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Invisible Subtle Difference (view source)

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Most commonly seen with subtle color differences, but can be anything, even identical-seeming ''people''.
 
Generally [[Played for Laughs]]. Often appears with [[Limited Wardrobe]], [[Evil Twin]], [[Planet of Steves]], [[Those Two Guys]], and/or [[Only Sane Man]]. Compare and contrast [[Shell Game]], [[Spot the Imposter]], [[Needle in Aa Stack of Needles]], and [[I Am Spartacus]]. This may be used to indicate [[Hyper Awareness]], or as one of the components of a [[Sherlock Scan]].
 
{{examples|Examples}}
 
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[K-On!]]'', Sawako-sensei is able to tell that Ui is impersonating Yui because her breasts are ''slightly'' bigger.
* In ''[[Pokémon (Animeanime)|Pokémon]]'', each town has an Officer Jenny and a Nurse Joy, who all look identical—but Brock can tell them apart. Similarly, all [[Mon|monsmon]]s of the same variety look identical to the audience, but Pokemon trainers can distinguish ''their'' five magnamites, or whatever.
** In ''[[Pokémon Black and White (Video Game)|Pokémon Black and White]]'', a young woman with four Patrats is aware that she can distinguish them and the player can't—so she challenges the player to a [[Shell Game]] with them.
 
== [[Comedy]] ==
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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Juno]]'' uses the paint gag described under Comedy.
* ''[[Watchmen (Filmfilm)|Watchmen]]'': Ozymandias claims he can see subtle distinctions in Dr. Manhattan's face, showing his emotion, which to the average person are invisible. As he says this there's a shot of Dr. Manhattan's face, in which we see no emotion (but presumably Ozymandias can).
* ''[[Zoolander]]'' provides the page quote: after an ''entire movie'''s worth of people gushing about Derek Zoolander's variety of "looks," [[Villainous Breakdown|one of the villains can't take it any more]].
 
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Babylon Five5]]'': Nobody can tell the ten Zathras brothers apart, or hear the difference in their names, but the Zathrases themselves.
* ''[[Frasier]]'': Frasier offers Roz advice on what color to repaint her house. He looks at three tile samples and proclaims them subtly different shades of off-white. Then she flips them over and advises him to look at the ''colored'' side.
* ''[[Happy Days]]'': Ralph and Potsie are living downstairs from a pair of twins, Daisy and Masie. Ralph thinks they look exactly the same, but Potsie says Masie has whiter teeth.
* ''[[Home Improvement (TV series)|Home Improvement]]'': Tim and Jill are picking out bathroom tiles. Jill insists they're different colors, Tim sees them all as white. Al, however, agrees with Jill.
* ''[[Parks and Recreation]]'': Tom Haverford and Jean-Ralphio are picking out black memorial ribbons. Jerry thinks they're all the same, but Tom and Jean insist they are a variety of shades, such as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doI9mJaBvfE "Lost Soul" and Midnight Panther".]
* The ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Me<sup>2</sup>" has a scene where Rimmer is having a corridor repainted from "military grey" to "ocean grey". Lister can't tell the difference, and neither can the audience.
* There was a ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sketch about two Americans, Mike and Beverly, meeting a bizarre foreign couple (as in, an odd mishmash of Japanese and Scandinavian stereotypes), named Nooni and Nooni. Any time Mike said either name, Nooni or Nooni would immediately point out that he'd gotten them mixed up. Even though the only difference between the two names was which syllable was emphasized (and Nooni himself wasn't consistent on which name received which emphasis).
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Xkcd (Webcomic)|Xkcd]]'' [http://xkcd.com/915/ discusses it].
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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* ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'': The lemurs need to install a cooling device on the zoo's furnace before it explodes. The device has seven colored knobs; according to Kowalski, who is giving instructions by telephone, they are red, crimson, scarlet, brick, salmon, ruby and rose. The lemurs are only supposed to turn the scarlet knob, but to them (and to us) they just look the same shade of red.
* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "Oh, There You Are, Perry": Perry is forced to leave home by the agency. The boys, trying to find him, make a device that calls platypuses, and are immediately surrounded by dozens. The boys find a reason to believe none of them is Perry, even though to the viewer's eye they're exactly alike. All except for one:
{{quote| '''Phineas''': That's just a duck with a tail taped on!}}
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "Lisa the Iconoclast":
{{quote| '''Lisa:''' I'd like 25 copies on Goldenrod.<br />
'''Clerk:''' Right.<br />
'''Lisa:''' 25 on Canary.<br />
'''Clerk:''' Mmhmm.<br />
'''Lisa:''' 25 on Saffron.<br />
'''Clerk:''' All right.<br />
'''Lisa:''' And 25 on Paella.<br />
'''Clerk:''' Ok, 100 yellow. }}
* ''[[The Venture Brothers (Animation)|The Venture Brothers]]'': in the episode "Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman." Hank was indiscriminately interested in both of Dr. Quymn's semi-identical twin daughters, Nancy and Drew, even though he couldn't tell them apart. Dean could tell them apart, and tried to clue Hank in, but it didn't help.
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
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** Identical twins often adopt distinct hairstyles or wardrobes, to [[Defied Trope|prevent people from confusing them]].
* Some studies claim that women are, on average, better at distinguishing similar colors from each other than men are; this perhaps [[Justified Trope|justifies]] the paint gag described under Comedy.
* Some [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Audiophile |audiophiles]] insist that they can hear a difference between music reproduction techniques which, scientifically speaking, should produce exactly the same sound. [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|This has been known to cause flame wars.]]
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
[[Category:Invisible Subtle Difference{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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