Freddie Mercopy

Don't stop me^note from eating you now!

Freddie Mercury is one of the most known and talented musicians ever. But before the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic was made, Freddie was already the inspiration for various characters in media and even memes.

This trope is for those Stock Parodies or Expies based on the historical Queen frontman. The most common look is the "clone" one Freddie used in The '80s, with short hair combed back, a prominent moustache, and sometimes one of the more iconic costumes, most often that from the 1986 Wembley concert with white t-shirt and pants and yellow leather jacket.◊ Some examples uses his look from The '70s, clean-shaven with long hair and chest-exposing leotards.◊ Extra points if the character is Camp Gay, Macho Camp, and/or a Large Ham.

Sub-Trope of Fountain of Expies and Stock Parodies. Compare Abbey Road Crossing, Elvis Impersonator, Moonwalk Dance, Sgt. Pepper's Shout-Out, Michael Hackson, Michael Jackson's Thriller Parody and We Didn't Start the Billy Joel Parodies for other music shout-outs.

Ha ha ha! It's magic!

Anime and Manga

• One of the most remembered secondary characters from Cromartie High School is a foreign man known only as "Freddie" for his undeniable resemblance to Mercury (lampshaded and nicknamed by Takashi Kamiyama), having the look of a Caucasian man with a prominent moustache and short hair. In the Gender-Bent Alternate Universe chapter Cromartie is a girl-only school (and parody of Maria Watches Over Us), where Freddie appears in his "I Want To Break Free" drag costume. Funnily enough, Freddie doesn't speak at all throughout the series, let alone sing, although the "whistling episode" starts with Mechazawa attending a concert of his - we don't hear him sing, but he has all the stage moves (for a given value of movement) down pat.
• One Piece: Peeply Lulu, a minor character from the Water 7 and Enies Lobby arcs, resembles Freddie in looks, having a similar haircut, wearing sunglasses and being perpetually shirtless.
• In Fist of the North Star, there's Han, the Third Rashou of Shura and one of the Worthy Opponents Kenshiro has to fight with, who also appears in the episode 126 of the 1984 anime. He was modeled after Freddie sporting his look from The '80s, but also seems based on Clark Gable and/or Andy Hug. Mercury's status as a sex symbol appears to be referenced by the guidebook "All about the Man", listing Han as one of the handsomest man in the series.
• Alaindelon is one of the main characters from Beelzebub and is based enterely on Freddie, not just in the look (short hair and moustache), also he sports sweatshirts and even has some mannerisms of him.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Instead of one, there're two expies in Dragon Ball Z, specifically in the Buu Saga: At the beginning, the sports teacher Son Gohan and Videl have in their class resembles Freddie, especially when he used a black swearshirt; the second one is at the end, when Trunks in the Tenkaichi Tournament fights against a Camp Gay fighter with a black leather hat, short hair and moustache,◊ which also resembles him (as well Leather Man from Village People).
  • Also, some fans speculated Vegeta's change of look in Dragon Ball GT (short hair and moustache) could be based on Freddie, too. This was recently exploited◊ by the Memetic Mutation of "EO" thanks to the Bohemian Rhapsody movie (see below).
• A brief expy on Attack on Titan is seen when Levi's squad appears for first time against various titans, one of them sporting short hair and a moustache (going to Memetic Mutation as seen in the main image), being killed by Hanga Zoe.
• In Dr. STONE, one of the outfits Senku is forced to try on for the first post-petrification photograph is based on Freddie Mercury's tank top and jeans look, complete with a fake mustache.

Comic Books

• Grand Regent Thragg from Invincible basically looks like a roided-up and evil '80s Freddie.

Films — Animation

• After School Midnighters: Pinia's blue form is modeled after Freddie Mercury and his behavior is very much camp, although his feminine language is Lost in Translation. There also seems to be wordplay going on between "mermaid/man" and "mercury".

Films — Live-Action

• Commando: Bennett, complete with Large Ham tendencies and a fair amount of homoerotic subtext.

Video Games

• Street Fighter has actually two of them instead just one, which both characters are British:
  • Eagle from Street Fighter was first made for this game as an expy of the bodyguard Petrov from Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury, but his comeback in Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium and the portable versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3 was a direct homage to Freddie, having various of his mannerisms and catchphrases like "The Show Must Go On" and "No Time For Losers". Even further, his winquotes in Japanese version makes him a Straight Gay making innuendos to male characters he fought.
  • Dudley from Street Fighter III has some similtudes with Freddie, but the real homage was in Super Street Fighter IV, in which his alternate costume is a reference to Freddie and his costume from the 1986 Wembley concert.
  • A downgrade example: In Street Fighter V, Birdie gets a similar outfit as one of his alternate costumes, also resembling the 1986 Wembley concert.
• Final Fight: Even when he's not could be based on him, fans believe that Mike Haggar could be based in part on Freddie, because of his iconic moustache and haircut, which resembles a lot the look Freddie has in The '80s.
• Guilty Gear series has Sol Badguy, whose real name is Frederick Bulsara (nicknamed as "Freddie" in the past) before being converted into a Gear. Sol has a lot of references to Freddie that make him fit into this trope (more as an invoked example), all noticed with detail in the GG Wiki.
  • Even his holding Fireseal in a Reverse Grip was inspired by Mercury's way of holding a mic stand on stage.
• An expy of an expy can be counted on The King of Fighters 2000 with the Final Boss (Clone) Zero, who was entirely based on Fist of the North Star's Han, who was in turn based on Freddie.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach: The game's main animatronics are officially referred to as the Glamrocks, and take obvious inspiration from the music genre and general 80s aesthetic. Appropriately, this game's Freddy, the lead singer who is also the Token Heroic Orc, takes some inspiration from Freddy Mercury. During the opening cutscene showing the band's performance Freddy makes several Mercury-esque poses with his mic stand.

Web Original

• The Rage Comics have the "Freddie Mercury pose"◊ which means an awesome victory, and even has a variant, the "So close pose."◊
• Not just the ragecomic, also the "winning pose" is a Memetic Mutation on the net, with various characters imitating the pose from diferent franchises and even made in an official artwork by Josuke Higashikata◊ in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: JoJolion.
• Overlapping with Sailor Senshi Send-Up, there's also the "Sailor Mercury", that mixes the eponymous Sailor Moon character (Ami Mizuno's Superpowered Alter Ego) with Freddie, a character that even had received various cosplays in events. Just look all the images about this Sailor...
• The recent years also show the Memetic Mutation of "EO", the chorus Freddie made during his concerts when the people follow him also seen in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. This becomes a meme when various characters with a moustache (being expies or not) are given the "EO" and voilá Freddie Mercopies. Or even without the moustache as this image◊ of Lord Farquaad.
• In one article from the Japanese branch of the SCP Foundation, SCP-905-JP is a phenomenon that occurs in any commercial airplane that mostly use the English language where everyone starts making noise to the tune of Queen's "We will Rock You" before several men of Indian descent who look like Freddie Mercury appear and do a mini concert to the passengers and crew, where the "Freddies" perform all of Queen's greatest hits.

Western Animation

• Mr. Fahrenheit, the Supersonic Man from The Venture Bros., is obviously meant to be Freddie "in real life" but with Writing Around Trademarks. Seeing as the last Real Life person they used was David Bowie, who then subsequently died in Real Life during production of the show, they probably wanted to avoid similar issues, despite him appearing in a Flash Back in the '80s.

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