History Main / YoungerAndHipper

*** [[ComicBook/ImmortalIronFist Iron Fist]], ComicBook/ShangChi, and ComicBook/SpiderWoman all became teens or young adults, [[ComicBook/{{Venom}} Eddie Brock]] became Franchise/SpiderMan's [[ChildhoodFriends childhood friend]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ultimate Spider-Man}}'' features Spider-Man becoming part of a superhero team connected with ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}, consisting of {{ComicBook/Luke Cage|HeroForHire}}, [[ComicBook/ImmortalIronFist Iron Fist]], ComicBook/{{Nova}} and ComicBook/WhiteTiger, the first two being older in the comics than they are in the show. A teen version of the Rhino also shows up as one of Spider-Man's former classmates and a similarly deaged version of the Vulture later appeared.

** Innes Lloyd's tenure as producer was an intentional attempt at this. He sacked the companions Steven (from the future) and Dodo (who ''was'' a hip Sixties girl but a rather unflattering caricature of one, since her main characteristic was [[CloudCuckoolander being a total weirdo]]) and drafted in the legitimately hip posh girl Polly and working class sailor Ben, both from the then present day 1966. Then he presided over recasting the Doctor from Creator/WilliamHartnell, whose health had been slowly failing and compromising his acting ability, with Creator/PatrickTroughton, who was younger and much more physically robust. The Doctor's characterisation also shifted in this direction; the First Doctor was a GrumpyOldMan with NoSocialSkills, travelled around with schoolteachers and his granddaughter, and went on pseudoeducational adventures in history in which aliens would not show up. The Second Doctor was TheSocialExpert with a flair for [[WigDressAccent dressing up]] and got to do trendy 60s things like wear a [[Franchise/TheBeatles Beatles]] haircut, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything teach teenagers to overthrow their oppressive square masters by mixing acid]], go on adventures in psychedelic dreamscapes, and wear CoolShades as a disguise.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'' cartoon almost all of the characters are at least twenty years old (with only Kimber being a teen out of high school). The [[Film/JemAndTheHolograms live action film]] changed the titular Jem and the Holograms into all being high schoolers. This changes them dramatically as they're more immature and don't deal with 'adult issues' like jobs or romance. Oddly, the film was aimed at an older audience than the cartoon--tweens and teens instead of girls ten and under.

*** While still an adult, ''ComicBook/UltimateOrigins'' establishes that Franchise/{{Wolverine}} was a young man during World War II, as opposed to having been born in the late 1880s[[note]]The "Shock and Awe" two-parter also established Logan’s xiphoid hadn’t ossified when the Adamantuim was bonded to him, meaning he's physically younger than 40[[/note]].

* In the late 1960s/early 1970s, ''World's Finest'' ran some stories about the "Super-Sons," Clark Kent Jr. and Bruce Wayne Jr. They looked to be in their twenties and sported [[TotallyRadical the hippest clothes and slang.]] The current ''ComicBook/SuperSons'' comic features much younger, KidAppealCharacter versions (ComicBook/JonathanSamuelKent and Damien Wayne).

''Series/TokumeiSentaiGobusters'', however, gives us a deliberately wide age spread - Yoko is high school age, Hiromu is in his early twenties, Jin looks mid-twenties but is actually seven years older, [[spoiler: being a projection of his true self still in hyperspace]]. Ryuuji is almost thirty.

* In the 2000s, middle-aged Music/VinceGill was replaced pretty much by the much younger duo of Music/BradPaisley and Music/CarrieUnderwood as host of the Country Music Association Awards.

* Creator/AnneHathaway and James Marco's ill-remembered turn as hosts of the 83rd Academy Awards in 2011 was the result of the Academy's desire to invoke this trope. It failed ... the show's ratings among the 18–34 demographic it was aimed at actually ''declined'' from the year before.

* This trope is parodied in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0cDE8K6geo an ad]] for the Seattle Mariners baseball team in which [[GoodOldWays Old School]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71-dmYhd7aY Kyle Seager]] (A man so old school that he [[BeyondTheImpossible tweets on a manual typewriter]]) attempts to appeal to younger audiences by reinventing himself as [[TotallyRadical K-Swag.]]

