Suspiciously Similar Song / Other Media

Advertising

• "Dumb Ways To Die" sounds like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".
  • And Royal Caribbean's "Wash Your Hands" public-service announcement (played on ships in the line) itself sounds and looks suspiciously similar to Dumb Ways To Die. (Yes, different ad agencies did each.)
• The music for Victoria Bitter's ads is so much like the theme from The Magnificent Seven that it's often mistakenly thought to be the same music.

Asian Animation

• Flower Angel: The five-note jingle used in the Eyecatch from Season 5 onwards sounds note-for-note like the classic Nickelodeon jingle.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: At the beginning of every The Season Towns episode is a song that's very similar to the Treasure Town theme from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, to the point that the music collaborator for that season changed it when they were informed of the similarity.
• Pleasant Goat Fun Class: Idiom World episode 4 includes a song that melodically sounds very similar to "Feliz Navidad", but has different lyrics.

Fan Works

• In the Total Drama story, Legacy, Trent tweaks an obscure Gilbert and Sullivan song ^note "A Wonderful Joy Our Eyes To Bless" from Utopia, Limited for his tribute song, albeit not to get around copyright because the song was already in the public domain. He writes his own verses but makes only minor changes to the refrain and the tune.
• The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Filk Song "Starlight Waltz" takes inspiration from "Once Upon A December" from Anastasia, as well as the waltz from The Cat Returns.

Logos

• The music in the 1998 Klasky-Csupo logo sounds like a faster, off-key version of the first few notes to Sir Topham Hatt's theme from Thomas & Friends.
• The music in the Strujini Kreditinstitut logo sounds similar to, of all things, the theme song to The Simpsons.
• Similarities have been noted between the Gracie Films music and "King of Wishful Thinking" by Go West; the Gracie logo came first, which weighs in favor of coincedence.
• At the beginning and end of a pre-launch promo for Teletoon, when the channel's logo is shown, a soundalike of the Seinfeld theme is used.

Pinball

• Ghostbusters: The Spook Central theme heavily resembles the Alessi Brothers' "Savin' the Day" (from the soundtrack of the original film).

Radio

• Dead Ringers managed to avoid this trope a surprising amount of the time despite being completely based on impressions and parodies, as most of its regular targets were also BBC productions. They did use Suspiciously Similar theme music for some of their one-off sketches, though, such as when they put one of the BBC's most well-known political interviewers into a superhero story to form The Continuing Adventures of Paxman.
• American Top 40: A Suspiciously Similar version of "Afternoon Delight" (by the Starland Vocal Band) was used as a cue from 1977-1978.
• The radio countdown show Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40 uses bumpers that are Suspiciously Similar versions of country songs. This carried over from when Kingsley hosted American Country Countdown, which uses original-tune bumpers now that Kix Brooks hosts it.
• Mitch Benn's songs on The Now Show are generally to tunes that sound like the songs he's parodying, since the UK doesn't have a "fair use" exception for parodies. He also commented on the trope (specifically the accusations that Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" was ripping off other songs) with "Now Coldplay Sound Like Everything Else", a song about how a song can sound "familiar" not because it's a rip-off, but just because it isn't doing anything interesting, to (of course) a Suspiciously Similar version of "Viva La Vida". (In the intro he commented that he once had a song that many people accused of being a rip-off, but they all claimed he'd ripped it off from different things ... and none of them had picked the right one.)
• For a while during commercial breaks on Radio Disney the hosts talked over a song suspiciously similar to Rage Against the Machine's "Killing In the Name" (of all songs!).
• Many radio station jingle packages will contain cuts that are very closely based on actual songs. For example, cut #20 from JAM Creative Productions' "Music Jam" package is an obvious tribute to The Jacksons' "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)". The similarity was lampshaded when this jingle was resung for New York's "Jammin' Oldies" station in the late 90's, as their version used a Michael Jackson soundalike vocalist.
• There was a BBC Radio 4 documentary on the subject, The Barlow-Morgenstern Method presented by Tony Hawks (the title referring to the authors of The Dictionary of Musical Themes), and discussing how you distinguish plagiarism from parody from "there are only so many combinations of notes". Neil Innes was interviewed, having been on both sides of the argument (sued by ATV Music over the Rutles^note Despite the fact the Beatles themselves were fine with it, sued Oasis over "Whatever").
• Philadelphia Spanish-language AM station WEMG at one point, at least while their short-lived FM counterpart (now Atlantic City market Top 40 station WSJO) was transitioning into Nassau Broadcasting ownership, used a light instrumental track suspiciously similar to Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles". Here's a example.
• In the Adventures in Odyssey episode "Family Values", Bart and Doris Rathbone sing a lullaby to their son, Rodney, while trying to strengthen their family values in time for a contest. When they're done singing, Rodney asks, "You guys know 'Smoke on the Water'?" A tune that sounds similar to said song then plays as transition music to the next scene.

