Mistaken for An Impostor: Difference between revisions

* It can be used as a misdirection technique by [[The Men in Black]] , the [[Chessmaster]], the [[Devil in Plain Sight]] or a [[Clark Kenting]] hero.

* It can also be used with an [[Identical Stranger]] plot, where the real star looks exactly like the prankster.

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', the Three Lights are doing a movie that has a monster in it that looks a lot like the actual monster that the Senshi end up having to fight.

* ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' dealt with this (~Ch 255). The characters decided to have a costume party, and then a bunch of real monsters got summoned in their midst. Some of the characters were truly scared (and protected by the stronger characters), others recruited the monsters' services for their own tasks. Not all the characters seem to have caught on they were dealing with actual monsters.

 

* Phoney Bone in the ''[[Bone]]'' series ran a dragon protection racket so that he could run off with all the town's valuables. The hoax becomes far more complicated when a real dragon, who happens to be a good friend of his cousin, intentionally gets caught in his fake snare just to see what he would do.

* A variant in [http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=D+95208 this] [[Donald Duck]] comic, "Lost Valley": Donald, who through a series of unfortunate events was roped into becoming a tour guide in the Amazon, comes upon an evil intelligent ape and thinks it's Daisy, who was dressed up earlier as one of them to infiltrate their temple. He then tries to help "Daisy" out of her "costume".

* In one early story, [[Spider-Man]] was [[Worf Had the Flu|too ill to fight effectively]] and was easily beaten and unmasked by Doc Ock. His poor performance made everyone think that he was just Peter Parker pulling a really stupid stunt.

* The [[Silver Age]] story "[[Batman|The Batman Nobody Knows]]" features Bruce Wayne camping with some scouts, and listening to them regale each other with their theories about who/what Batman really is. These stories range from plausible-but-inaccurate to the supernatural. Finally, Bruce leaps from the bushes in his Batsuit to surprise the campers. Much to Batman's amusement, the kids don't buy it.

* There's an [[Archie Comics]] story in which Veronica has Archie masquerade as her dad at the school's father-daughter dance, since Mr. Lodge had to go on a business trip. She gets angry with Archie at some point and then he goes outside, where he finds Mr. Lodge, who cancelled said business trip so he could go to the dance. Mr. Lodge arrives at the dance, but Veronica, still angry with Archie, attempts to expose him and finds out the hard way that she's yelling at her father.

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In ''[[Days Of Thunder]]'' after Cole Trickle wins his first race, his crew hires a stripper/prostitute to dress up as a state trooper and pull their motorcade over, where the woman fondles him, then takes off her clothes and presents herself to him. Later when Cole is in an accident and comes to in the hospital he assumes the beautiful doctor (then-unknown Nicole Kidman) examining him is a similar setup.

* In ''[[The American President]]'' the titular character calls a lobbyist to see about arranging a date, only to be mistaken for a colleague who had wanted to give his Presidential impression. Said lobbyist has an [[Oh Crap]] moment when the President asks her to call the White House switchboard.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In the ''[[Judge Dee]]'' novel ''The Chinese Gold Murders'', one character is a [[Master of Disguise]] {{spoiler|who at one point pretends to be his brother's corpse}}. At the end, the Judge thanks him for scaring off enemies by pretending to be a ghost, and he tells the Judge he wasn't there and has no idea what the Judge is talking about.

* In [[G. K. Chesterton]]'s ''The Man Who Was Thursday'', an actor named Wilks decided to parody "the celebrated Professor de Worms". He was too good and completely succeeded in convincing all and sundry that he was the genuine article. {{spoiler|Then the police recruited him, because the professor was an anarchist, and they needed someone to infiltrate.}}

* A disloyal subordinate uses this against Tuon after Tuon's accidental abduction in ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' - Suroth spreads rumors among the troops that some traitor is out in the countryside impersonating Tuon, and should be killed on sight. {{spoiler|Since Mat keeps Tuon safe until her loyal bodyguard corps can return her to the capitol, it goes very badly for Suroth.}}

* ''[[The Baroque Cycle]]'' - Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a. King of the Vagabonds a.k.a. l'Emmerdeur, in rags and a slave collar rides a warhorse into a Parisian fancy dress ball (escaping captivity and trying to brazen it out) only to be mistaken for the king (of France.) Until the actual king arrives in his l'Emmerdeur costume, at which point all the noble women who'd been giving their jewellery to the 'fake' l'Emmerdeur feel foolish, and life becomes more exciting and dangerous for Jack (yet again.)

