http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PropRecycling

This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

Advertisement:

The Hollywood version of "Waste Not, Want Not". When elaborate sets, costumes or props are made for one production, they may turn up again and again in other productions that may need elaborate props but don't have the budget to design and build their own.

The prop may be altered slightly by repainting it or adding or removing widgets but it usually remains recognizable, especially if the original production was well known. While an understandable cost-saving measure, there's something about the practice that just screams "low budget".

Can overlap with Whole Costume Reference if the costume is recycled from an earlier work. If it's a real item, then it's Off-the-Shelf FX. If it's everything in the room, it's a Recycled Set. For when video games reuse "models" of the polygonal kind in the same work, see You ALL Look Familiar and New Work, Recycled Graphics. Compare Stock Footage, Palette Swap and California Doubling.

Advertisement:

This is utterly ubiquitous in live theatre, so a section for this would be hopelessly long, and utterly pointless. Just take it as a given that live theatre companies save and re-use everything.

Examples:

open/close all folders

Advertising

The Batman OnStar Commercials reused the same Batmobile from Batman (1989) and Batman Returns, as well as a repainted version of the main Batsuit from Batman & Robin.

For additional set dressage, Dodgey Donut (his action figure exclusive variant) and Greaseburger from The Grossery Gang were placed in the background of the first Flush Force commercial. This is besides the fact the toylines are from two entirely different companies and the two Grossery Gang figures were featured with multiple Flushies, making their appearance practically unneeded.

Fan Works

Advertisement:

Films — Animation

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Referenced in The Art of Discworld, in Terry Pratchett's comments on what inspired Überwald. Remarking on the influence of Hammer Horror on this region of the Disc, he recalls how a very large, distinctively-ornate candlestick appeared in every single movie.

Live-Action TV

Music Videos

Pinballs

Pro Wrestling

Averted in the case of the WWF Hardcore Title. For years, many fans believed that the title was the same broken title belt smashed by Mr. Perfect on an episode of "Saturday Night's Main Event". WWE has confirmed that this is not the case.

Puppet Shows

On Sesame Street, the train prop used in "The Ballad of Casey McPhee" would be re-used in the "Beat the Time" skit with Cookie Monster. Sesame Street and it's international co-productions often recycle puppets from each other. For example: Birdie from Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce is just Arthur from the short-lived Japanese co-production with no changes whatsoever, Preston Rabbit's original puppet was reused for various one-shot characters in Sesamstrasse, and Mama Bird from Sesame Street Episode 4401 was originally Claribelle of Sesame Tree.

Of course, with puppets, producers are not just restricted to recycling things. They can recycle characters — a quick dye job, switch out the eyes, put the head onto a differently-dressed body, and voila, a new hero/villain/bystander. Gerry Anderson's series are well-known for this, particularly for the Stingray episode in which the hero of the previous GA series, Steve Zodiac of Fireball XL5 fame, is re-used with dark hair as, of all things, an actor! Where this can be a problem is when the puppets' features change over time. Zodiac, for instance, had a rather large head and cruder facial features than the Stingray puppets. Once Anderson moved to proportionally-sized heads for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons et seq., he couldn't use the older puppets any more, but did use the Scarlet puppets in subsequent series.

Achmed the Dead Terrorist from the routines of Jeff Dunham has a very interesting pair of eyes. They're interesting because they're spare eyes from Mars Attacks!.

The Muppets regularly reuse puppets from earlier productions in newer ones, sometimes as background cast and sometimes as new characters. Justified on The Muppet Show as (in-universe) all the characters are actors.

Les Guignols de l'Info The French and Spanish versions shared puppets, and the puppets of people who are famous in one country are sometimes recycled as average, non-famous citizens in the other. This can be bizarre if you watch either version while being familiar with the other, because the host puppet (PPD in Les Guignols, Hilario Pino ◊ in Los Guiñoles) is particularly prone to this. Les Guignols de l'info also sometimes used puppets from Les Minikeums as young extras or incidental characters, as the shows shared a workshop and some puppeteers.



Theme Parks

Toys

Video Games

Web Animation

Homestar Runner is a Flash series mainly animated through the use of flat "objects" that are manipulated much like paper cutouts, so this crops up fairly often. The Gremlin, for example, started out as part of a story Bubs was telling on Halloween, but later became part of the actual Homestar Runner universe when the script called for a car. Their sister Karen joked about it in the commentary for one cartoon: "These guys are so lazy, they're pulling stuff out of the hat that they used five years ago."

This is common in Go Animate because of obvious limitations. For example, headbands are often used to make letters such as the hat "M" for Mario and the "A" on Alvin's shirt, along with forming Dora's backpack (it's very obvious if she bends slightly and no actual bag structure exists). Dinner plate covers with crude lines or screamer masks are used to become electrode "hats" for execution, and black/grey boxes are restructured into restraining duct tape. Simple shapes such as circles and squares are re-formed by some video makers to become crude body forms. It is also common to use FedEx boxes to represent VHS or DVD cases, as well as bibles as homework or reading material. A trend to make the grounded characters more accurate to their actual versions, started by Alan the Video Maker, uses this in spades; While roses are now used to recreate the ruffles on Doris' shirt, chef hats are used to recreate long sleeves, and headbands (and MS Paint sketching) are now used to make the hair of Mami (and Dora). However, problems ensue as these props do not have a structure, causing them to go out of place when the character is moving.



Webcomics

Happens in-universe in Darths & Droids. Pete spends most of the Episode IV campaign wondering where his space dreadnought went. Upon reaching Mos Eisley, he's horrified to discover that the GM took apart the dreadnought model and incorporated those parts into the city model.

Web Videos

Western Animation