Go, go, color coding!
Examples of Color-Coded Characters present in Live-Action Television Series.- Naturally, the members of numerous Super Sentai and Power Rangers teams in each season are distinguished by the colors of their outfits. The most common color combination consists of red (usually the leader), blue, green, yellow, and pink. Some seasons will swap black for green or white for pink, but it's uncommon to have both Black and Green or White and Pink on the same team at the same time. In a manner similar to the G.I. Joe laser situation, some colorcoded aspects will change when a Ranger acquires a different shiny suit.
- In particular, the subtractive primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) are the only colors that have been present on almost every team to date. note One of the girls will be pink, or white with pink trimming, leaving the last to be either green or black. Teams that break this rule become more common starting with Hurricanger/Ninja Storm.
- The Sixth Ranger, especially those in later series, is usually associated with Silver or Gold. Of the exceptions, four of them have gold armor (to the point that King Ranger's Power Ranger counterpart is named the Gold Ranger despite being officially designated black), three of them are white (including one of the ones with gold armor), somewhat following the pattern. The notable exceptions are Time Fire/Quantum Ranger, who's a second red to highlight the character's rivalry with the main Red Ranger, ToQ #6, who's orange in order to fit the series Rainbow Motif, Zyuoh the World, whose primary color is black with parts of his suit being gold and silver, and Ryu Commander & Houou Soldier, the former being the team's mentor and the last of the non-variant or repeat colored Kyurangers (in his case, violet), while the latter is a second red who led his own team hundreds of years before the current team before becoming a Sealed Good in a Can until the present day.
- Power Rangers exaggerated it in their first few seasons. Not only did they always wear their designated Ranger colors unmorphed, most of their accessories (backpacks, notebooks, etc.) were also color-coded, alongside Pink Ranger Kimberly having a pink car (really a dark magenta, but that was what they were going for) and Yellow Ranger Trini drinking a banana milkshake at the juice bar (yes, out of a yellow glass.) A couple of former Rangers have mentioned hating seeing their Ranger color once they leave the show.
- Lampshaded in Dino Thunder. At the end of the episode "Back in Black", when he gains the new Black Ranger powers, Tommy notes that he needs to go shopping for more black clothes.
- Also lampshaded in Mystic Force; Vida is the Pink Ranger, but she's so tomboyish she actually hates the color, and it's not until towards the end of the season that she starts thinking it's not that bad, even incorporating it to her hair dye.
- Actually broken by Karone in Lost Galaxy. As the Pink Ranger, her outfits consist of black leather with maybe a pink hairclip. It should be also noted in the same season that Mike the Magna Defender doesn't have a specific color, and he was the first unmorphed hero not to.note
- Somewhat subverted with Jason as the aforementioned Gold Ranger, the adaptation of Ohranger's KingRanger. At no point does Jason ever wear anything with even so much as a shade of gold in any part of his civilian wear, and instead wears black like a Black Ranger...which his Sentai counterpart was officially designated as in Ohranger. Ironically enough, in his untransformed form, said Sentai counterpart Riki was covered in even more gold armor than his morphed form, due to being a warrior king from ancient times. THAT'S RIGHT! The one called the Gold Ranger wore black like a Black Ranger, while the designated Black Ranger wore more gold armor than his morphed form. Played somewhat straight with the original user of the Gold Ranger powers, Trey of Triforia, who wore a black robe with prominent gold trim, at least matching the color scheme of his powers.
- Despite the trope of Dark Is Not Evil being present with the usage of a Black Ranger, when the Rangers' weapons glow during the execution of an attack or something similar, the Black Ranger's weapon occasionally glows with a purple hue rather than a black coloration, as true black is at times reserved for the villains instead. As a result, it's the only weapon where the "glow" does not match the Ranger's designated color in such cases where coloration is utilized whenever Power Glows. An example of this occurring can be seen in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, whenever Will the Black Ranger strikes with his signature weapon.
- Ressha Sentai ToQger plays with the trope: while the rangers usually have a standard color code (red leader, blue nerd, pink girl, etc) they can swap their Transformation Trinkets around, switching colors and weapons in the process. It also shows why the color coding is important: abuse of that ability quickly leads to mass confusion, in and out of universe.
- Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger is the first series to completely avert the Red Ranger being the leader/top-billed character. The leader is instead associated with the unique Rainbow color. There is a Red Ranger on the team, but he's a normal team member instead of the leader here.
