Hugh Mann: Difference between revisions

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'''Zapp''': You're damn right there is! That strapping young lad's gunning for your job. And he just might get it.|''[[Futurama]]''}}
 
Someone has gotten [[Cloning Blues|duplicated]]/[[Demonic Possession|taken over]]/[[Humanity Ensues|impersonated]] by something not human, and the duplicate is trying to pass as a main character. But they do a [[Glamour Failure|terrible job of it]]; [[Uncanny Valley|acting in an erratic manner]], forgetting names, walking stiffly, and [[Creepy Monotone|talking in an odd dialect]]. They might as well call themselves "Hugh Mann" and [[Most Definitely Not a Villain|walk around with a name-tag reading "I'm Most Definitely Not A Space Alien"]] - it would make for about as convincing a disguise.
 
Luckily for them, [[Weirdness Censor|nobody notices]] at all. Or at least [[Cassandra Truth|nobody anyone will listen to.]] Sometimes, it helps that the character that's being impersonated normally acts this way.
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* Edgar, in the first ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'' movie.
** [[In-Universe]], Dennis Rodman is this. "It's not much of a disguise". And according to the sequel, [[Michael Jackson]].
* In ''[[The Human Duplicators]]'', a detective gets duplicated (Surprise!) and the duplicate reports back to the original's superiors to throw them off the case. Despite his random pauses and stiff movement, they don't suspect a thing.
* Absolutely ruthlessly parodied in ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]'' where the aliens can tell that the ancient fishman is not one of them (although they believe him to merely be a defective clone) but cannot identify a one-eyed slime monster or a six foot cockroach as not being one of them. The disguise that leads them to believe that they are mere clones? Simply their ill-fitting uniforms.
* In ''[[It Came from Outer Space]]'', altruistic aliens that accidentally crashed on Earth entrust a local science-fiction writer with holding off local scrutiny while they temporarily hold a number of local townspeople hostage and imitate their bodies to be able to move about freely in town so they can get their ship fixed. Needless to say, they all talk in straight-faced monotone and walk rather awkwardly.
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* In the comedy soap opera ''[[Soap]]'', Burt was replaced by a look-alike alien Burt. Though alien Burt acted very oddly and was sex-crazed, only his wife Mary was really concerned, because the real Burt was pretty odd himself.
* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', Buffy's close friends took the Buffy-bot for the real thing, chalking its odd behavior up to the fact that she had recently lost her mother. Buffy was nevertheless entirely unimpressed with her friends after this was discovered, probably because the robot was ''still'' practically wearing a t-shirt reading "Hello, I am a Robotic Impersonator" the entire episode.
** Anya seemed to like the robot better than the regular Buffy, particularly after its greeting of, "Hello, Anya. How is your money?" Anya replies with a happy, "Fine! Thank you!" apparently glad that someone now cares about the money as much as she does.
** We also have all of the demons at Xander and Anya's wedding, and Clem at Buffy's birthday party.
*** And Anya herself, when she's trying to keep the Watcher's Council from finding out she's an ex-demon:
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== Music ==
* The Duras Sisters eponymous track on "Masquerading as Human" describes ''something'' that's doing just that, and finding just how easy it is to do so, even when they do things like order steak with marmalade and have a deadbolt on their closet door.
* Likewise, filker Karen Lindsey and her song "Nobody Knows I'm Really an Alien." The marooned alien cook is having a great time of it on Earth. He lives in a hippie commune (where the residents have had so many drugs they don't notice), goes to sci-fi conventions (where his looks are mistaken for a great costume), and even gets bit parts in Hollywood films (where again, no one seems to notice). It's only when he goes on a talk show to "set the record straight" that the MiB patrol shows up to cart him off.
 
