Family members tend to look like each other. Normally, this follows bloodline - you tend to look a lot more like your parents than you do your second cousin, for example. Generally, only identical twins can pass for each other, and even then developmental influences can make noticeable differences.

Television, on the other hand, is a little loose with the rules. Especially when it gives the chance to put an actor into a totally new role.

While theIdentical Grandson can marginally argue that it is not unknown for direct descendants to bear uncanny resemblance to a forebear, the idea getsvery shaky for other relations. When a show tries to pass off a male actor in drag as their visiting aunt, or when somehow a character resembles the man whoadopted their great-great-grandfather, it gets flat out weird (and hence is usually played up for comedic value).

The trope is pushed further if the actor is put into playing nearly all members of his family, by blood or marriage.

See also:Acting for Two,Inexplicably Identical Individuals. Not to be confused withStrong Family Resemblance, where an animated character looks like one of their parents. Or withYou All Look Familiar, which is more of anEnforced trope.

Anime and Manga

• InVampire Knight Yuuki is nearly identical to her mother Juurito the point that Rido wants to use her as a replacement for Juuri, his sister who he was in psychotic love with and Kaname looks almost exactly like Haruka, their father. But then again,This is actually more a case of Haruka being anIdentical Grandson, because Kaname is really The Ancestor and Haruka his great-grandson. This is somewhat justified in the fact thattheir parents were siblings as well, and given thattheir family tree doesn't fork for many generations, genetic traits would be passed down far more obviously.
• InBleach, Rukia is nearly identical to her older sister Hisana Kuchiki, to the extent where they have extremely similar hair-styles. This stands out because Hisana abandoned Rukia as an infant and then died before the pair could ever be reunited. The uncany resemblance is lampshaded in the manga itself when it's revealed Byakuya's original lie for adopting Rukia was her resemblance to his dead wife.
• InKatekyo Hitman Reborn, there's an example that gets into the flat out weird category (and isn't played for laughs). Xanxus, whoisn't actually supposed to be blood related to the Ninth is almost a clone of the Second Vongola Boss.Lampshaded by other charactershere. As they say, his temperament, abilities, and evenlooks are the same. Makes you wonderif he really isn't the Ninth's love child...
  • And then there's Tsuna, who (thankfully)doesn't look like his father, and instead looks exactly like his ancestor,Vongola Primo.
  • Uni, her mother and hergrandmother. To the point of approachingGeneration Xerox.
• Mizuho fromOtome wa Boku ni Koishiteru looks exactly likehis mother, in spite of being herson.
  • Joey Jones fromHeroman has pretty much the same thing going for him, except it's not lampshaded.
• InAsatte no Houkou, Adult!Karada looks just like her mother Youko.
• Eyeshield 21 plays with this. Munakata looks nearly identical to his parents but his parents also look nearly identical to each other.
• InMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S, Subaru and Ginga both greatly resemble their deceased mother, Quint. All the more notable because they were adopted.It is later revealed that they were produced through cloning based on Quint's genetic information.
• TheTomokane siblings inGA Geijutsuka Art Design Class do not only look alike--Nodamiki one said the older Tomokane as a "bleached Tomokane-kun" in episode 12—but both were voiced byMiyuki Sawashiro, hence upgrading fromStrong Family Resemblance to this. Even so, they are alsoquite different...
• InA Certain Magical Index, Mikoto Misaka not only already has hersisters, but she's alsoa splitting image of herHot Mom Misuzu.
• All of the Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys resemble each other inPokémon. The only way you can distinguish them is by the symbol on their hats.
• The two Nitori siblings fromWandering Son look almost exactly like each other, especially when Shuuichi grew his hair into aBob Haircut like his sister. At several points once Shu grows his hair out, you can mistake him for his sister (or the other way around). Shu's body has started to look different from his sister's due to puberty though, he's taller than her and more square.
• Usopp and Nico Robin ofOne Piece look very much like their parents when they got older. Usopp a combination of his mother and father's traits (long nose, tan skin, hair) and Robin a spitting image of her mother save for the black hair (her mother's is white).
• Due to havingOnly Six Faces,Goku's sons Gohan and Goten look exactly the same as he did at their respective ages. This is evenLampshaded in the first episode ofDragonball Z. When the characters first meet Gohan, Bulma comments that he looks just like Goku.
• InBaccano!, both Elmer and Aging note that Luchino, while not quite the clone of Huey thatChane, Liza, and Charon are, still has a noticeable resemblance to him. This would not seem so ridiculous were Luchino notthree hundred years removed from the man in question (an absurdity lampshaded by Luchino himself), proving once and for all that Huey has the most stubborn genes in the world.
• InStitch!, Lilo's daughter looks exactly like her as a little girl, including the exact same clothes.

