Paper-Thin Disguise/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
This page needs visual enhancement.
You can help All The Tropes by finding a high-quality image or video to illustrate the topic of this page.


"You wear a disguise
to look like human guise guys
but you're not a man

You're a Chicken, Boo"
—Chicken Boo

Examples of Paper-Thin Disguise in Western Animation include:

  • In Superman: The Animated Series, all Supes has to do is put on a pair of glasses and a suit and call himself Clark Kent and few people make the connection.
  • In Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, Goose enters a tournament run by the Big Bad. His entry name? The Galaxy Stranger.
  • In Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic could fool anyone by sometimes wearing only glasses and a wig or wearing only a vest and sunglasses.
  • The "Chicken Boo" segments of Animaniacs are based almost entirely on essentially parodying this trope. Boo himself is simply a giant chicken that cannot speak and is not anthropomorphic in any way, yet when he puts on a wig, a mask, a mustache, or a suit, everyone is fooled into thinking he is one of them. Not just one of them however, but an expert in whatever field he is pretending to be involved in and often with a fully established backstory of some kind. The Cassandra will try to convince everyone that he is just a chicken but will be laughed off by everyone else until Boo's disguise comes off, at which point he is immediately recognised as not being human, The Cassandra will return to rub it in their faces, and Boo is chased away by an angry mob.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the kids' disguises include Aang wearing a wig and moustache made of Appa-fur and pretending to be an old man, and Sokka and Katara donning a moustache and fake baby-bump respectively and pretending to be Aang's parents. Completely believed every time.
    • It seems that all Aang ever has to do is cover up his arrow, and he's safe. Eh? That kid with a turban has the same yellow and orange garb as the Avatar? Well phooey, we can't see his arrow! There's no way it's him!
      • Though, admittedly it got a lot better in the beginning of Season Three, what with completely different clothes, actual hair, a headband, and an attempt to assimilate.
      • Also, it seems like people generally don't know his appearance that well...after all, there's no photography in this world - all they have is colorless drawings, and that's only in the Fire Nation.
    • Sokka's disguise, Wang Fire, quickly became a Memetic Badass.
      • It makes sense with Katara and Sokka most of the time because (for whatever reason) the Fire Nation never made wanted posters for them.
    • In the episode "Sokka's Master", at the very end Piandao reveals that he always knew Sokka was a member of the Water Tribe, since the name "Sokka" is very distinctly Water Tribe in the series. He recommends, for future reference, the name Li. "There's a million Lis."
    • Also Zuko and Iroh while on the run from the Fire Nation in season 2. Despite being on hundreds of wanted posters throughout the Earth Kingdom, no one ever manages to recognize the angry teenage boy with a huge scar traveling with his short, chubby uncle as the two fugitives on the poster.
    • In season 3, "The Painted Lady" this trope is both subverted and nicely averted. Katara dresses as a Spirit to help a town who's river was polluted by the Fire Nation's factories. It's actually quite a brilliant disguise, and with the help of her waterbending, she's very convincing (at least until Aang catches her sneaking off). On the more comedic side, we have a man who seems to be completely insane. He switches hats and names, telling the gang he's a trio of brothers.

"Xu": I'll get my other brother, Bushi! He loves cleaning rivers! (removes his cap, a straw hat flops out from under it) Okay! I'm Bushi!
Aang: I knew it! You are the same guy! You just switched hats and called yourself a different name!
"Bushi": Oh you know who does that? My brother, Dock. He's crazy.

  • In an episode of The Backyardigans, Pablo self-proclaimed himself as "Le Master of Disguise" (which just happened to be the episode's title), and he couldn't be recognized by any of the other characters, most especially when he dressed up in the costume Austin was wearing at the episode, mustache and all (though Pablo's was over his beak), and the others couldn't tell them from each other, even if Austin and Pablo looked nothing alike.
  • An episode of Camp Lazlo had Lazlo, Clam, and Raj sneak into the Squirrel Scouts camp with Lazlo and Clam dressed as girls and Raj disguised as a log. None of the Squirrel Scouts seemed to notice.