 

* This trope was played deliberately on ''[[Big Brother]] Australia''. The housemates had to play as paparazzi and were shown celebrity impersonators whom they had to photograph. The Pamela Anderson impersonator turned out to be the real Pamela, and the housemates were genuinely surprised by this.

* In ''[[Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide]]'', Cookie tries to get into the all-girls book club by dressing up as a girl, and Moze catches on. Then, when a teacher enters, Moze starts attacking the teacher, but finds out that the teacher really is a woman.

** The writer also being played by the [[Author Avatar|executive producer of the show...]]

* The Science Fiction Sketch from ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' plays with this a bit: A detective thinks that a blancmange-shaped alien is the notorious criminal Jack Riley, a blancmange impersonator and cannibal whom he'd encountered before, coming to the police office to turn himself in. ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]...)

** [[Rule of Funny|No it doesn't]].

* On ''[[CSI New York]]'', a badly-injured man who'd been buried alive staggers out of a cemetery and stumbles down the street, covered in blood and grave earth ... straight into a flash mob of people dressed as zombies. Nobody notices his genuine distress until it's too late, and he dies from his ordeal and previous injuries.

 

 

== [[Radio]] ==

* In one of the ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'' shows with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, Watson, making his rendevous with Holmes, says that Holmes' disguise is too over-the-top to be convincing, because no woman is that ugly... The woman slaps him, and ''then'' Holmes shows up.

 

* In ''[[Anything Goes]]'', Bishop Henry T. Dobson boards the ship while Moonface Martin is also on-board masquerading as the ship's chaplain. The local authorities are warned that a criminal is masquerading as a priest and, predictably, haul off the protesting Bishop.

* In ''Cash on Delivery'', Eric Swan has coerced his friend and roommate Norman to dress up as a woman, whereupon the head of the Social Security, a female, shows up unexpectedly. Eric, thinking that the woman is a dressed-up Norman, proceeds to not onyl comment on how Norman "made the breasts too big" but proceeds to juggle and motorboat said mammaries.

* A variation in ''Little Me'': On a sinking ship, Noble Eggleston continually confronts the captain, who is trying to flee by disguising himself as a woman. Around [[Rule of Three|the third time or so]], he confronts the captain again, but this time it's actually a woman. He apologizes to her, saying, "I'm terribly sorry, madam. The captain wears the same kind of dress."

* In "Nothing's On," the play-within-a-play in the comedy "Noises Off," a sheik comes to look at the house where a series of misunderstandings have led everyone to be very angry at the man of the house. Unfortunately, the sheik and the house owner are identical strangers (which the director sarcastically chalks up to the long-lost prequel). The sheik is promptly accused of trying to avoid "his" (the house owner's) lumps by donning a ridiculous disguise.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In the game ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'', one of the abilities Alex Mercer gains is "Patsy", faking out the military by accusing one of their own of being a shapeshifting mutant. And, of course, since Alex himself is the shapeshifting mutant they're hunting...

* In ''[[Suikoden V]]'', Euram falls for one of these.

* In the online game ''Legends of [[Zork]]'', at the end of the quest "Antharia Jack and the Hat Mislaid", {{spoiler|it turns out you've been trying to find Antharia Jack's hat for a crazed fan rather than the real Antharia Jack - and furthermore, there's an entire ''fan club'' in town devoted to dressing up like him. This culminates in you irritably pushing aside the ''real'' Antharia Jack, who comments that it's been the third time it's happened to him that day}}.

* In a sidequest in ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'', Mario is given the task of helping a die-hard Luigi fangirl meet the man himself. Unfortunately, Mario's brother is unavailable, so Mario has to dress up as Luigi and meet the fan instead. While he is doing so, the real Luigi shows up. Guess what happens.

** Near the beginning of [[Super Paper Mario]], Mario visits a wizard to get a new power, only for the wizard to assume he's an impostor because his appearance matches that mentioned in the Light Prognosticus prophecy.