Comic Books

• Inverted:Spider-Man and his clone Ben Reilly pretended to be cousins with an uncanny resemblance. Peter's wife Mary Jane came up with the explanation for their resemblance, specifically referring toThe Patty Duke Show.
• Played with inThe Sandman: Robert Gadling covers up his immortality by exploiting this. Since he doesn't age, he canpretend to be his own grandson or nephew and leave his property to himself.
  • He actually mentions that this has gotten more difficult since the invention of photography. He has to conceal old family photographs to make sure nobody notices that he looks EXACTLY like his uncle or grandfather did fifty years ago.
• Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Batman lore are identical cousins.
• Zippy the Pinhead, his wife Zerbina, kids,Evil Twin Lippy, and other members of his extended family are all microcephalics who wear muu-muus.
• Denise the Menace andDennis the Menace in the BritshAnthology ComicThe Beano
• There was aSuperman-related mini-series in the 90s calledThe Kents, which examined the lives of the ancestors of the Kent family. One story showed how one of Jonathan Kent's ancestors, Abraham Kent, was a pioneer who was largely responsible for turning the state of Kansas into the breadbasket it is today. A fine story, but the artist bizarrely chose to make Abraham Kent be a dead ringer for Superman, even though Superman has no blood relation to the Kent family (or any human being) whatsoever. Being, you know, analien and all.
• Goofy has a huge extended family. Just about every single family member, maleand female, looks almost exactly like him, only with one or two minor visual details to set them apart.

Film

• One of the greatest and most successful examples of this trope is the black and white comedy filmKind Hearts and Coronets Alec Guiness plays all 8 members of the D'Ascoyne family.
• The Eddie Murphy remake ofThe Nutty Professor, where Murphy playsevery member of the title character's family. Though at least in this case he's wearing fat suits to disguise pretty much all his features for the different roles.
  • This aspect of the movie has become the default parody for cheesy comedians who specialise in broad humour. In30 Rock, Tracy Jordan is the star ofThe Chunks, andTropic Thunder features afake trailer forThe Fatties 2, starring Jack Black's character.
• In theBack to The FutureMovies, Michael J. Fox played not only hero Marty McFly, but Marty's two future children (Marty Jr. and Marlene), and his great-great-grandfather Seamus from Ireland. He also posed as Marty's great-grandfather William in a photograph. And Lea Thompson played both his mother and hispaternal great-great-grandmother. The producers have since joked that McFly men are just genetically predisposed to be attracted to women who look like Lea Thompson.
  • Biff Tannen's ancestor from the 1885 portion of the third film, Buford Tannen, was played by the same actor as he. This is takenUp to Eleven in the animated series, whereevery time they visit has an identical ancestor or descendant of Biff, always voiced by the same guy (who also played Biff and Buford in the movies.)
• Strange Brew briefly does this half-way through the movie. Dave Thomas didn't just play Doug, but his father (withMel Blanc dubbing over his voice), andRick Moranis didn't just play Bob, but hismother (with a woman dubbing over his voice)!
• A variation appears inThe Mouse That Roared. In the opening sequence, we're introduced to the Grand Duchess, Prime Minister, and Tully Bascombe, all played by Peter Sellers. The narration explains that these disparate residents of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick look like each other because they are all descendants of the country's founder, who wasliterally the father of his country (the statue we see of him is clearly a likeness of Sellers).
• The Prisoner of Zenda.^[context?]
• In the sex comedyLive Nude Shakespeare, the same actress plays two identical sisters, one a sophisticated socialite, the other a backwoods bumpkin.
• After playing Dante Hicks inClerks, Brian O'Halloran also played characters with the surname Hicks inMallrats andDogma. It's not explicitly stated that they're related, though, so theContinuity Nod might just be a way toHand Wave the uncanny resemblance.
  • Word of God says they're cousins.
• In most ofTyler Perry's movies, Perry dresses in drag to play Madea, Madea's brother (not in drag but with a lot of makeup and a wig) and another character (no makeup), who is usually related to Madea.
• Rupert Everett as Carnaby Fritton and his sister Camilla, in the recentreboot of theSt Trinian's movie series.
• Tia and Tamera Mowry as Sydney Donovan and Sydney's grandmother de-aged to seventeen in the Disney Channel movie17 Again.
• Jim Dale as Eli, Wild Billy,and Jasper Bloodshy inHot Lead and Cold Feet.
• Adam Sandler plays both Jack and his twin sister Jill inJack And Jill.