    • In another episode the Beans Scouts fool the Squirrel Scouts by saying they have a unicorn which is actually a filthy disgusting llama with an ice cream cone on his head, later when they take the cone off they proclaim "He's hideous!" despite finding him beautiful earlier.
  • Amusingly subverted in Chowder; in an escalating effort to convince Panini that He's Not Her Boyfriend, Chowder turns up on her doorstep wearing a large black moustache and fabricates a story about the "real" Chowder moving far away. Panini still knows it's Chowder, though. In the end, he foils himself after he gleefully accepts the cookie she offers him.
  • On one episode of Clone High, the clone of Joan of Arc had to dress as a man by wearing a fairly obvious fake moustache that nonetheless fooled all of the other characters, because the basketball team wasn't allowed to include girls or animals. When her disguise is penetrated, her place is taken by a dolphin in an equally fake moustache.
  • The episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets banned from Moe's Tavern subverted this trope. Somebody who is "obviously" Homer in a bowler hat with a monocle and fake mustache walks into Moe's, speaking in an oddly stilted manner with a British accent. He protests that he's not Homer, but the innocuously named Guy Incognito, but gets beaten up and thrown out anyway. Outside, we see Homer walk past the barely conscious heap of the undisguised patron, then briefly reflect upon the implications of finding a perfect copy of himself. And then on a dog with a puffy tail.
    • Another episode ("Burns, Baby, Burns!!") featured Homer and Burns' son Larry running from the police. They run into a costume shop, and a few seconds later what appears to be a clearly disguised Homer and Larry exit. Another few seconds, and we cut to into the shop—the manager opens the door to the dressing room, to show Homer and Larry cowering on the floor and yells at them to either buy something or get out.
    • Averted in the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail", in which Mr. Burns tries to pass himself off as "Mr. Snrub", wearing nothing unusual besides a long moustache. It does not work.
    • Possibly the most absurd example of all: in a parody of The Count of Monte Cristo, the Count (Homer) removes his mask, and nobody recognizes him. Then he removes his fake mole, and everyone in the room gasps in shock.
    • Another example of it not working is where Mr Burns dresses up in Jimbo's clothes to inform Principal Skinner his fourth-form chums and he think it would be quite corking if he were to give the school's new riches to the local energy concern. Naturally Skinner isn't fooled: "It was naive of you to assume I'd mistake this town's most prominent 104 year old man for one of my elementary school students"
      • A similar subversion occurred in "Kamp Krusty." The villainous Mr. Black attempted to keep the campers already lowered morale steady by hiring someone to pose as Krusty. The person he hired was Barney Gumble... whose disguise involved nothing more than slapping him in Krusty's clothes (that barely even fit him, anyways), wearing a skull cap representing Krusty's head and some makeup. Most of the kids were suspicious, and Bart ends up pointing out that he's an impostor. Barney himself unwittingly confirms it simply by speaking (his drunk voice was heard instead of Krusty's voice, not to mention he called himself "Krunchy the Clown.")
    • Mr Burns, Smithers, and an Assassin they hired dress up as Marge, Bart, and Homer respectively in order to infiltrate the nursing home and kill Grampa. Grampa sees through the deception... because his family never visits him.
    • In "Hungry Hungry Homer", Duffman disguises himself in this manner as a news reporter named Joel Duffman, from The Newsly Times.
    • Played straight in an early episode when Bart takes up ballet, and disguises himself by wearing a balaclava - in spite of his distinctive hairstyle remaining clearly visible. Everyone is fooled, and nothing much is made of how ridiculous it is.
    • Subverted in one episode where Bart ditched class. When he saw Homer, he quickly pushed his hair forward hoping to fool him. However, Homer has already seen Bart and was afraid the boy would figure out he ditched work. Homer's disguise was putting a hair comb under his nose as a moustache. Homer and Bart just pretended they didn't recognize each other.
