I don’t know if you mean video-only, but both Jim Davis and Charles Schulz had much smaller-market strips before Peanuts and Garfield, and redrew strips/stories from their old series for their new ones. (I think I have seen examples from other artists, too).
(eta I remember that Pogo is another one that did that.)
The Bionic Woman had an episode “Mirror Image” where Jaime Sommers was replaced with a look-alike (also played by Lindsay Wagner) to infiltrate the OSI. The double is discovered and Jaime poses as her to get intel on the bad guys. The double escapes, there’s the standard “'I’m Jaime!” “No, I’m Jaime!”’ bit, ending with Jaime jumping fifteen feet in the air.
Another series produced by Harve Bennett around the same time, Gemini Man, recycled the same script practically word-for-word. A couple of differences: the hero’s gimmick was turning invisible, and instead of the double being a smoker as in Bionic Woman, in Gemini Man the double is a chronic gum-chewer.
I think every kids show my kids watched in the early 00s had an episode where a character is sad because none of his/her friends remember it’s their birthday. The episode climaxes with dejected character going home to walk into a surprise party held by all the seemingly oblivious friends.
I’ll allow it.
I remember Gemini Man - invisible for no more than an hour or he dies, right?
15 minutes per day. It had to do with the molecular integrity of his body – he was invisible all the time except when he wore a nuclear-powered wristwatch that functioned to stabilize his molecules. He could switch off the stabilizer (and thus become invisible) for 15 minutes max. After that, he would start to lose molecular cohesion.
Amazing how I can remember a forty-year-old TV show but not remember my wedding day all that well…
Isn’t every Hallmark Christmas movie the same script?
Not at all. Sometimes it’s the man with a kid and dead wife, sometimes it’s the woman with a kid and dead husband. No similarities at all.
Hallmark Christmas movie templates. No dead spouses, though.
An episode of Bionic Woman literally recycles a Six Million Dollar Man script
For example, the very first Pogo strips from the original paper and from syndication:
(The syndicated strip used the self-hating porcupine bit, too, just a couple of days later.)
From:
https://www.amazon.com/Pogo-Complete-Sunday-Strips-Through/dp/1560978694
‘One of the characters is thrown into the future and sees how everybody else falls apart without them’
Used in OTTOMH
the 90’s live action Flash
the Teen Titans cartoon
and
Darkwing Duck.
It’s hard to determine if this is just lazy writing or a homage but so many children’s shows have an episode where the kids play hooky from school to go do something else, but the entire time they keep encountering either their parents, their teachers, or family friends while they’re trying to enjoy themselves outside and have to wind up hiding the entire time.
Then when they get back home exhausted from all their running and hiding one of their classmates shows up and goes “Where were you today?! We had a surprise school fair and it was amazing!”
The original 1930s Little Rascals was where I first saw it, but I’ve seen it in children’s TV shows ever since with that exact same plot.
Fawlty Towers episode “The Anniversary” was a similar plot, though it was a Wedding Anniversary rather than a Birthday. And Basil manages to make it more complicated, and more funny.
Even into this century! The Middle did this plot.
Going back a bit here, but on Bonanza there was an episode called “The Unseen Wound” which was plot point by plot point the same as an episode of an earlier series, The Rebel.
The Rebel is memorable for me mostly because of a single line. Nick Adams’ character says in some situation “I will never support a man taking advantage of another man.” I choked and said aloud, “You fought to uphold slavery, you asshole!”
Two episodes of Gemini Man were re-edited into the “movie” Riding With Death, which became one of the funniest episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The two episodes were related only by the dubious distinction that they both featured singer-songwriter Jim Stafford as a guest star.
Many of the early Doonesbury strips were simply redrawn from Gary Trudeau’s days at Yale. I believe the biggest change was taking the Yale symbol off B.D.'s football helmet.
Yes, a few years ago it seemed like several ABC sitcoms had a Disneyland/Disney World episode. I definitely remember The Middle and Black-ish, and I’m sure there were others that I’m forgetting.
Full House had a Disney World episode that actually took advantage of the fact that one of the characters was Disney relevant (one of the girls boyfriends actually voiced Aladdin in the 90s movie), so she kept seeing him dressed up as Aladdin and doing the same voice around the park.
Going back a ways for these but the “Alias Smith and Jones” episode “Miracle at Santa Marta” and “Run for Your Life” episode “The Man who had no Enemies” had basically the samee plot. Both were written by Roy Huggins.