Stand Up Comedy

• Bill Hicks often started his shows with a Suspiciously Similar version of "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix.

Theatre

• In the musical Dames At Sea, "That Mister Man Of Mine" has a melody mostly copied from "The Man I Love".
• The "Nightingale Lullaby" from the musical Once Upon a Mattress includes an obvious pastiche of the Lullaby from Stravinsky's ballet music for The Firebird. It's even written in the same key (and since that key is E flat minor, this is actually significant).
• "Sunday" from tick...tick...BOOM! is a parody of the song of the same name from Sunday in the Park with George, with the melody turned upside down.
• Cirque du Soleil:
  • Since its surprise appearance is in service of a gag, it probably needs spoiler tags: in Mystère, an instrumental sound-alike of "Stayin' Alive" turns up.
  • The bungee music ("Il sogno di volare") in Saltimbanco sounds similar to the intro of Mozart's Requiem.
    • The title song of Saltimbanco resembles the Get Smart theme.
  • The main melody of "All Come Together" from Amaluna is suspiciously similar to Secret Garden's "Nocturne", and to a lesser extent the main theme of Withnail and I.
    • The main riff of "Tempest" is suspiciously similar to the Hyrule Castle theme from the The Legend of Zelda series.
    • "Whisper" is similar to "A Walk in the Woods" from Halo: Combat Evolved.
  • A section of "Elevation" (0:43-1:19) from Volta resembles the "Prologue" music (particularly 2:35-3:35) from Blade Runner.
    • From the same show, "Modern Jungle" sounds like a slower version of the second half of "Overdrive" by Lazerhawk. The choral section also resembles the theme from Harrys Game, and by extension Chicane's "Saltwater".
    • The Lonely Piano Piece section at the end of "The Bee and the Wind" sounds like "Leaving Earth" from Mass Effect 3, minus the Reaper horns.
    • The unreleased song for the Globetrotters act is suspiciously similar to "Polynomial C" by Aphex Twin.
    • The first vocal hook in "Dancing Ants" sounds suspiciously like "I Want Candy" by The Strangeloves, while the second echoes "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer.
    • The strings section in the chorus of "To the Stars" sounds like a more upbeat version of Clint Mansell's "Lux Aeterna" from Requiem for a Dream.
• The Victorian-melodrama villain's theme in the Show Within a Show in Show Boat sounds like the Russell Bennett version of Mysterioso Pizzicato.
• Used to dark comic effect in "My Psychopharmacologist and I" from Next to Normal, where a litany of antidepressant medications (and their side effects) is sung to the Suspiciously Similar Version of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.
• Kit And The Widow show us here how to do this and make great deals of money in the West End, all while taking unsubtle shots at Andrew Lloyd Webber.
  • Speaking of Lloyd Webber, the theme to The Phantom of the Opera is suspiciously similar to Pink Floyd's "Echoes." Roger Waters considered suing but later said "life's too long to bother with suing fucking Lloyd Webber."
  • Also, as Cracked points out, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar was a reworked version of Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto," and Puccini's "La Fanciulla del West" became Webber's "Music of the Night."
• Vanities: The Musical:
  • The verse and pre-chorus of the cut song "Hey There, Beautiful" sound like "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra, although the latter has a longer verse melody.
  • The Act 3 reprise of "An Organized Life" is reminiscent of "Part of Your World (Reprise)" from The Little Mermaid.
  • The intro riff of "Friendship Isn't What it Used to Be" is similar to that of Coldplay's "Clocks", while the second half of the verse is similar to the refrain of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart".
  • Parts of "Looking Good" are eerily similar to "For Good" from Wicked.
• Wicked:
  • The "Unlimited" interlude uses the first seven notes of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz, but with a completely different rhythm.
  • "For Good"'s refrain ("Like a comet pulled from orbit...") is blatantly similar to "Who Will Love Me As I Am?" from Side Show.
• The theme to Avenue Q, despite being a Sesame Street parody, sounds more like the one to Family Guy, a sitcom parody. It also sounds similar to the theme song to fellow PBS show The Noddy Shop.
• Spamalot's "Find Your Grail" copies its tune nearly verbatim from John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads", which itself resembles the folk tune "Auld Lang Syne".
• In a 2010 version of Much Ado About Nothing, set in the 1980s and featuring David Tennant and Catherine Tate as Benedict and Beatrice respectively, the melody written for "Sigh No More, Ladies" sounds vaguely like "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham.
• In Fiorello!, "Till Tomorrow," the slow waltz number sung at Fiorello's World War I send-off, sounds a lot like "Till We Meet Again," a Real Life hit song of the time.
• In The Firebird, the theme of the "Infernal Dance" is very close to Chernobog's motif from the "Ronde infernale" of Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov's ballet-opera Mlada.
• Matilda:
  • "The Chokey Chant" sounds like the "Mob Song" from Beauty and the Beast.
  • The bridge of "The Smell of Rebellion" is rather similar to Billy Joel's "Piano Man".
  • "Quiet" is similar to "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid.
  • "My House" resembles "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" from Evita.
• In Peter Grimes, the motif in A minor to which Grimes sings "We sailed into the wind" is note-for-note identical to the theme of the second movement of Gustav Mahler's fifth symphony. A major-key version of this motif appears both before and during the storm interlude; the tempo heading for the Mahler symphony movement is "stürmisch bewegt."
• In the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid:
  • The later-cut song "Human Stuff" resembles "Consider Yourself" from Oliver!, with a touch of the "Spam" song from Monty Python's Flying Circus
  • "Her Voice", the male lead's "I Want" Song, resembles "Maria" from West Side Story.
  • "I Want the Good Times Back" sounds rather similar to "Wonderful" from Wicked, and to some extent "Bring On the Men" from Jekyll & Hyde.
  • The main melody of "If Only" sounds similar to "Where is Love?", also from Oliver!.
• City of Angels:
  • The refrain of "All You Have To Do Is Wait" rather strongly resembles that of "Blame It On The Bossa Nova."
  • "You Can Always Count On Me" is suspiciously reminiscent, in both music and lyrics, of "Nobody Does It Like Me," a song also composed by Cy Coleman for the musical Seesaw (1973).
• In the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of Mrs. Doubtfire, the chorus of "The Shape of Things To Come" is suspiciously similar to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", and "Let Go" sounds like Adele's "Someone Like You".
• Super Sea Star Savior from Spongebob Squarepants sounds like "Run and Tell That" from Hairspray mixed with "Zero To Hero" from Hercules.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber's new version of Cinderella (2021) has a song called "Bad Cinderella" with a chorus almost identical to "In my Own Little Corner" from Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein). He claims it's an homage, but...
• Fittingly for another musical premised on Adaptational Sympathy, Twisted borrows a bit from Wicked, and the part in "Happy Ending" where Ja'far sings about when he meets the genie is nearly identical to Elphaba's imagined conversation with the Wizard in "The Wizard and I"
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: The chorus of "The Worst Pies in London" resembles "Tomorrow" from Annie.