    • In the episode "Burns' Heir," Burns shows Bart a "live broadcast" of Bart's family talking about how much they don't want him to come home. In reality, it is a group of actors Burns hired, including the Estonian Dwarf as Lisa. Bart is unconvinced until Fake Homer says his famous catchphrase "Duh-Oh."
      • It's a bit of a subversion in that case because the disguises they wore made them look exactly like them and they perfectly mimicked their voices.
    • Also averted in the episode where Homer becomes the Batman-esque Pie Man. At the end, Marge finally reveals that she always knew, just because it was so obviously him.
  • An episode of Hey Arnold! entitled "Helga's Locket" featured this when Helga attempted to get her locket of Arnold back from Arnold's grandpa. She disguised herself in a black trenchcoat, a derby, glasses, and fake mustache, passing herself off as "Bernard Flotsom", a rich antique art collector. It works for maybe a minute, and after a couple of near-misses (such as one of her pigtails poking out from her hat), Grandpa gets wise once she runs off with the locket saying, "So long sucker!" As she runs off, Grandpa, now mistaking her for some hooligan, calls out "AND YOU FORGOT YOUR MUSTACHE!"
  • Subverted in an episode of Family Guy: Peter is at the supermarket and partakes in a free sample, saying that it was quite good. Afterwards, a man identical to Peter wearing a Groucho Marx disguise takes a sample, then another Peter with a thin mustache and oriental haircut (plus a horrible Japanese accent). The employee informs him that he doesn't have to disguise himself to get free samples. Suddenly, Groucho Marx Peter and the actual Peter walk up behind him and ask if they can have another free sample.
    • Also in Family Guy, all it takes to be completely indistinguishable from the real Lois is to wear a green button-down shirt, beige pants, and orange wig. It is not necessary to fake the voice, the body shape, the ability to walk... Even just wearing her shoes, earrings, and lipstick is enough to confuse people, if not convince them.
    • In one episode, Brian tries to avoid Stewie over some unpaid debts. To try to sneak past him, Brian dons an elaborate mustache, and just that. He does manage to make it past Stewie with only a "good day sir" at first, but Stewie catches on after the double take.
      • There was the one where Peter went to his high school reunion pretending to be a space cowboy but one guy didn't believe him because his hat comes right off. A similar gag was done in "Road to Germany" when a Nazi found out Mort wasn't a priest by removing his collar.
    • In addition, Old Man Herbert attempts to disguise himself as a fifth grader for the school dance, for obvious reasons. However, Brian apparently sees through the disguise, and humiliates him by talking about stretching his "creamy hamstrings."
  • The Powerpuff Girls,
    • Used in one episode when three adult-sized (male) crooks put on Powerpuff Girl costumes and somehow manage to deceive the entire town.
    • Not to mention, once they meet up, the girls themselves and each other. And the disguises were merely correctly-colored clothing and cardboard cutout masks.
    • The only one not fooled by the disguises was Ms. Bellum she saw their body hair and bad manly body odor, and the fact that they kept hitting on her.
    • Also used when Mojo Jojo goes to the Powerpuff Girls' slumber party disguised as a little girl. Though the Powerpuff Girls (even Bubbles) aren't fooled, the other girls and the Professor are.
      • Or when Mojo Jojo sneaks into a show and tell of the Professor's time machine, by disguising himself as a preschool student. Which this time seems to fool everyone, including the girls and their teacher (who is one of the more responsible and competent characters).
    • In the relaunch, Mojo tries a similar trick while posing as a pizza delivery guy, but this time neither the Girls nor their guests are fooled at all, and forcibly "invite" him to their party.
  • In South Park, Towelie assumes a fake moustache and a hat in order to get his "A Million Little Fibers" book published. The first person to realize this is Oprah Winfrey's sapient vagina.
    • Played with when Cartman disguises himself as AWESOM-O the robot. Butters's relatives have no trouble figuring out that he's just a kid in a cardboard costume, but everyone else is convinced that he's a genuine robot, up to and including the military.
    • Another episode had a male cop who went undercover as a female prostitute for sting operations. He didn't even shave off his mustache or change his voice at all and still fooled everyone.