- Breaking Bad described here
- Walter - Green
- Jesse - Red or Yellow
- Skyler - Blue
- Hank - Brown/Orange
- Marie - Purple
- Walt Jr. - Orange, but not tied as closely to it
- The Kamen Rider Series now becomes guilty of this trope because of merchandising. Almost every main Rider will have several modes, color-designated. In particular, there are mix and matchers: Kamen Rider OOO, who's form repertoire consists entirely of switching colours on his legs, arms and head, totalling over 130 variants (with full colour matches being generally more powerful than mixes) and Kamen Rider Double who switches colour of his left and right halves (although only has three and four colours on each respectively).
- Kamen Rider Kuuga:
- Growing: White
- Mighty: Red
- Dragon: Blue
- Pegasus: Green
- Titan: Purple
- Amazing Mighty/Ultimate: Black
- Kamen Rider Ryuki:
- Ryuki: Red
- Knight: Navy
- Scissors: Orange
- Zolda: Green
- Raia: Magenta
- Gai: Grey
- Ouja: Purple
- Odin: Gold/Bronze
- Tiger: Silver/Blue
- Imperer: Brown
- Verde: Lime Green
- Femme: White
- Ryuga: Black
- Abyss: Cyan
- Kamen Rider 555:
- Faiz: Red
- Kaixa: Yellow
- Delta: White/Blue
- Psyga: Purple/White
- Orga: Gold
- Kamen Rider Zi-O:
- Zi-O: Pink/Black
- Geiz: Red/Yellow
- Woz: Lime Green/Silver
- Tsukuyomi: White
- Kamen Rider Zero-One:
- Zero-One: Yellow
- Vulcan: Blue
- Valkyrie: Orange
- Horobi: Purple
- Jin: Pink (becomes Red after upgrading to Burning Falcon)
- Thouser: Gold
- Ikazuchi: Crimson
- Naki: Silver
- Ark-Zero: Black
- Ark-One: White
- Kamen Rider Saber:
- Saber: Red
- Blades: Blue
- Espada: Yellow
- Buster: Grey
- Kenzan: Green
- Slash: Pink
- Caliber: Purple
- Saikou: Gold
- Sabela: Crimson
- Durendal: Black/Cyan
- Falchion: Orange
- Kamen Rider Kuuga:
- The Fresh Beat Band: Shout wears orange, Kiki pink, Marina blue, and Twist yellow.
- Invoked in Charmed: when Prue casts a spell that creates duplicates of herself, Phoebe puts them in different-coloured shirts so everyone can tell them apart.
- Teletubbies: Tinky-Winky is purple, Dipsy is lime, Laa Laa is yellow, and Po is red.
- Through The Dragon's Eye: Boris is orange, Doris is purple, and Moris is green.
- In Tracy Beaker Returns, the kids are all associated with their own colour as reflected in their usual clothing. This is continued into Series 1 of The Dumping Ground before being thrown out of the window from Series 2 onwards.
- Carmen: Pink
- Lily: Lilac
- Johnny: Blue
- Tee: Blue
- Liam: Purple
- Frank: Black
- Toby: Orange and Green
- Gus: Navy (with beige chinos)
- Sapphire: Black
- Elektra: Electric Blue
- Tyler: Yellow
- Rick: Red
- Jody: Brown
- Mystery Science Theater 3000
- Joel - Red (although his jumpsuit comes in many colors, he is described in the intro as "just another face in a red jumpsuit")
- Experiments 101-113: Bright Red; Experiments 201-211: alternating between Green and Bright Red; Experiments 212-512, 1001: Dark Red
- Mike - Green/Blue (also has several jumpsuit colors, but usually wears green or blue)
- Crow - Gold
- Tom Servo - Red
- Gypsy - Purple
- Dr. Forrester - Lime Green
- Dr. Erhardt - Black
- TV's Frank - Black (sometimes grey or silver)
- Pearl - Pink/Lime Green (pink in season 7, lime green in later seasons)
- Observer(s)/"Brain Guy" - Dark Blue/White
- Prof. Bobo - Yellow/Brown
- Jonah - Yellow
- Kinga - Purple
- Max - Black
- The Skeleton Crew (Boneheads) - White
- Other characters may include the likes of Mr. B Natural, who always wears a "powder blue note-spangled jacket" as described by Servo.
- When the crew of the SOL reach the edge of the universe and become beings of pure energy, their energy forms match their colors: Mike-Green, Crow-Gold, Tom Servo-Red, and Gypsy who is oddly Blue rather than Purple. Cambot and Magic Voice also become energy beings, and both appear to be White.
- Note that the colors didn't apply so much in the KTMA season. Joel had a couple of different jumpsuits that he didn't wear again after the show went national, Crow was the only robot that had his final color, and the Mads wore transparent vinyl coats.
- Joel - Red (although his jumpsuit comes in many colors, he is described in the intro as "just another face in a red jumpsuit")
- The Defenders: Each principal character and the supporting cast they bring from their solo show wear matching colors, and scenes featuring them tend to focus on those colors, with multi-character scenes featuring those of the characters present.
