Fictional crossover
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A fictional crossover occurs when otherwise separated fictional characters, stories, settings, universes, or media meet and interact with each other. For a company, crossovers may exist as a gimmick, a marketing tool, a joke or gag, or to play out a "what if" scenario.
Crossovers of multiple characters owned by one company or published by one publisher, have been used to set an established continuity, where characters can frequently meet within one setting. This is especially true of comic book publishers, as different characters in various Marvel or DC comic books frequently interact with one another.
Crossovers may also be advertised as a guest appearance or cameo appearance, often to promote another work of fiction, sometimes with little contextual or rational explanation.
A crossover story may try to explain its own reason for the crossover, such as "they live next door" (one example being the casts from Golden Girls and Empty Nest) or "a dimensional rift brought them together." Some crossovers are not explained at all. Some are absurd or simply impossible within the fictional setting, and have to be ignored by the series' respective continuities.
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General crossovers
Most of these crossovers can be assumed to be in continuity for one or both of the characters or universes involved, although the events of the crossover may not be mentioned afterwards by either party. See fictional universe for more closely linked crossovers. Many spinoffs cross over with their parent series or originated as a one-time crossover.
- Jay Sherman visits The Simpsons (The Simpsons)
- South Park's Mr. Garrison consults Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist - two separate Comedy Central cartoon series
- The Jetsons travel back in time to meet The Flintstones (The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones TV movie)
- Go-Bots meet The Rock Lords (Gobots: War of the Rock Lords)
- Ian and Matt from Mac Hall meet Piro and Largo from MegaTokyo (both series)
- Chandler Bing appeared in Caroline in the City
- The characters of Ally McBeal hire those of The Practice.
- Dharma and Greg had an episode based around Seinfeld's last episode.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Usagi Yojimbo have had crossovers in virtually every medium either has appeared in.
- Steve Urkel visits Full House and helps Mark in Step By Step. This actually does create a conflict. The episodes that Urkel was in clearly shows that these programs were originally in the same universe. Later in Step by Step, John Stamos appears as himself, even mentioning that he had a role on Full House.
- Johnny Bravo meets (and helps) the Scooby Gang (Johnny Bravo)
- Many of the stories by J. D. Salinger involve the Glass family or Holden Caulfield
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (The Next Mutation version) meet the Space Power Rangers (Power Rangers In Space)
- Transformers meet Spider-Man (Transformers, Marvel comics)
- Conan meets Elric (Conan the Barbarian, Marvel Comics)
- Ace Ventura meets The Mask (The Mask and Ace Ventura animated series), playing off of the fact that Ace Ventura and the Mask were both played in their respective films by Jim Carrey.
- Various old Hanna-Barbera characters hire or get sued by Harvey Birdman (Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law)
- The Blue Falcon and Dynomutt visit Dexter's Laboratory (Dexter's Laboratory)
- Judge Dredd visits Batman's universe (Judgement on Gotham)
- Timmy Turner switches places with Jimmy Neutron (The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour)
- Quasar travels to the New Universe, and brings the Star Brand back with him
- Marvel Comics comics characters travel to the Ultraverse, and vice versa
- Solar meets Void of WildC.A.T.S. (Deathmate)
- Tomb Raider meets Witchblade and The Darkness, and assists in reviving Butcher Knight (Top Cow comics)
- Batman meets The Darkness (Batman/The Darkness) Note that Jackie Estracado frequently mentions this event, implying that the Top Cow universe has its own version of Batman and Gotham City, rather than the official DC Universe version.
- Characters from Battle of the Planets meet the Thundercats (Battle of the Planets/Thundercats, Top Cow).
- Characters from SNK's various fighting games, including Athena, Psycho Soldier, Ikari Warriors, Art of Fighting, and Fatal Fury, appear in the King of Fighters series.
- The respective police departments in Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Homicide: Life on the Street have occasionally had crossover episodes; after the cancelation of Homicide, Richard Belzer's character, John Munch, was transferred over to SVU.