    • Played for Laughs in the third Halloween episode, where one of the costumes is an incredibly well-made (and apparently fully functional) Mecha. But everyone who sees it instantly knows it's Kenny, much to his frustration.
    • Played for very dark laughs in "Good Times With Weapons". When the boys accidentally throw a ninja star into Butter's eye, they put him in a crummy dog disguise meant to fool an old, half-blind veterinarian. However, when Butters wanders to a hospital, the doctor and nurse who find him are convinced that he's a real dog and send him to an animal shelter. The workers there are fooled too, to the point that they try to put him down.
    • After failing to get the Triangle of Zinthar from the boys, Barbra Streisand dons a fake mustache and glasses on her second attempt. The boys are fooled and freely mock Streisand in her presence, much to her indignation.
  • Used with gusto throughout the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, in various manners.
    • It gets lampshaded in the Banana Formula story when Boris worries how, after all the times Rocky and Bullwinkle have never seen through his disguises, the Law of Averages was sure to turn on him. Natasha reassures him by pointing out that Good Is Dumb.
    • Of course, a big reason Rocky and Bullwinkle could never see through their disguises is that they never seemed to remember them at all, disguised or not. There was one episode where Rocky seemed to recognize Boris' voice, but no further than that.
  • In DuckTales (1987), no one ever recognizes the disguised Beagle Boys under the fake mustache (or whatever), even though they always wear their robbery masks and prisoner numbers. Considering even their own family hasn't seen them without the masks, simply removing them might be far more effective than anything else they could do.
    • In a (non-DuckTales related) comic story, this is lampshaded by the Beagle Boys ridiculing one of them when he pulls off a disguise that's actually somewhat more convincing than most others, since he actually bothers to make the mask less noticeable by wearing huge glasses. Earlier and later in the story, the other Beagle Boys had worn disguises that didn't even cover any of their faces.
  • Thoroughly subverted in an episode of Samurai Jack, "Jack And Swamp Monster". The hermit that guides Jack through various perils is very obviously Aku, Jack's arch-enemy. Jack is apparently oblivious to the fact that his new-found ally has the same color eyebrows (red), the same color skin (jet black), as well as the same voice and attitude as Aku. At one point, even the hermit's reflection in water reveals his true nature, leaving the viewer questioning Jack's sanity as he sinks deeper into Aku's trap. At the end of the episode, however, Jack reveals that he knew the truth all along, and that he's merely been playing along in order to trap Aku. The entire episode also serves to hang a lampshade on Jack's general genre-blindness; he's been tricked by Aku before in similarly transparent disguises (and, admittedly, one really good one).
    • Although getting tricked by a full on shapeshifter who can change anything about his appearance isn't something to be terribly ashamed of.
  • Invader Zim utilises the "brilliant" disguise of a wig and contact lenses, leaving his three-digit hands, green skin and lack of ears and nose exposed, a fact that only Dib recognises, while his robot henchman's disguise is a bright green dog suit with obvious zipper and stichings. Glimpses of other Invaders shows their disguises as equally pathetic, so it isn't just him. The trope is averted with Tak, who is shown to be a supremely competent Invader the moment it is revealed that her disguise is actually effective.
    • The paper-thin disguise is effect to the degree that at one point one of Zim's contacts falls out, which a small boy sees and begins screaming "ALIEN!". Zim promptly puts the contact back in and the boy says "Oh, never mind."
      • In another episode, he dismisses it as Pink Eye.
    • And of course when Zim gets abducted by Sizz-lor, his former boss/warden, he fails to recognize him. While at first this is somewhat justified because Sizz-lor is wearing a gas mask and body suit, when he changes back into his normal fry cook outfit, Zim still doesn't recognize him until he puts his hat on, despite his face and NAME TAG having been revealed first.
  • An episode of the 2006 revival of Biker Mice From Mars called "It's The Pits" has Dr Karbunkle wear a fake beard in some scenes.