Literature

• In the fifth book inL. M. Montgomery'sAnne of Green Gables series,Anne's House of Dreams, a woman who hates her husband is left caring for him for years after he suffers brain damage.Later he has an operation and recovers his memory--and turns out not to be her husband at all but her husband's cousin. The book explains that the cousins were double cousins, and one set of parents (either their mothers or fathers) were actually identical twins. The cousins looked very much alike, but were easy to tell apart if they were seen together. The wife had never met the cousin, however, and had only heard her husband mention him once. The book also admits that he had changed a lot after his accident and didn't look much like either he or his cousin used to.
• InThe Prisoner of Zenda, one of the kings ofRuritania has an affair with an English noblewoman, who bears his child. Several generations later, one of that child's descendants bears an uncanny resemblance to the current King of Ruritania, leading to anEmergency Impersonation.
  • In the 1979 comic film version withPeter Sellers, he plays King Rudolf IV in the opening sequence; once that character dies, he plays both Rudolf V and Syd, the working-class chap who bears the uncanny resemblance. It is implied that Syd was the result of an affair Rudolf IV had.
• InThe Secret History, narrator Richard Papen is in love with Camilla, one half of a fraternal pair of twins. She and her twin, Charles, look virtually identical ... and when Richard finds out they'rea little too close, he's titillated by the thought. Eew.
• The post-finaleStar Trek Deep Space Nine Relaunch novels reveal that Gul Macet, played by Marc Alaimo inStar Trek: The Next Generation, is a cousin of Alaimo'sDeep Space Nine character Gul Dukat.
• Discworld:
  • InMort, Princess Keli closely resembles her great-great-grandfather, despite being a pampered princess rather than a yurt-dwelling horse barbarian.
  • InThe Last Hero, Paul Kidby's painting of High Priest Hughnon Ridcully is basically Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully with a better-trimmed beard and abishop's hat.
    • Possibly justified, as their mannerisms and attitudes are so clearly parallel that there's a good chance they really are identical twins.
• InSharper Than A Serpent's Tooth, John Taylor resembles his older male relatives, so much so thatJohn's late father, resurrected to meet his grown son for the first time, points out John's resemblence tohis father.
• InThe Hound of the Baskervilles, the late Sir Charles' wayward brother is said to have resembled a family portrait of Lord Hugo, a distant ancestor, to an uncanny degree.Could be considered aChekhov's Gun, as the brother's secret son is the villain of the story, and both shared Lord Hugo's inclination toward evil.
• Harry and James Potter of theHarry Potter series.
  • And Harry is rather disturbed when he learns that the resemblance was purely physical, as James was aJerk Jock, more like Malfoy than Harry, despite being on the good side.
• In theHonor Harrington books, Michael Oversteegen greatly resembles his relative, the infamous Baron High Ridge. Their personalities could not be more different, though.
• Emmanuel fromMalevil describes his Uncle Samuel, noting that in doing so he also describes himself.
• In theGhosts ofFear Street bookHorror Hotel Part 1, the protagonist discovers that he looks almost identical to a distant relative who's been dead for years. This is bad news, because it turns out that relative was a murderer and his victim's ghostis out for revenge.
• An Uncanny Semi-Family Resemblance: The ancient Greek storyAethiopica, King Hydaspes and Queen Persinna of Ethiopia cast out their infant daughter Chariclea because she iswhite. After many adventures, it is revealed that she is, in fact, the perfect image of a picture of Andromeda that her mother had looked at while she conceived, and so Chariclea really is their daughter with "maternal impression" explaining her looks.
• InJeeves and Wooster, Honoria Glossop's cousin Heloise Pringle not only looks exactly like her but has the same exact personality, to the point where Bertie is severely creeped out.
• InGene Stratton Porter'sFreckles, he and his uncle resemble each other strongly.