* ''Anime/HumanoidMonsterBem'' usually has the main trio of Bem, Bela, and Belo as scary, somewhat monsterous-looking humanoids. In the 2019 reimagining ''BEM'', Bem keeps his usual fashion but ages down to a man in his late 20's. Bela changes her appearance entirely to a redheaded teenager, and Belo ages ''up'' to teenage, trading his red jumpsuit for 2010's Tokyo fashion sense to boot.

** ''Anime/{{Yatterman}}'''s TerribleTrio is filled out by a beautiful villainess and her two FatAndSkinny henchmen. ''Anime/YattermanNight'', on the other hand, has the youngest trio in the franchise to date: the new Doronbo Gang, composed of the original's descendents, are instead a cute little girl and her two handsome uncles (one muscular, the other lean and fair-faced).
** Speaking of ''Yatterman'', the franchise took on the [[VirtualIdol VTuber]] genre with [[https://youtube.com/channel/UCjKvR591Lk-izSv9zKSpP-g web shows]] for Boyacky and Ai. While Ai's redesign for the project looked about the same age, Boyacky was aged down to a scruffy man in his thirties.

*** Reed Richards and Sue Storm founded the Fantastic Four at 21 and [[AdaptationNameChange Victor Van Damme]] became Doctor Doom around the same age.

*** This series also introduced the idea of Peter Parker knowing Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn, and Gwen Stacy in high school, an idea later used in the first ''Film/SpiderMan1''[[note]]at least with the former two; Gwen appeared in ''Film/SpiderMan3'', after they went to college[[/note]], ''ComicBook/SpiderManLovesMaryJane'', ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'', the ''WesternAnimation/UltimateSpiderMan'' cartoon[[note]]again, just MJ and Harry; while Peter went on a inter-dimensional journey and met ComicBook/SpiderGwen. Normal!Gwen doesn't seem to exist in this universe[[/note]], ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderManSeries''[[note]]Gwen and he was childhood friends with Harry[[/note]], and ''WesternAnimation/MarvelsSpiderMan''. In the mainstream universe, Peter didn't meet them until he went to college. Similarly, both Peter and the future ComicBook/{{Venom}} Eddie Brock were childhood friends.
*** [[ComicBook/ImmortalIronFist Iron Fist]], Shang-Chi, and ComicBook/SpiderWoman all became teens or young adults, [[ComicBook/{{Venom}} Eddie Brock]] became Franchise/SpiderMan's [[ChildhoodFriends childhood friend]].

*** Several of the X-Men are depicted as teenagers. Granted, the original five in 616 (ComicBook/{{Cyclops}}, ComicBook/JeanGrey, ComicBook/{{Beast|MarvelComics}}, ComicBook/{{Iceman}}, and Angel), as well as ComicBook/KittyPryde and ComicBook/{{Rogue}}, ''did'' join as teenagers, but ComicBook/{{Storm}}, ComicBook/{{Nightcrawler}}, ComicBook/{{Colossus}}, and ComicBook/{{Dazzler}} were all adults when they joined in 616.
*** While still an adult, ''ComicBook/UltimateOrigins'' establishes that ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} was a young man during World War II, as opposed to having been born in the late 1880s[[note]]The "Shock and Awe" two-parter also established Logan’s xiphoid hadn’t ossified when the Adamantuim was bonded to him, meaning he's physically younger than 40[[/note]].
*** And it's not limited to the X-Men, as the Juggernaut is presented as a teenaged mutant unrelated to ComicBook/ProfessorX, not Xavier's older stepbrother.

* In addition to Mary Jane, Harry, and Gwen being in high school with Peter in the aforementioned ''ComicBook/SpiderManLovesMaryJane'', Felicia Hardy (Black Cat's alter ego) is in high school with them as a {{new transfer student}}, unlike the ''Ultimate'' comics (which kept her as an adult), her ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' incarnation (where, according to WordOfGod, she's 19) and her incarnation in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'' (where she never met Peter and by that point, anyway, he and Harry have graduated high school).

* In the late 1960s/early 1970s, ''World's Finest'' ran some stories about the "Super-Sons," Clark Kent Jr. and Bruce Wayne Jr. They looked to be in their twenties and sported [[TotallyRadical the hippest clothes and slang.]] The current ''ComicBook/SuperSons'' comic features much younger, KidAppealCharacter versions (Jon Kent and Damien Wayne).