  • In Kim Possible, Shego donned a wig and a dress to pull off a Show Some Leg distraction on a guy she'd previously tried to hold for ransom. She succeeded despite doing nothing about her green skin. Even after the wig fell off, the guy still wanted to date her.
  • In The Maxx, the Big Bad's sidekicks Isz, which looked like small black chess pawns, could be disguised as anything with minimal effort. Put a gray wig and purse on them, they appear as a little old lady. Hand them a bottle of cheap wine in a paper bag and they're a hobo.
  • In The Replacements, when the rest of the Daring family decides to tag along on Riely's first date, they do so by donning false moustaches and posing as wait staff. This includes the talking car. This doesn't fool Riely but apparently fools her boyfriend (and leads to the brilliant panicked line of "That could be anybody's talking car!").
  • Evil The Cat tried this twice in Earthworm Jim. Oddly enough, it failed miserably in one episode (Evil took four Super Blaster shots to the face, once for each failed costume) and worked perfectly in a later episode.
    • And in the times that his disguise did work, he'd introduce himself by saying, "I am (whatever I'm disguised is) and not a cat. I'm here to (do whatever it is I want you to think I'm doing). And did I mention I'm not a cat?"
  • An episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3 has Kooky von Koopa building a robot look-alike of Princess Toadstool to bring ruin to the Mushroom Kingdom and then turn it over to Bowser. Somehow, Mario and Luigi are completely fooled by the robot, despite having obvious robotic lines on its arms and speaking in a voice so monotone that anyone with ears could tell it wasn't the real Princess. They do eventually begin to suspect - but only after realizing she was supposed to have been vacationing in Hawaii yet had no suntan.
    • Happens again in "Send In The Clowns", where Mario and the cavemen don't realize the clowns in Bowser's circus are actually Rexes until one of their noses falls off.
    • Subverted in "Reptiles in the Rose Garden" when the brothers try to sneak onto Bowser's ship wearing Hammer Suits. The first Sledge Brother they approach takes one look at them, and without missing a beat asks, "Putting on a little weight, aren't you, Mario?"
  • A subversion similar to the "Guy Incognito" example above occurs in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "No Weenies Allowed": trying to get into a tough bar, SpongeBob hits upon the idea of wearing a tough hairdo. Cut to what appears to be SpongeBob with a black pompadour out of The Fifties approaching the bar. The bouncer is unimpressed and tries to unmask him... until the real SpongeBob appears wearing a rainbow wig.
    • Done again on a later episode, when Spongebob and Krabs must sneak into Pearl's slumber party to make sure she's not destroying the house. Girlytingle, who just moved in from, like, Whereverville, is not Spongebob in a costume. In fact, after she left he commented on her looks.
    • Played humorously straight in "Imitation Krabs." Plankton builds a robot doppelganger of Mr. Krabs that's obviously a robot, complete with monotone robot voice and exhaust pipe. It fools everyone, especially Spongebob.
      • Actually, Squidward wasn't fooled by Plankton's disguise. He just decided to play along because "Imitation Krabs" told him he could take the rest of the day off.
    • In the episode where Pearl has her slumber party, Mr. Krabs tells Spongebob to sneak into the party. The scene then cuts to a girl that's obviously Spongebob knocking on the door and trying to get into the party, claiming to have moved there from "Far Away-ville". The girls throw tomatoes at the girl and she runs, shouting, "I'm so moving back to Far Away-ville!" Spongebob and Mr. Krabs then pull up in a pizza truck.
  • Batman looks and sounds the same as Bruce Wayne, but aside from Wonder Woman and Ra's al Ghul, very few people in the DCAU seem to notice the resemblance.
    • In most of his incarnations, Batman's voice and body language are very different from Bruce Wayne's, and Wayne makes himself too big of a fop to be taken seriously. But one wonders why it isn't obvious to everyone besides Ra's Al Gould that he funds Batman's operations, since he's the richest man in the city, and the only one with unlimited access to the kind of technology Batman routinely uses.
      • Wayne's not the only game in town when it comes to rich people with advanced toys. By that standard alone, Lex Luthor and Vandal Savage are also likely candidates.