The likeness settled any doubt. It was Freckles over again, only older and well dressed.

• InThe Woman in White, Laura and Anne, who resemble each other strongly,turn out to be half-sisters.

Live-Action TV

• The Patty Duke Show: Patty Duke has an identical cousin. Supposedly, their fathers were twin brothers.
  • Frequently spoofed.Full House occasionally subverted this by having one of the Olsen twins play Michelle and the other play a cousin from Greece.
  • Similarly, during the mid-1980s,Kids Incorporated had Renee Sands play hercharacter of the same name as well as British cousin Samantha on a couple of episodes.
• Larry "Grand-Ma-Ma" Johnson, in commercials and inFamily Matters.
  • Also inFamily Matters, Jaleel White playing Steve Urkel, and his cousin Myrtle.
• OnM*A*S*H, Gary Burghoff once played Radar's mother in a home movie.
• Ally Larter onHeroes played Nikki Sanders, a hero with super strength and multiple personalities. AfterNikki was killed in season two, Larter went on to playTracy Strauss, who had the ability to freeze objects and who was apparently Nikki's twin sister. There was supposedly a third "twin", Barbara, but she has not been seen and it is unsure whether she has powers.
• Blackadder: Each of the four series featured a member of the Blackadder family in a different historical era, all played by Rowan Atkinson. Baldrick, Melchett and George were given the same treatment. Specifically, Edmund Blackadder's Scottish cousin MacAdder appeared in the episode "Duel and Duality".
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: The half-Romulan Sela is the daughter of Tasha Yar, and an excuse to give Denise Crosby another role in the show.
  • Also Brent Spiner playing Data, Lore, B4,and Dr. Soong. Justified in that the first three are androids, and Soong was their creator.
    • Spiner came back onEnterprise and played, yes, Dr. Soong's grandfather.
  • Picard's nephew is identical to him as a child, obviously because they're both played by the same actor. This gets funnier when Picard says that his nephew looks exactly like his brother as a child, which would seem to indicate that Jean-Luc and Robert were identical non-twin brothers.
    • A more cynical viewer might start wondering just how close Jean-Luc and his sister-in-law were around the crucial time.
• InThe Beverly Hillbillies, cast regular Max Baer Jr. would occasionally show up as Jethro Bodine's female cousin Jethrine (voiced by Linda Henning).
  • Dietrich Bader did the same as Jethro and Jethrene in the 1993 movie.
• In theDiagnosis: Murder episode "Inheritance of Death",Dick Van Dyke played most (if not all) of the elderly members of the Nash family.
• Freema Agyeman had a minor role as Adeola in the series 2 finale ofDoctor Who; when she was subsequently cast as the Doctor's new companion, Martha, a line of dialogue referenced her cousin Adeola.
• Elizabeth Montgomery as witchy cousins Samantha and Serena onBewitched.
• Actress Andrea Parker onThe Pretender played both Miss Parker in real-time and her mother Catherine Parker in flashbacks.
• InThe Man from U.N.C.L.E. first season episode "The Bow-Wow Affair", series regular Leo G. Carroll played both his regular role as U.N.C.L.E. chief Alexander Waverly, and a one-time role as Waverly's cousin, Quentin Lester Baldwin.
• Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant comment upon this trope in behind-the-scenes material forExtras, musing on introducing a sister for Gervais' character in the show's sitcom-within-the-sitcom—played by Gervais, with the only difference being an alternate pair of glasses. Indeed, the sister appeared in this manner in theExtras Christmas Special.
• Jeannie and Sister Jeannie onI Dream of Jeannie in what was essentially a straight-up lift of Samantha and Serena inBewitched.
  • Since they are sisters and probably twins, the resemblance is not so uncanny.
• InThe Persuaders episode "A Death in the Family", Roger Moore plays three members of his usual characters family including a woman. This is Lampshaded at the end when his co-star Tony Curtis' aunt arrives played by...Tony Curtis.
• The short-lived 1960s sitcomeThe Second Hundred Years featured Monte Markham as both a modern day urbanite and his crotchety old grandfather, an Alaskan gold miner who had been trapped in the ice for 67 years, and recently thawed.
• All My Children's Lily and Ava, identicalhalf-sisters.
• In'Allo 'Allo!, Rene is supposed to be shot dead by the Germans but manages to wrangle his way out of it. The explanation? He spends the rest of the series posing as his identical twin brother, also called Rene. Of course half the cast know the truth but they never let slip to the other half.