* In ''Fanfic/YoungJusticeDarknessFalls'', Raven is described as being around Beast Boy's age of 14 rather than her older depictions. Also, Kyle Rayner. Here, he's the team's age rather than the adult from the comics.

* The real WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}} was 17 when she was killed in 1918 and would have been 27 when the film takes place. In the film, she was 8 when her family was killed and 18 in the present.

* In [[WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget the cartoons]], Inspector Gadget was voiced by then-sixty-something actor Don Adams, and the character himself was portrayed as if he was in his late 30s or early 40s. When it came time to cast him for [[Film/InspectorGadget the live-action version]], they went with babyfaces Creator/MatthewBroderick and French Stewart, neither of whom look like they were in their late 30s or early 40s.

* The Shakespeare adaptations often make the cast younger than they are in the original play:

** ''Film/WilliamShakespearesRomeoAndJuliet'' does this in an interesting way. The setting is changed to California in the 1990s, Romeo is played by Creator/LeonardoDicaprio (who at the time was still considered a teen heartthrob), and swords and daggers instead become firearms. However, the dialog in the movie is lifted directly from the original play rather than attempting to update it with the setting, making for an interesting combination of "old English meets 1990s America."

* The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse's version of Spider-Man is 14/15 years old and stays in high school for the entirety of phase 3, while he graduated midway through [[Film/SpiderMan1 the first film]] of Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' and at the beginning of [[Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2 the second film]] of the ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderManSeries''. Also, rather than the elderly retiree of the pre-MCU films, Aunt May is played by the 51-year-old Marisa Tomei.

* ''Series/TheDailyShowWithJonStewart'' and ''Series/TheDailyShowWithTrevorNoah'': When Creator/JonStewart took over the reins of the show from Craig Kilborn, they were approximately the same age. When Jon retired from the show 16 years later, he was middle-aged and clearly ready to retire. He then chose Creator/TrevorNoah, a biracial South African 22 years younger than him, apparently choosing him after other comedians declined the position and because he noticed some of his own personality and viewpoints in the younger man. Trevor has since stated that as he makes the show, he also aims to help build an audience with his generation and younger viewers like Jon did at the beginning.
* ''Series/PatriotActWithHasanMinhaj'': When another former [[Series/TheDailyShowWithJonStewart Daily Show]] correspondent Creator/HasanMinhaj (coincidently hired around the same time as Creator/TrevorNoah) was also given his own [[Main/PoliticalProgrammes politically orientated talk show]], he was aware that there was already a plethora of these. So he changed his set format to become more like a "visual investigative comedy podcast" or [[Website/{{Ted}} "Woke TED Talk"]]. He also made a conscious decision to '''not''' wear a suit or sit behind a desk, stating on record that he didn’t want to be just seen as “Indian Creator/JohnOliver”. Further leaning into the youthful vibe, the set uses a lot of technical graphics while Hasan’s speech often veers into Lit AF speak.

* ''Franchise/{{Barbie}}'': Barbie started off as a teenage model however since at least the 1970s she's been more commonly depicted as a young adult. Her exact age [[VagueAge is unspecified]] and is [[ArtisticAge whatever age fits her role best]]. Barbie's longest-standing voice Creator/KellySheridan was [[TheOtherDarrin replaced]] with a younger sounding voice actress in ''WesternAnimation/BarbieAFashionFairytale''. This coincided with Creator/{{Mattel}}'s early 2010s wishes to {{retool}} Barbie as a teenager again. Gone are the fairytale stories, ''Barbie'' media went back to [[RevisitingTheRoots the original idea]] of Barbie being a high schooler and an {{Animated Actor|s}}.

* [[VideoGame/PacMan Pac-Man's]] redesign in ''Pac-Man Party'' gave him blue eyes and made him younger. It also scrapped his wife and children. The [[WesternAnimation/PacManAndTheGhostlyAdventures animated adaptation]] takes it a step further and outright makes him a KidHero.

* Parodied in the ''WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail'' "[[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail164.html looking old]]" where a fan asks if Strong Bad needs an image overhaul and he just ends up looking older.

* ''WesternAnimation/IronManArmoredAdventures'' has Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, and [[Comicbook/WarMachine Rhodey]] all in high school and fighting bad guys. Teen versions of ComicBook/BlackPanther and Madame Masque eventually appear, as do college-aged versions of ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}, Comicbook/BlackWidow, and Justin Hammer[[note]]In Hammer's case, this resulted in Sasha being a PA to him UnrelatedInTheAdaptation, not his granddaughter[[/note]].