- Many daytime soap operas have had numerous crossovers over the years, particularly the ones that air on ABC. The baby switch storyline on ABC Daytime soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live, in which Paul Cramer (David Tom) from One Live to Live visited Pine Valley (the setting ofAll My Children) in order to steal the baby of his ex wife, Babe Chandler (Alexa Havins) was part of an ongoing storyline with Babe later visiting Llanview (The setting of One Life to Live) in order to get her baby back from Paul. This storyline came to a climactic court battle which started one day on AMC and was continued the same day on OLTL. This particular storyline had a precendent in the fact that another All My Children character, Skye Chandler (Robin Christopher) had moved from Pine Valley to Llanview in order to find her birth mother. Skye later moved again to Port Charles, the setting for another ABC Daytime Soap Opera, General Hospital in order to find her biological father. When All My Children debuted in 1970 ABC had Michael Storm's Dr. Larry Wolek from One Life to Live apear on All My Children for a few episodes in an attempt for fans of OLTL to tune into their new soap opera. When Procter & Gamble cancelled Another World in 1999 several characters apeared on As The World Turns in an attempt to lure viewers to that soap.
- Aliens battle Predators (Aliens vs. Predator)
- Aliens battle Predators battle Terminators (Aliens vs. Predator vs. Terminator)
- The Rugrats meets the main trio of AAAHH!!! Real Monsters! (Rugrats)
- The Rugrats meets The Wild Thornberrys (Rugrats Go Wild)
- Django and Otenko from Boktai appear in MegaMan Battle Network 4 and MegaMan Battle Netowrk 5
- MegaMan.EXE and ShadeMan.EXE from the MegaMan Battle Network series appear in Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django
- Michel Tremblay's cast of Main Street characters appear in several of his Montreal-based novels.
Explicitly outside continuity
These are crossovers that exist of their own setting, as an alternate universe or a "what if" scenario. Non-continuity crossovers may still borrow or resolve plots from their respective series, but have no evidence to support their occurrence officially in either setting.
- Archie meets The Punisher
- Batman fights Predator (Batman vs Predator I, II, III)
- Batman fights Aliens
- Spawn meets Batman (Spawn/Batman and Batman/Spawn)
- RoboCop fights the Terminator
- Magnus: Robot Fighter fights Predator
- Judge Dredd fights Predator
- Judge Dredd fights Aliens
- Superman fights Aliens
- Superman fights the Terminator
- Witchblade and The Darkness fight Aliens and Predator
- Wolverine meets Witchblade
- X-Men meet WildC.A.T.S.
- X-Men meet Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation characters
- Capcom characters fight Marvel characters (Marvel vs. Capcom series).
- Capcom characters fight SNK characters (SNK VS. Series).
- Multiple Nintendo and third party video game characters exist in N-World, including Mega Man, Simon Belmont, Kid Icarus, Eggplant Wizard, Mother Brain, King Hippo, and Link (Captain N: The Game Master).
- Multiple Nintendo characters meet solely to fight each other (Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee).
- Multiple Disney and Final Fantasy characters exist in interconnected worlds (Kingdom Hearts series).
- Multiple Capcom and Namco characters are brought together due to a dimensional rift (Namco x Capcom).
- Dimensions in Time was a special charity episode of Doctor Who, in which various incarnations of the Doctor visit Albert Square and meet various characters from the soap opera East Enders.
Dream sequence
A character comes into contact with another character through imagery, dreams, visions, etc. The crossover itself does not occur, but the idea of the crossover might occur.
- Spawn sees Cerebus the Aardvark (Spawn)
- Gen 13 sees the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Gen 13)
- Kazuki sees the cast of To Heart (Comic Party anime)
Celebrity guest appearance
A real life celebrity or figure appears within a fictional setting (Does not have to be portrayed by the actual person).
- In the Batman live action television series, celebrities often appeared when the Dynamic Duo are scaling a wall and the celebrity in question opens a window for a short conversation.