Theme Parks

• The musical song loop on The Cat in the Hat ride at Universal's Islands of Adventure sounds very much like a more manic and distorted version of the Tiny Toon Adventures theme song, of all things.

Webcomics

• Homestuck has the song Ohgodcat which middle part sounds a lot like Centerfold. However, Gec says this was completely unintentional and even edited a version without it.
  • The song Mutiny has a bassline similar to the main melody of Rainbow Factory.

Web Original

• When a Web Animation series reaches a certain level of success (typically when it starts selling DVDs), the creator often goes back and removes any copyright infringement that was safe when the series was unknown. Bonus Stage is a good example: Matt eventually removed a multitude of unauthorized cameos from his earlier episodes (such as one by the Homestar Runner cast) and replaced the ska song in the credits with an instrumental facsimile called "Total Soundalike."
• One of the earliest Homestar Runner toons ("Marshmallow's Last Stand") featured a snipet of the theme fom The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. When the toon was released on DVD, the audio was changed for legal reasons. Lampshaded by Matt Chapman (as Homestar) in the commentary when he tells Mike Chapman "don't listen to this part, we're gonna change it." when the original audio can be head in the backound.
  • Lampshaded somewhat in the cartoon "On Break", in which Mike and Matt perform an a-capella rendition of "Yakety Sax" that ends somewhat differently from the original song. Afterwards, one of them asks, "Does it end different?"
  • "Circles", the song that plays in a Strong Bad Email Easter egg, has lyrics and a structure similar to "Dizzy" by Tommy Roe.
• Zero Punctuation originally featured segments of various "appropriate" songs during the opening and closing credits. Lampshaded at the start of the first episode with the new theme music.
• The intro music to CollegeHumor's retrogaming series Bleep Bloop is Suspiciously Similar version of The Legend of Zelda theme.
  • An episode of CH's animated series Bear Shark featured a Ghostbusters parody, complete with a short bit of legally distinct GB music.
• Because YouTube is so ridiculously litigious about the use of music in parodies, parodists like Venetian Princess now have to find someone like Steve Goldstein to write a Suspiciously Similar Version for them. Example here.
• Used regularly on How It Should Have Ended to imitate the themes of the movies they're parodying, featuring "The Stuff" ("The Touch"), and the Terminator beat with an extra note.
• Improv Everywhere's video of their Ghostbusters operation uses a Suspiciously Similar version of the Ghostbusters theme.
  • Also, rather than use "Who Let The Dogs Out?" for their Invisible Dogs operation, one of their number composed "The Dogs Were Let Out By Whom?"
• The song in Charlie the Unicorn 3 is a knock-off of "Under The Sea" from The Little Mermaid, but with a middle-eight based on the "Pokérap".
• Since the Mega64 crew couldn't use "Walkie Talkie Man" by Steriogram for their Elite Beat Agents skit, Josh Jones, their composer made a similar sounding version with Word Salad Lyrics.
• The intro of Nyan Cat bears some resemblance with the organ intro of Light my Fire by The Doors. The actual melody part sounds a lot like the theme song of The Smurfs (1981).
• The video Wiley vs. Rhodes uses melodies very similar to the Merrie Melodies theme "Merrily We Roll Along" in the intro and the Looney Tunes theme "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" in the ending. Justified since the video was a homage to the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons.
• A tune that often shows up in The Annoying Orange is really similar to one of the battle tunes from Serious Sam: Second Encounter.
