is that the Kurain pot is never assembled the same way twice.

** Even more prevalent is the fact that [[spoiler: Death]] is acting as the [[spoiler: missing]] Santa. It is constantly emphasized that he can only copy, not create or understand the underlying concepts of life and living, he only understands that Santa must be. While going about these duties, he hsa to be warned not to greet any more children with "Cower, brief mortals."

* In ''{{Meet the Parents}}'', Gaylord Focker accidentally sets the cat of his parents-in-law out of the house and the cat escapes. His in-laws discover this and threaten him he has to find the cat in a very short time and bring it back. He finds a similar cat in a local shelter, paints its tail tip white to match the lost cat completely and brings it back. However, the replacement cat isn't house-trained and does a mess out of the bride's dress.

* In a ''[=~Ranma ½~=]'' flashback it's revealed that Ranma accidentally ruins Ukyo's special sauce that requires ten years of aging. He frantically makes some sauce of his own out of whatever he can find. One imagines it was inedible to begin with, but after ten years of aging... yuck!

* ''CodyBanks 2''. The sidekick is pretending to be the chef, and he must come up with a dessert at the last minute. His solution-Chocolate Surprise! Basically candy in a chocolatey pudding (please correct me if I'm wrong).

* In ''Meet the Parents'', Gaylord Focker accidentally sets the cat of his parents-in-law out of the house and the cat escapes. His in-laws discover this and threaten him he has to find the cat in a very short time and bring it back. He finds a similar cat in a local shelter, paints its tail tip white to match the lost cat completely and brings it back. However, the replacement cat isn't house-trained and does a mess out of the bride's dress.

* At the start of Season Six of BuffyTheVampireSlayer, it's shown that the Buffybot was used to replace Buffy, but does a pretty bad job at most of it. The only reason they do it is to prevent the destruction of Sunnydale, which would happen if anyone found out the Slayer was dead. Luckily, they resurrect Buffy as a group of Biker Demons comes to Sunnydale after finding out just that..

* Something similar happens in ''That 70's Show'' when Hyde is left to watch his dad's house for a weekend and his dad's prized possession (an autographed guitar) is damaged. When they get the guitar repaired, someone cleaned the autograph from the guitar, thinking it was graffiti. In a panic, Hyde scribbles the autograph back on the guitar.

* In Liberty's Kids, James turns his mother's ring into a necklace for Sarah after she lost hers.

* This was the entire setup for ''DayOfTheTentacle''. Inverted, because they start with an inferior item breaking and have to replace it with something better. MadScientist Dr. Fred makes a time machine, using a giant cubic zirconium instead of a real diamond. It shatters, stranding one kid a century in the past, one kid a century in the future, and one kid doesn't go anywhere. The kid in the present has to find a way to get a giant real diamond to fix the time machine to get his buddies back.

* In ''EverybodyLovesRaymond'', the wife finds out that the husband hand proposed using a cubic zirconium ring, (there was some extended story about how the original diamond had been lost and the guy had replace it with zirconium), so she went out and bought a diamond to replace. Only to discover that the man had purchased a replacement real diamond to secretly replace his original knockoff replacement. (Since he really felt guilty about the knockoff- it just took him a few years of saving his beer money to buy the real thing). Of course the new diamond wasn't nearly as expensive as the old diamond which the wife had discarded.

* In a ''[=~Ranma ½~=]'' flashback it's revealed that Ranma accidentally ruins Ukyo's special sauce that requires ten years of aging. He frantically makes some sauce of his own out of whatever he can find. One imagines it was inedible to begin with, but after ten years of aging...yuck!

* In the {{Discworld}} novel ''[[{{Discworld/Hogfather}} Hogfather]]'', Albert kicks this trope in the nuts. ''Hard.'' He talks about how he wanted a rocking horse as a kid, but his parents could never afford it, so his dad carved him a little wooden horse instead. When Death asks him if that was more important because of the effort the dad put in, Albert snorts and says that's how ''adults'' think. You're a greedy little bastard at 5-years-old.
** Even more prevalent is the fact that [[spoiler: Death]] is acting as the [[spoiler: missing]] Santa. It is constantly emphasized that he can only copy, not create or understand the underlying concepts of life and living, he only understands that Santa must be. While going about these duties, he appears before children saying "Cower, brief mortals."

* The story ''BenAndMe'' has Amos doing a few of these:

* At the start of Season Six of BuffyTheVampireSlayer, it's shown that the Buffybot was used to replace Buffy, but does a pretty bad job at most of it. The only reason they do it is to prevent the destruction of Sunnydale, which would happen if anyone found out the Slayer was dead. Luckally, they resurrect Buffy as a group of Biker Demons comes to Sunnydale after finding out just that.
** One thing of FridgeLogic about it, however. Why even bother with the Parent/Teacher thing, as those are never mandatory.

Whether intentionally or accidentally something has been destroyed, or else it never arrived via delivery or whatever. Our hero feels the need to replace it, but budgetary and/or time constraints have forced him to make a few cutbacks. Like, actually having it be what it's supposed to.

Compare PopStation.

* In ''{{Fake}}'', Bicky saved up money to buy some expensive jewelery for Carol and even bought it, but on the way out met a kid crying because he'd just been mugged and couldn't buy something for his mother. So of course Bicky goes back into the shop, returns the gift, and gives the kid the money. Carol winds up with sunflowers Bicky cut from his foster dad's window sill.

** Apu opens one door (one of the few human-sized doors in the house) and announces 'This is the room with electricity'. He reveals a violently strobing, uninhabitable void. 'Too much electricity.'

** Averted in the remake, where apparently they try to one up the first movie by renting the exact same cruise ship, restaurant, and ''bottle of wine'' they had... somehow.

* In Liberty'sKids Henry turns his mother's ring into a necklace for Sarah after she lost hers.