• InBlake's 7 Tarrant is revealed to have a brother who looked exactly like him for no apparently reason andis killed off in the episode he is introduced in without even meeting Tarrant despite having been separated for years.
• InTwin Peaks Laura Palmer and her dark-haired cousin Madeline (a nod toVertigo) are both played by Sheryl Lee.
• On an episode ofSesame Street, in a flashback, Gordon's father recalls how when he was young he was a singer who greatly resembled his grandson, Miles, despite the fact that Miles is ADOPTED.
• In a few live-action segments ofThe Super Mario Bros Super Show, Mario and Luigi were visited by many relatives who all looked like them (for example, their mother was obviously Mario's actor in drag).
• OnKyle XY, Kyle is identical to his father Adam and Jessi is identical to her mother Sara, and well-cast adult actors were given to justify this. Both characters could haveeasily been clones, given the circumstances of their gestations, but each was later given the other biological parent.
• The Mayor fromBuffy the Vampire Slayer exploits this trope the same way as Robert Gadling above. Oddly it seems that he's pretty much always been Mayor and no one ever caught on.
  • Well, demon sacrifices aside, heis a really good Mayor...
• InQuantum Leap, Scott Bakula plays his character's own father (albeit in makeup) in the episode "The Leap Home".
  • In the pilot episode, another actor played his father at a younger age, while a different young actor played Sam, with Scott Bakula's voice dubbed in whenever he spoke.
  • Bakula also played his father in one scene in the episode "Promised Land" when Sam Leaped into someone else in his hometown.
• Married... with Children: MarcyRhoades D'Arcy's cousin, Mandy. Ed O'Neill also played Al Bundy's father in a couple of dream sequences.
• The villain in "Reign of Terror", an episode ofThe Time Tunnel set in theFrench Revolution, is played by Whit Bissel, a series regular as General Kirk, the military head of the Time Tunnel project. Kirk is confused as his family is from Scotland, but eventually discovers there was a previously unknown French branch.
• A Different World: Jasmine Guy playing Whitley Gilbert and Whitley's cousin Lisa.
• In theDad's Army episode "My Brother And I", Captain Mainwaring's degenerate drunken brother Barry, also played by Arthur Lowe, makes an appearance.
• InThe Brady Bunch episode "Sergeant Emma", Alice goes out of town for a week and has her identical cousin Emma come to fill in for her. Emma is a retired Womens Army Corp sergeant who proceeds to run the Brady household like an Army barracks.Hilarity Ensues.
  • The episode "You're Never Too Old" has Robert Reed and Florence Henderson as Mike and Carol's respective grandparents.
• In one episode ofThat's So Raven, Raven-Symone played about 3 or 4 roles(including her uncle, her grandma, and her baby cousin.)
• Thrice onHannah Montana. Miley Cyrus playsMiley Stewart and her visiting cousin Luann Stewart. At the same time, Billy Ray Cyrus plays both girls' fathers, Robbie Ray and Bobby Ray. In another episode, Moises Arias plays both Rico and Rico's rival Australian cousin, Angus.
• Good Luck Charlie: A video of Bob from his high school basketball days shows that he lookedexactly like his son P.J. does today, only withlonger hair.
• The Steve Harvey Show: Cedric the Entertainer plays Coach Cedric Robinson and Grandma Pudding
• OnHaven, Audrey looks eerily like her mom Lucy who was in the town in the 80s. Given recent revelations, there may be a reason for that.Audreyis Lucy. She is apparently immortal and has amnesia.
• When Earl's sister, Pearl, visited onDinosaurs, it was played by the same full sized puppet only dressed as a girl. No one really saw the resemblance.
• Martin Lawrence inMartin playing his mother. And although not related, Martin looked a lot like his neighbor Shenaenae, Gina's brat neighbor Roscoe, Gina's coworker Bob from Accounting, Otis, Dragonfly Jones, Jerome, and Elroy.
• InAre You Being Served, John Inman, who regularly played Mr. Humphries, also portrayed his mother in a film.
• Played straight onHercules: The Legendary Journeys, where Iolaus had a look-alike cousin in two episodes. Inverted, however, with Kevin Todd Smith playing both Iphicles and Ares. Both are half-brothers to Hercules, but they aren't related to each other.
  • Jodie Rimmer played Lilith onYoung Hercules and daughter Seska onHercules.Lampshaded by Seska referring to her mother as a "wild one" back in the day.
• Invoked inCommunity episodeBasic Genealogy:

Annie:[about Abed's female cousin] "Does she look like you but with a wig and lipstick?" Abed: "No that'sHalle Berry."

• OnThe X-Files, the younger CGB Spender is played by the same actor who plays his son, Jeffery Spender. CDB Spender is alsoMulder's biological father, and oddly, the two could plausibly pass for father and son.
• Crash McLarson and his mother fromThe Aquabats! Super Show! are played by the same actor.
• Lisa Kudrow played Phoebe Buffay inFriends and her twin sister Ursula inMad About You.
• In the Japanese tokusatsu seriesSazer X, a flashback scene depicts the main character's grandfather as a young man. In flashback, the younger version of grandpa is played by the same actor who plays the main character.
• InMurder, She Wrote, Jessica has a British cousin named Emma who looks just like her, also played by Angela Lansbury. In the episode "Runs in the Family", only Emma is featured, with Jessica not appearing at all, and Emma proves to be a rather good sleuth herself.

Newspaper Comics

• In the comic stripBlondie, Dagwood and his son Alexander look very much alike, as do Blondie and daughter Cookie.
• InPeanuts Linus and his little brother Rerun look almost exactly the same. The only way they can be told apart is height, hair (Rerun's is a bit flatter) or outfit (Linus wears red and black stripes while Rerun wears overalls).