* In the [[WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBusRidesAgain Netflix reboot]] of ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'', Frizzle (who was voiced in the original by 50-something Lily Tomlin) is replaced by her sister (voiced by millennial Kate [=McKinnon=])
* The version of ComicBook/TheFalcon in ''WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble'' is a YoungerThanHeLooks teenager as opposed to the adult of the comics. [[spoiler:Until season 4, where thanks to the events of the opening resulted in him spending years in the future, where by the time the Wasp and Vision found him, he's an actual adult.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/StretchArmstrongAndTheFlexFighters'', and its tie-in merch and comics, rebrand its title character from an adult crimefigher, to a teenage one.
* Parodied in a ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' sketch where two writers are working on a sequel for ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'' and reimagine the original as a rap music video called "The Dark [[{{Pun}} Cristal]]" in order to drum up interest among the youth ([[SuicideAsComedy and then promtly commit suicide via poison when they realize how much it betrays Jim Henson's original vision]]).

Parallel to DarkerAndEdgier, LighterAndSofter, DenserAndWackier, BloodierAndGorier, HotterAndSexier (but not to OlderAndWiser, which is a trope about a character, not a franchise installment), and AgeLift (when a character is aged younger or older in an adaptation).

* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' features a number of younger versions of adult ''Creator/DCComics'' characters, including ComicBook/{{Zatanna}}, Cheshire, El Dorado, Samurai, Apache Chief, and Vox.

* Much like the rest of ''Anime/TimeBokan'', ''Anime/{{Yatterman}}'''s TerribleTrio is filled out by a beautiful villainess and her two FatAndSkinny henchmen. ''Anime/YattermanNight'', on the other hand, has the youngest trio in the franchise to date: the new Doronbo Gang, composed of the original's descendents, are instead a cute little girl and her two handsome uncles (one muscular, the other lean and fair-faced).

* Many of Franchise/TheDCU characters in the 2011 ComicBook/{{New 52}} relaunch, including Franchise/{{Superman}}. The stated reason is to make the characters more modern and relatable.
** Most notably with the [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age characters]] in the series ''ComicBook/{{Earth 2}}''. [[Franchise/TheFlash Jay Garrick]], in particular, goes from CoolOldGuy to DoggedNiceGuy college grad DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife.
** Barbara Gordon is another prominent example, as she'd previously always been at least seven years older than [[ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]], and now she's not only younger than Dick, she's also younger than his little brother Jason when she'd previously worked in congress and become a librarian before Jason even met Bruce. This all helps explain the erasure of the other Batgirls Babs had once mentored from continuity while maintaining all the Robins except [[ComicBook/Batgirl2009 Stephanie]] who, as one of the aforementioned Batgirls, did not exist in this continuity.
* The ComicBook/PostCrisis ComicBook/{{Superboy|1994}}'s initial presence in ''[[ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman Reign of the Supermen]]'' was probably a nod to this trope, much like Steel represented the AffirmativeActionLegacy, the Eradicator represented DarkerAndEdgier {{Sociopathic Hero}}es, and the Cyborg Superman represented gratuitous artificial limbs.
* The [[DorkAge infamous]] "Teen Tony" era of ''Comicbook/IronMan''. They turned adult Tony Stark evil and so they got a teenage version of Tony from the past and had them fight. The whole thing was rebooted and no one ever talked about it again.
* Short-lived example: When ComicBook/AmadeusCho was introduced, his superhero name was Mastermind Excello, having gained the title in an internet game show. However, never in his debut story is the original [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] Mastermind Excello, [[AlliterativeName Earl Everett]], mentioned. For reference, Everett looks to be in his forties or fifties at least, while Amadeus Cho was a teenager and even today is 20 at most. Over a year after Amadeus' story, someone got it in their heads to reintroduce the original Excello in the miniseries ''ComicBook/TheTwelve'', while Amadeus quickly outgrew the Excello name and came into his own as a superhero, though he did spend some time as a younger and hipper version of another superhero: [[ComicBook/TotallyAwesomeHulk The Hulk]].