- Stan Lee, the creator of many famous comic-characters, tends to make short cameos in (recent) movies based on Marvel Comics (such as Spider-man and The Hulk)
- Peter Falk appears as himself playing a Columbo-like character, in Wim Wenders' film Wings of Desire
- Multiple celebrities are preserved as talking heads in the 30th century, including Pamela Anderson and Richard Nixon (Futurama)
- William Shatner meets Peter Griffin (Family Guy)
- Over 300 celebrities have appeared on The Simpsons. For example, Paul and Linda McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Blink 182, Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr., and Tony Hawk; see list of celebrities on The Simpsons
- Several celebrities have appeared (and been mocked) in South Park; see list of celebrities on South Park
Gag cameo
A character appears only briefly in another setting, mainly for joke purposes.
- Belle from Beauty and the Beast crosses the street in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
- Mr. Peabody appears on The Simpsons, commenting on time travel (The Simpsons).
- Sebastian from The Little Mermaid was pulled out by the Genie in Aladdin, along with the first few notes of "Under the sea" playing.
- A tea set that has a striking simlairity to Mrs. Potts and Chip was shown for a few seconds in Tarzan.
- Pumbaa from The Lion King being carried on a spit in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- King of the Hill characters appear on The Simpsons to comment on a peewee football game (The Simpsons)
- Rocket J. Squirrel appears on Family Guy, mimicking a familiar scene from Rocky & Bullwinkle (Family Guy)
- Mr. Tumnus appears on Family Guy in the drier while Peter is looking for his lost sock.
- Jay and Silent Bob appear as visitors to the movie studio in Scream 3
- Meatwad from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force speeds by on a bike on The Brak Show (The Brak Show)
- A big fight on Sealab 2021 is revealed to be a video game controlled by members of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Sealab 2021)
- Huckleberry Hound devolves into a normal dog on The Brak Show (The Brak Show)
- Amitabh Bachchan's character in the Bollywood film Maard briefly appears in the comic guise of Father Anthony, a persona that a different character played by Amitabh Bachchan, Anthony Gonsalves, had previously adopted in the film, Amar, Akbar, Anthony. In both films, the Father Anthony persona has the same costume, mannerisms and accent, even though Amitabh Bachchan is playing a different character in each of the two films.
- Mojo Jojo appears as an unimaginary friend in the pilot episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
- Dr. Raymond Stanz (played by Dan Aykroyd) from Ghostbusters makes an appearance running from the haunted house in Casper (movie)
- Ned & Stacey, title characters of a 1990s Fox sitcom, appears in a West Coast gallery at the close of an episode of Partners, the show which aired immediately beforehand; Ned & Stacey star Thomas Haden Church quips that they only have 30 seconds to get back to New York in time for their show.
Note: Many comedies and animated television series, such as Family Guy and The Simpsons, have numerous gag-based "crossovers."
Crossover, concepts or ideas
Appearance of items, materials, or objects that appear in another setting. Often used as a non-sequitur or anachronistic gag.
- Goofy hat in Aladdin
- Aladdin's magic carpet being shaken out in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- The TARDIS appearing in the first episode of Roman Britain-set comedy Chelmsford 123
- Tak (Invader Zim) wears Johnny the Homicidal Maniac's boots
- The Angry Beavers finding a mask of Helga G. Pataki
- Bender finds a Bart Simpson doll (Futurama)
Crossover, fan made
A vast amount of fan fiction and fan art feature characters from multiple stories or settings crossing over with one another. Almost any two given popular universes, characters or stories can be assumed to have crossed over in some fan-made fiction, even when the basic idea of such a crossover would seem to run contrary to the style or themes of the source material.
Related articles
- canon (fiction)
- continuity
- fictional character
- fictional universe
- shared universe
- Wold Newton family
External links
- Crossover Feedback Loop (http://www.geocities.com/utherworld/x.html)
- Poobala.com's Crossover Spin-Offs Master Page (http://www.poobala.com/crossoverlist.html) for an extensive list of TV crossovers and shared realities.nl:Cross-over in fictie