* In ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]] Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay'', when Guybrush thinks the human LeChuck is an impostor:

'''LeChuck:''' Be that as it may, we still must work together to retrieve this [[Summoning Artifact]]! }}

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Used to some extent in [http://xkcd.com/331/ this] ''[[Xkcd]]'' comic. Which could also be used to illustrate the trope.

* In ''[[Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic]]'' this [http://yafgc.net/?id=2186 new] Drow jester [http://yafgc.net/?id=2189 does a greayt Alzaer'bith]! At least, she adapts, "drinks on me" being the nicest thing she heard in a ''long'' time.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* There's an episode of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' where SpongeBob sees a gorilla and concludes that it must be Patrick in a costume. Patrick walks up, but the gorilla takes off its mask to reveal the real Patrick. The fake Patrick takes off its mask to reveal a gorilla. This is subverted later?when SpongeBob wonders [[Misplaced Wildlife|why a gorilla is underwater]]. The Gorilla tries to explain why he's underwater only to say "They're onto us!" and ride off into the sunset on a pantomime horse.

** Another SpongeBob SquarePants example: In the episode where Mrs. Puff is in jail and she likes it better than teaching at boating school, SpongeBob and Patrick tried to break her free. Of course, Mrs. Puff didn't want to leave. One of their attempts to get her out was donning [[Latex Perfection|perfect disguises of prision guards]]. After they left, two real guards came to see Mrs. Puff. Thinking that they were Spongebob and Patrick wearing disguises, she pulled off their faces.

* An old ''[[Donald Duck]]'' cartoon, "Donald Duck and the Gorilla", had Donald's nephews pretend to be an escaped killer ape to scare Donald. He catches them, and when the actual killer ape shows, he slaps it around a few times before realizing what it is and running for his life.

** Also, in another ''Donald Duck'' cartoon, "Lion Around", two of Donald's nephews dress up in a lion costume to scare Donald while the third nephew goes for a yummy pie. However, one slip-up has Donald discover who the "lion" really is and shoos the nephews out of the house. Then a real mountain lion shows up and goes to Donald's house in an attempt to eat him and the pie. However, Donald thinks the actual lion is just his nephews in costume and tries shooing it away, but the lion persists and enters his house. At once Donald becomes infuriated and even attempts to rip off the lion's head, but then one of his nephews knocks on the window and tries convincing Donald that the lion is real by showing him the costume, which the nephews had taken off. It takes Donald a few seconds to realize that the "lion costume" he attempted to "take off" is actually a real lion, whom he had just ''[[Incredibly Lame Pun|ticked off]]''! [[Oh Crap]]!

* A good number of the ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' movies have a mundane impostor followed by a real supernatural entity.

* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'', had Heloise and Beezy are fighting over who gets Jimmy as their houseguest. [[Louis Cypher|Lucius]] comes to Heloise's house when she has Jimmy to go over something work related with her. She mistakes him for Beezy in disguise, and launches him into the sky.

* It's done in ''[[Garfield]]'s Halloween Adventure''. The first time Garfield does that, it's just a kid in disguise. The second time... it's a scary monster disguised as [[Bedsheet Ghost]]. The third time... a monster wearing a mask that looks just like its face. The fourth time... a [[Bedsheet Ghost]] with, well, nothing under the "bedsheet".

 

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* [[Charlie Chaplin]] entered a Charlie Chaplin Impersonation contest.... [http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/chaplin2.asp and came in 3rd].

** The contest was to impersonate the Tramp, one of Chaplin's most popular characters. The judges noted his perfect impression, but he lost points for showing up on the spur of the moment with no costume.

* The late Jeremy Beadle hosted a hidden-camera prank show called ''Beadle's About'' during the 1990s. He would appear in disguise (usually as an authority figure like a policeman or traffic warden), wind up the victim a little more, and then reveal that it was all a set-up for the TV. The downside? There was at least one case of a member of the public mistaking a real policeman for Jeremy Beadle, and attempting to pull his "disguise" off ...

** Similarly, ''[[Candid Camera]]'' host Alan Funt was once on a flight that was hijacked and flown to Cuba. Because everyone on the plane recognized him, he was the only passenger to realize that this wasn't a joke.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Disguise Tropes]]

[[Category:Mistaken for Index]]