* The objective behind the ''ComicBook/OneMoreDay'' arc of ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'', based on Creator/JoeQuesada's belief that no-one can relate to a married superhero. Further casualties are ComicBook/JeanGrey (with Scott and Emma ''kissing over her grave'') and ComicBook/TheWasp (killed to "make ComicBook/AntMan more interesting," just like Spidey.) That some of the love interests that get [[DroppedABridgeOnHim the bridge dropped on them]] are established characters in their own right and have people who actually care about their treatment is ''entirely'' lost on him.
** [[ComicBook/TheCloneSaga Ben Reilly]] was a weird example. As Peter's clone they were exactly the same age mentally and physically, but whereas Peter had graduated college and was married with a kid on the way; Ben was a single, leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding dropout who still had a lot of the wisecracking energy and youthful idealism Peter had lost. The plan was to make Ben Spider-Man so they could return the character to his roots without undoing decades of character development for Peter. It... did not work.

* Kyle Rayner, whom DC trumpeted as "the One True Franchise/GreenLantern" while [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Dropping a Bridge]] on Hal Jordan and the rest of the Corps. Eventually reversed for the most part, as Hal and the Corps came back 10 years later.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* This is the trend that's being followed by both the ''Franchise/KamenRider'' and ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' franchises. The earliest seasons had their protagonists typically somewhere within their mid-twenties but at one point, the protagonists tend to either be in their very early twenties or late teens. As it stands, the protagonist ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'' is a high school student, so this trope is more or less in full effect with the franchise by this point. 2012's series show that this is not a permanent shift but a choice for that year. Haruto of ''Series/KamenRiderWizard'' is played by a 22-year-old actor, and the ReunionShow takes place five years later so even the ''Fourze'' cast will not be high-schoolers in their further appearances. ''Series/TokumeiSentaiGobusters'', however, gives us a deliberately wide age spread - Yoko is high school age, Hiromu is in his early twenties, Jin looks mid-twenties but is actually seven years older, [[spoiler: being a projection of his true self still in hyperspace]]. Ryuuji is almost thirty.

* State Farm originally featured the character Jake from State Farm in the 2011 commercial "State of Unrest", where he's a confused, schlubby middle-aged man hounded by the wife in an equally as schlubby couple under the mistaken impression the husband was cheating. When they reintroduced him for an ad campaign in the late 2010s, the new Jake became a handsome 20-something black man as well as much more attentive to his customers' needs.

** Speaking of ''Yatterman'', the franchise took on the [[VirtualIdol VTuber]] genre with web shows for Boyacky and Ai. While Ai's redesign for the project looked about the same age, Boyacky was aged down to a scruffy man in his thirties.

* Much like the rest of ''Anime/TimeBokan'', ''Anime/{{Yatterman}}'''s TerribleTrio is filled out by a beautiful villainess and her two FatAndSkinny henchmen. ''Anime/YattermanNight'', on the other hand, has the youngest trio in the franchise to date: the new Doronbo Gang, composed of the originals' descendents, are instead a cute little girl and her two handsome uncles (one muscular, the other lean and fair-faced).

* Much like the rest of ''Anime/TimeBokan'', ''Anime/{{Yatterman}}'''s TerribleTrio is filled out by a beautiful villainess and her two FatAndSkinny henchmen. ''Anime/YattermanNight'', on the other hand, has the youngest trio in the franchise to date: the new Doronbo Gang, composed of the originals' descendents, are instead a cute little girl and her two handsome uncles (one muscular, the other, the other lean and fair-faced).

** ComicBook/DoctorOctopus, John Jameson, the Shocker, Alistair Smythe, pre-Rhino Aleksei Sytsevich, Carolyn Trainer, and Electro are presented as {{Teen Genius}}es around Peter's age or slightly older rather than adults as in other versions. This is also played around with Clash as he's canonically Peter's age, but he was introduced in the comics after Peter had graduated college.

[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'' has, among others, April as a teenager as opposed to a young adult. Master Splinter is also younger, as in most continuities he is an old man, where here he is middle aged.

->''"Nowadays, we're about appealing to a different kind of audience, an audience that is young, diverse, youngly diverse, diversely young, ethnically youthful, and homosexually young. And we think that that audience wants us to bring back ''[=NumberWang=]'' in a way that retains '''all''' of its original features but is basically like ''Skins''."''