 
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== Video Games ==
* If you hide for some period in ''[[Halo]]'', Grunts may occasionally respond with: "It's okay to come out now, this is Sergeant... Smitherson! Yeah..." Occasionally they'll play it straighter and reply as "Sergeant Humanoid."
* In ''[[Mechquest]]'', you'll encounter an alien NPC named ''Hugh Munn''. [[Puppeteer Parasite|Hugh]] did play his role as a human rather well- if not for those tacky implants on his head ''and'' blue skin...
* In ''[[Rift]]'', there are a group of...odd people that, should you greet them, will say things like: "Hello, fellow air-breather!" They also sell strange items.
* Inverted in ''[[Sam and Max Hit The Road]]''. At one point in the game, the eponymous duo put on a [[Paper-Thin Disguise|paper-thin Bigfoot disguise]] to sneak into a convention. Also subverted in that the bouncer makes it clear that he knows they're in disguise, and he's only letting them in because they did him a favor earlier. Played straight with the rest of the bigfoots, however, who don't see anything out of the ordinary, even when the [[It Makes Sense in Context|bigfoot's navel starts talking]].
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', the team sneaks aboard a Shinra ship disguised as Shinra soldiers. Red XIII, a red wolf-like creature, clearly has trouble standing on two legs, and doesn't bother to cover his tail. Naturally, their cover is not blown. (That said, no ''real'' Shinra soldiers are ever seen speaking to him, and given his familiarity with humans it's unlikely he'd say something ''too'' ridiculous even if they did.)
* One of the new classes in ''Super [[Monday Night Combat]]'' is Karl, a reconnaissance cyborg developed to infiltrate the society of the lawless Outlanders. Uniquely for this trope, Karl seems to completely buy into the idea that he is human. In-game, he'll often talk about getting goosebumps, needing a drink, or being due for a haircut. His bio mentions that he has an extreme hatred of robots and that his locker room outbursts are "just a little too perfect."
* In ''[[Lego Star Wars]]'', your characters can don Stormtrooper helmets to get into restricted areas. Chewbacca is so big that he can only wear his as a hat on top of his head. Not to mention he is seven feet tall and covered in fur. The disguise still works.
* ''[[AsheronsAsheron's Call]]'' bad guys the Virindi have a shaky grasp of human psychology, being an otherdimensional [[Hive Mind]] of energy beings - actually, they have a shaky grasp of the material world, period. Their best attempt at making human infiltrators, the Simulacra, finally got the physical part right, but they still address people they meet as "fellow human" and talk with unnatural [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]].
 
 
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* When Corlis (dragon) and Moppy (cat) from ''[[Dragon Tails]]'' attempt to board a plane with a [[Paper-Thin Disguise]], Corlis delivers "I am Bob Human, and this is my friend Bill Human. We are both human."
* Taken to its flimsiest extreme in [http://buttersafe.com/2010/07/22/the-essence-of-being-human/ this] ''[[Buttersafe]]'' strip.
* Warmech of ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]''. When he pretended to be a human, he wears a fake mustache which he grew on his human lip between acts of defecation. He actually fooled the other warriors with his disguise.
 
