It is one of the themes that television films regularly exploited in the 1970s and 1980s. It continues to be a popular theme in the 1990s and 21st century with (for examples) it being employed as a plot device in Veronica Mars (the characters Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie and Madison Sinclair), in Neighbours (the characters Bree Timmins and Anne Baxter), Night and Day (the characters Jane Harper and Della Wells) and in The Young and the Restless (children of Lauren Fenmore Baldwin and Sheila Carter). A non-human example occurs in the Planet of the Apes franchise, when the son of intelligent apes Zira and Cornelius is swapped with a 20th-century circus ape's infant, in order to assure the survival of the offspring that can become sentient.
The theme of exchanging or replacing offspring is a recurring plot device in television films, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. This narrative technique persists in contemporary TV shows such as Veronica Mars, Neighbours, Night and Day, and The Young and the Restless.