Puppet Shows

• Elmo fromSesame Street has various cousins who've appeared on occasion, who are all based on the Elmo puppet with different accessories.
  • Da Niao onZhima Jie (JapaneseSesame Street) is Big Bird's identical cousin. Other characters in internationalSesame Street productions have been identical to American characters or said to be their relatives, but not both at the same time.
• Similarly Emily "Ma" Bear inThe Muppet Show,A Muppet Family Christmas and (as Mrs Fozziewig)A Muppet Christmas Carol is identical to her son Fozzie except fora dress,grey hair and glasses.

Theatre

• Older Than Steam: Viola passing for hertwinbrother Sebastian inShakespeare'sTwelfth Night.
• There have been productions ofSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in which the same person who plays Johanna also plays her mother Lucy in the flashbacks.
• In the stage version ofThe Rocky Horror Show, Eddie and Dr. Scott (who are nephew and uncle, respectively) are usually played by the same actor.
• In Book-It Repertory Theatre's play ofSense and Sensibility, (non-twin) brothers Edward and Robert Ferrars were played by the same actor.
• In the playI HateShakespeare!, the skit based onHamlet contains these lines (along with a suggestion that the characters in question be played by the same actor):

Hamlet: Ophelia! You're not dead! Laertes: It is I, Laertes, son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia, so I can see where you would make that mistake.

Video Games

• In the video gameDay of the Tentacle, you travel into the future and meet people who look suspiciously like Nurse Edna, Doctor Fred and Weird Ed, but they call themselves "Nurse Zedna," "Doctor Zed" and "Weird Zed." They're the descendants of the originalManiac Mansion characters.
• In what is part this trope and partStrong Family Resemblance, inBack to the Future: The Game, Marty runs into his grandfather, Artie McFly, who looks and sounds just like George McFly (both being based on Crispin Glover's performance in the film). Artie's father, William, is once again played by Michael J. Fox, who had previously portrayed him in a photo shown in the third film (even though Marty himself is actually voiced by AJ LoCascio). This leads one to believe that if the pattern continues, since Marty's son will end up looking like Michael J. Fox, his grandson and great-grandson will look like Crispin Glover, and so on. Also, Kid Tannen is basically just Biff with a moustache and zoot suit.
• InSuikoden V, Dragon Cavalry commander Rahal and hisCloudcuckoolander sister Rania look virtually identical, to the point that they'd fall underHalf-Identical Twins if not for Rania being a year older. Not immediately obvious for most of the game, due to Rahal wearing battle armor and Rania being in civilian dress, but when the plot calls for Rahal todress as a woman theonly visible difference from his sister is that she wears glasses and he doesn't. Apparently they have a history of exploiting this for pranks.

Web Comics

• InEndstone, Jon comments onhow uncanny it is, the way his daughter resembles his mother.
• In the sprite comic194X,Kalinka andRan strongly resemble their WWII-era ancestors. It's hard to decide whether the fact that Ran is arobot makes this better or worse.

Web Original

• Subverted inLe Visiteur Du Futur: Raph tries to prevent the ancestor of the Visitor from meeting the mother of his future child.After revealing that he is the Visitor posing as his ancestor, he tells Raph: "You thought my ancestor had the same face as me? That's completely dumb."