- Matt Murdock is associated with the color red. His neckties, glasses, cane, and Daredevil armor are all red. While we don't see it here, we know from a scene back in Daredevil season 1 that he sees the world in red flames, and his motif evokes a lot of imagery of rage and punishment. His scenes, such as his church and his apartment, are shot with red colors. Karen Page wears a red skirt and a black coat with red sash and inner liner, highlighting her unresolved sexual tension with Matt. Foggy Nelson's red only extends to patterns on his necktie, perhaps alluding to his recent break with Matt.
- Jessica Jones is connected with tones of blue. Scenes focusing on her tend to look cold and unwelcoming, but her scenes which don't focus on her tend to show blue, hopeful colors, like the sky. She mostly wears entirely black clothing, except for her blue jeans, and scenes featuring her tend to feature blue furnishings and blue-filtered light or water. On top of this, Trish Walker sports a blue coat, and blue clothing while she's in the police station.
- Luke Cage has a lot of warm, welcoming yellow colors in his scenes. He wears a yellow t-shirt, his hoodie has yellow accents, and he's introduced wearing an orange jumpsuit as he's being released from prison. His scenes show a lot of natural sunlight or lights through yellow shades, and most furnishings in his scenes are yellow or a light wood. Misty Knight also follows the pattern by wearing an orange turtleneck, similar but not identical to his own shirt (and reflecting her comic-book counterpart's color).
- Danny Rand primarily is shown with green, a very rich color, and he is the only one of the Defenders lineup to come from an upper-class background. He wears green sweaters or olive-green suits, his scenes such as at Colleen’s dojo tend to have a lot of green hues, and his employees are also aware enough to compliment his company's green office space with green shirts.
- Fittingly, the Royal Dragon where the four of them regroup, rest, and eventually decide to work together has all of the above colors in its decor and lighting. Even the neon dragon sign is lit only with red, blue, yellow, and green bulbs.
- The Hand’s henchmen mostly wear black, and scenes featuring them look darker, even muting the heroes' colored atmosphere. Colleen and Malcolm also wear dark colors, which would be a metaphor for how Colleen betrayed Danny to Bakuto, and Malcolm spied on Jessica for Kilgrave.
- The Hand’s leadership dress primarily in white, with their bases being as white as an Apple store, and Alexandra's initial sets emphasizing white backgrounds like clouds or a stark white cathedral. Murakami, Sowande, Madame Gao and Bakuto accent their white with black, but Alexandria pairs the white with gold, signifying her dominance over them. In her very first scene, she's asked to remove her white clothes and gold jewelry in a sterile white room.
- Elektra’s colors are literally split between the Hand’s black colors with her coat and Matt’s red with her main armor, signifying her indecision. While she is trying to understand herself, scenes with her are a mismatched whirl of clashing colors, reflecting her own inner conflict. Several times, she contemplates a pair of sais with white and black guards; this ultimately foreshadows her murder of Alexandra.
- Claire Temple wears mostly white, grey, or shades of brown, which represents her familiarity with all of the Defenders team. Scenes with her frantically switch between the four Defenders' colors while each remain dominant and don't clash, further displaying her deep connection with all of them.
- Doctor Who: It's subtle, but look at the clothes preferred by the Tenth Doctor's companions: Rose is always wearing something pink, Martha's usual top is red, while Donna wears pinks and blues both, but is most often seen in purple. Also, aside from the ubiquitous jeans, the girls tend towards warm colours, while the Doctor and Jack go for blue.
- The characters in the Girls x Heroine! shows are color-coded. The main character is always pink, and the other two characters have blue and purple motifs.
- Each Danger Force member is represented with a specific color: red for Volt, yellow for AWOL, blue for Brainstorm, and silver for ShoutOut.
- Fate: The Winx Saga:
- Bloom is associated with the color red, through both her fire magic and her red outfits.
- Aisha is associated with blue, as she's a Water Fairy and often wears blue.
- Terra is associated with green though her clothes and plant magic.
- Both Stella and her mother Luna often wear pink.
- Legion:
- Sydney Barrett's outfits are usually orange and/or black.
- Gabrielle Xavier's wardrobe consists mostly of green clothing and accessories (e.g. high heels).
- Interview with the Vampire (2022):
- In 2022, Louis de Pointe du Lac's wardrobe consists exclusively of black and grey apparel.
- In 2022, Rashid is only ever seen in black clothing.
- The girls of Glee each have a colour that they're often associated with:
- Rachel: Pink
- Quinn: Turquoise or light blue
- Tina: Black or dark blue
- Santana: Red
- Mercedes: Purple
- Brittany: Green or more green-hued blues