 
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{{quote|Oh, I see. Alright, I'll pay 100 geliga stones -- uh, I mean, hu-mon dollars! -- eugh, I mean dollars!}}
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'':
** In a Treehouse of Horror episode, where Kang and Kodos attempt to sabotage the 1996 American presidential election by assuming the identities of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. In one campaign speech, Kang (as Clinton) monotonously intones "I am Clin-Ton! As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me, and obey my brutal commands!" before crossing his arms over his chest and shouting "End communication!" His staffers attribute the behavior to an "over-tight necktie".
{{quote|'''Marge:''' That's slick Willy for you, always with the smooth talk.}}
** In another episode, Homer is kidnapped and replaced by a lookalike who speaks with a German accent, has no understanding of Homer's personality, and explains the sense that there's something different about him by stating "I am a new tie wearing." Subverted; Marge sees through it immediately, but she ''still'' decides to go along with it after he promises her sex.
* In one episode of ''[[The Flintstones]]'', The Great Gazoo creates a duplicate of Fred. The duplicate can only utter the words "Yes yes yes", separated by one second pauses. Despite this, absolutely no one notices the difference.
** There's a second episode in which aliens produce multiple Fred clones. They can say nothing more than "Yabba. Dabba. Doo." And almost no one notices.
* ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' had an interesting example in the episode ''Rookies''. Commando droids pretended to be clones, but tended to speak with sort of a stilted rhythm, gesticulated wildly...and ultimately gave themselves away with [[Catch Phrase|"Roger, roger."]]. Hilariously inverted when Captain Rex (in the same episode) re-takes the base by ENDING his sentences with "Roger, roger" and fooling the droids into thinking he's one of them. In addition, he was wearing his own custom armor, which the droids never seen to have noticed.
* Frequently used heroically by ''[[Scooby-Doo]]'', who seems to get away with impersonating the bad guys' own human and/or monstrously-disguised henchmen with ease, despite being 1) a terrible actor, 2) impaired by a speech impediment, and 3) a freakin' Great Dane.
* In ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'', a clone of Master Shake is created and sent by [[Harmless Villain|the Plutonians]] to impersonate him, but is horribly deformed, calls himself "Major Shake", and loves to give blood (whereas Master Shake thinks donating blood is part of a pyramid scheme run by Dracula and his night slaves). Frylock pretty much immediately figures out that "Major Shake" isn't really Shake, and hilarity ensues.
** The hilarious part is that "Major Shake" is a seemingly normal, decent, average person, whereas Master Shake is a sociopathic obnoxious [[Jerkass]]. Major Shake also looks like a slightly melted version of Master Shake, wearing red high heeled shoes, and with a [[Insistent Terminology|jambox]] melted into his side.
*** And he doesn't actually have any mission or agenda, and is rather confused about what the heck the Plutonians are hoping to accomplish.
* In an episode of ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'', Arthur was cloned by their alien neighbor. The clone was greenish and could only say "I Arthur", yet he fooled the Tick ([[The Ditz|not that it's very difficult with him]]). When he found both the original and the clone, he told them to say [[Something Only They Would Say|something only the REAL Arthur would know]]. Arthur delivered a lengthy anecdote about a personal incident they had once, which convinced the Tick... while the clone said "I Arthur", which ALSO convinced the Tick, since he couldn't find any fault in the statement.
* In the ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' episode "Imitation Krabs", Plankton tries to infiltrate the Krusty Krab inside a Mr. Krabs robot. The robot is clearly made of sheets of metal with visible rivets, runs on wheels, has a sputtering exhaust in the back, and talks in [[Robo Speak]], in Plankton's voice no less. SpongeBob, of course, is completely fooled. Squidward sees through the ruse immediately, but plays along after robot Krabs give him the day off.
* In the episode "Prime Problem" of the [[Transformers Generation 1|original Transformers cartoon]], Megatron creates a clone of Optimus Prime and operates it remotely. The Autobots can't tell the difference between the clone and the original, despite the fact that Megatron calls Ironhide "Bumblebee" and can't operate Teletran 1. Amongst the methods used to try to tell the two Optimus apart is a race. Yes, a race.
** To make the name mix-up even more ridiculous... Ironhide is one of the highest ranking officers. Bumblebee is not an officer and is a member of the Spec Ops team (either a spy or assassin, depending on source material). Any leader worth his salt should know his enemy's highest ranking officers, ''especially'' when he's been fighting them for millions of years!
** Another Transformers example, this time from ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. The supposed traitor Wasp traveled to Earth to get his revenge on Bumblebee, by swapping places with him. The team aren't suspicious at all when "Bumblebee" starts talking weird and has no idea what happened earlier in the show, despite the fact that they were trying to convince Sentinel that the real traitor was still on Cybertron! At least later in the show, "Wasp" is able to prove that he's the real Bumblebee by telling Bulkhead something that only the two of them know from their days in Autobot Boot Camp. And then Bulkhead convinces the rest of them to go with a test for which is the real Bumblebee: playing against each other on a video game. Justified in that Bumblebee is a video game junkie and quite good at it, and Wasp hasn't had the time to hone his skills at it.
* Zim from [[Invader Zim]] is... not a very convincing human, to say the least. Luckily, Earth is filled with morons/people who don't care who won't listen to [[Only Sane Man|Dib]].
** And Dib's sister, who is just [[Genre Savvy]] to see that Zim is far too incompetent to have much chance of success and so doesn't give a damn.
* Inverted on ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers|Galaxy Rangers]]'' where humans on Tortuna usually have to pass themselves off as some other alien species like Lumwumps or Zanguils. Justified in that any human caught on Tortuna gets sent to the Queen and their souls ripped out...