Western Animation

• Played for Drama withTy Lee fromAvatar: The Last Airbender. She hassix sisters who look identical to her, and she ran away from hometo avoid becoming part of a "matching set".
• Played with onThe Simpsons. As noted in the DVD commentaries, many children characters wound up greatly resembling their parents. The most noteworthy example is Milhouse, who looks very much like both parents, who in turn look very much like each other. On the other hand, Ralph Wiggum differs in appearance from Chief Wiggum (oweing to the fact that their relationship came years after they were created). The main family characters (Lisa and Maggie aside) also greatly difference in appearance from each other, but Marge's mother looks like an older version of her. Grampa could also be taken as an older version of Homer, though flashbacks show he wasn't a look-alike.
  • The Van Houtens' looks wereLampshaded at one point when the Simpsons asked ifthey were long-lost siblings.
• AnAlternate Timeline ofBen 10 had the main character fully grown in a now futurized Earth having a son named Kenny, who looks like a carbon copy of his 10 year old self. In addition, Ben'sEvil Counterpart also has a son named Devlin Levin who looks like his younger self before the mutations with no mention as to whom he conceived him from.
• OnAll Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series, we're introduced toAnnabelle's evil cousinBelladonna, who may as well be Annabelle'sEvil Twin—they look exactly alike, with the only real difference being the color of their fur (and the fact that Belladonna has bat wings, due to being a devil).
• Back to the Future: The Animated Series took this to ridiculous levels by having a Tannen in every timeline they go to, no matter what country. TakenUp to Eleven when they even encounter a T-rex Tannen in a timeline where the dinosaurs weren't wiped out.
• InSouth Park, most of Cartman's relatives look a lot like him. The one slim person in his extended family isa young girl who resembles Liane.
• Chum Chum's cousinMuhc Muhc inFanboy and Chum Chum.
• InScooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster, Daphne's Scottish cousin Shannon looks just like her, only with short hair and a tartan skirt, and is voiced by the same actress doing a Scottish accent.

Other Media

• A commonFanfic trope in crossovers is to have a two different characters indifferent continuities played by the same actors "turn out" to be related to each other. There is one whereJames Bond (Connery version) is the illegitimate son ofHenry Jones Jr. and thus the grandson of Henry Jones Sr... who was played by Sean Connery.
  • There is also one used in fan fiction with MacGyver (ofMacGyver) and Colonel Jack O'Neill (ofStargate SG-1), both played by Richard Dean Anderson, being cousins.
    • Suggesting, of course, that both are descended fromdime novelist Ernest Pratt.
• InBig Finish'sDoctor Who audio dramas, India Fisher plays Eighth and Sixth Doctor companion Charley Pollard. Fisher also voiced Charley's sister Cissy in theGallifrey spin-off series.
• In the Bouguereau painting "Charity", it is not possible to tell which baby is Yeshua and which one is Yochanan, since he painted them to look identical, even though they are cousins and 6 months apart. In most other paintings of them, he not only makes the age difference apparent, but has them wear different colored clothing and have different colored hair.

Real Life

• Henry Fonda and daughter Jane.
• EnglishChess players James M. and Chantelle Foster look very similar to each other and to both parents.
• Bela Lugosi Jr. It's easy to see the family resemblance in the son of the Hollywood legend.
• Although they were only cousins, King George V of England and the Czar Nicolas II looked like twins.See for yourself. George has blue eyes but that probably won't be much help.
  • And George's grandson Prince Michael of Kent, who's still around today, has the same uncanny resemblance to the Tsar, to the extent that he's very popular among royalists in Russia. It helps that he grew the Russian-style beard to hide a scar.
• Actors Alan Hale (Senior) and Alan Hale (Junior). One played Little John inThe Adventures of Robin Hood, the other is famed as the Skipper onGilligan's Island. Without looking at the date of their films there is no way to tell them apart.
• Back inThe Nineties, arunning joke was that the public appearances ofMichael Jackson were actually his sister LaToya Jackson.
• Outside of their trademark costumes,Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo Marx bore an incredible resemblance to each other. They would even occasionally play each other's parts in their stage shows with no one the wiser.
• An old story goes that when a Roman emperor was touring their conquered area in Jerusalem his guards noticed a local man who bore a striking resemblance to the emperor. As a joke they brought them together. The emperor thought this was funny and asked the man "Has your mother ever been to Rome?" The man replied "No, but my father has." The story ends there, sparing us a likely gruesome ending.

• Trope
• Pages with Examples Needing Context
• Uncanny Family Resemblance
• Characters and Casting
• Acting for Two