• The Guild payed homage to Reservoir Dogs in Season 3, Episode 10 "The Return". The Knights of Good carry their computers, slow-motion style, from Vort's van to the LAN battle, all to a Suspiciously Similar Version of "Little Green Bag". It is awesome and hilarious at the same time.
• The song in the flash animation Ducks Live on the Moon sounds like "Enclosure" from Metal Gear Solid.
• Ultra Fast Pony frequently uses copyright-infringing song snippets, but the one time the series does use a substitute (a cheap, a cappella substitute, at that) the characters themselves comment on it.
  Twilight: What, we couldn't get the real music?
  Pinkie Pie: Oh, no way, bro! It's copyrighted!
  Twilight: Never stopped us before.
  Pinkie Pie: Oh, quiet, bro, or they'll hear you!
• The POP Stations reviewed by Stuart Ashen play awful beeping renditions of well-known music. These include "The Entertainer" and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" to the Super Mario Bros. main theme and many other songs. They rarely go unnoticed by Stuart.
  • Ashen's Bootleg Star Wars review videos, appropriately, use a suspiciously similar take on the Star Wars theme.
• Melissa Hunter's Adult Wednesday Addams shorts naturally have a theme that's suspiciously similar to that of The Addams Family. More specifically, it's a close soundalike of the original theme, but In the Style of Electronic Music, which sort of fits the premise of placing an aged-up Wednesday in modern, everyday situations.
• One of the remixes done in RWBY Chibi is "I Burn (PleaseDon'tSueUs Remix)", which mixes Yang Xiao Long's theme with an approximation of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger".
• Red vs. Blue originally had the Warthog playing a Tejano song Burnie Burns recorded in a Mexican restaurant. Given Rooster Teeth never discovered the title of the original, when it was time to release the show on DVD it got replaced with an original composition.
• Rise Above and Mystery Skulls Ghost
• Phelous's 2014 ending theme sounds like "Theme of Laura" from Silent Hill 2. On the other hand, the 2018 version of "Oh Phelous" has a synth hook similar to Haddaway's "What is Love?".
• The intro to Cinemassacre's review of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation fittingly uses a soundalike of The Immortals' "Techno Syndrome".
• AOK's Childhood Ruined videos (save for Thomas The Tank Engine: Origins and the Skeletor series) open up with theme songs that sound similar to one from the the show they're spoofing. For example, while Muppet Elderlies sounds very similar to the Muppet Babies intro, the theme to Dora The Grownup sounds totally different from the Dora the Explorer theme, with the only similarity being the "Do do do do do Dora!" part at the start.
• Cartoon Network online games:
  • In the Codename: Kids Next Door game "Operation S.T.A.R.T.U.P.", the music in Numbuh One's level sounds similar to the Spin Doctors song "Two Princes".
  • The music in the Dragon Ball Z game Dragon Ball Z: Tournament is clearly based on the instrumentals from Sisqo's "Thong Song". (Yes, really)
• Modern Vintage Gamer's "Phenom", used as incidental music in several of his YouTube videos, is suspiciously similar to "Hyperbased", the theme to the Amiga demo Enigma (not to be confused with the music group Enigma) by Phenomena.
• "The White Tiger" by Skaven of the Future Crew, from said group's 1992 Unreal demo, resembles the main theme of the Psygnosis Amiga game Awesome, mixed with the intro riff of "Gallantry" from Raiden.
• Daniel Thrasher: The "When you accidentally write songs that already exist" series of videos is about Daniel trying to write an original song, only to accidentally plagiarize the instrumentals of various popular songs and showtunes.
• Jet Lag: The Game: The jingle for unlocking a road in season five bears striking resemblance to the flagpole theme from Super Mario Bros.

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