      • He further covers his back when explaining to his mechanic he has "backers" funding his crusade.
    • Harley's disguise in the episode "The Man Who Killed Batman" might have been convincing, but using her real name is what makes it fit this Trope. Downplayed, as Bullock is a little suspicious.
  • In the third episode of Transformers Generation 1, the Autobots decide to set up an ambush for the Decepticons. Hound uses his holographic projector to make a fake "rocket base" and the Autobots will be in it, under disguise, to attack the Decepticons when they show up to raid the base. What disguise do the Autobots go for? If you guessed "Disguised in their car mode in the base parking lot", congratulations, you're smarter than an Autobot. They decide to don labcoats and pass for the human scientists. Despite the fact that even the smallest of them is twice as tall as a human and about 3 times as wide.
    • Almost used in Transformers Cybertron. After Bud describes conventions and cosplay to the Autobots, Jetfire jokingly suggests that they pretend they're fanboys in public, to the amusement of all. However, Optimus Prime takes him seriously and thinks this is a wonderful idea until the humans talk him out of it.
    • And then there was Transformers Armada, when the kids dressed up the Space Team in lumpy sweaters, scarves, and goggles to take them on the bus. And it worked.
  • Bugs Bunny can pretend to be a human by simply wearing human clothes. This cover is usually blown when someone notices his tail or ears. Of course, no one bothers to notice the gray fur or obviously non-human face...
    • In "Forward March Hare" (1953), the sergeant-demoted-to-private only notices the ears pretty far along, and then mentions the fur before realizing the Army's inducted a rabbit by mistake.
    • In "Bowery Bugs" he impersonates several different people from a swami to a police officer, all by just changing clothes. When the villain of the short finally catches on, he mistakenly thinks that everyone is turning into rabbits, goes insane, and hurls himself off the Brooklyn Bridge.
    • During the "hunting trilogy" he impersonates everything from a woman to the Game Warden, Elmer is fooled every time.
    • An episode of Tiny Toon Adventures did the same thing in an episode where Babs Bunny pretended to be a human simply by dressing like one so she could star on a teen drama. It was even lampshaded when the makeup guy told her she should consider getting a facial wax to remove excess hair. Why the various other times the species of the characters didn't matter to other humans (including the ones that went to school with them, aside from Elmyra) is ignored.
    • In the Looney Tunes short "Dough for the Dodo", Porky fools the Dodo by wearing only a ragged green coat and an umbrella on his head, however in the original short "Porky in Wackyland" (which was the former was a remake of) Porky had a very effective disguise wearing a false beard that covered everything but his eyes, a false nose and glasses, a different coat, and a helmet with a light bulb on it.
    • Another Looney Tunes example, though this counts as a subversion: Sylvester puts on a dog suit to infiltrate a dog pound where Tweety is hiding. So unconvincing is this disguise, that the dogs inside see through it immediately and attack, forcing Sylvester to make a quick escape. Later, a Double Subversion occurs when a dogcatcher notices the still-disguised Sylvester and inattentively throws him back into the pound, where another mauling awaits.
    • Bugs explained this phenomenon himself to Buster and Babs in the first episode of Tiny Toon Adventures: "Eh, you'll be fine if you remember t'ree things. One, your adversaries have tapioca for brains. Two, always eat your carrots. And three, villains always fall for cheesy disguises." The last line was said while briefly disguised in a shabby-looking Taz costume (which still manages to scare Buster and Babs). The next scene (at Montana Max's) has Babs recall what Bugs said about cheesy disguises, and the two dress up as Yosemite Sam (Buster) and Elmer Fudd (Babs) to fool Montana Max.
      • Bugs Bunny is so notorious for flimsy disguises that somehow work that, if this trope was up for a re-naming, my vote would be "Bugs Bunny Disguise".
  • Dexters Laboratory episodes
    • In "Nuclear Confusion", Dexter poses as a stuffed swordfish by clenching a poker in his mouth. Of course, his dad doesn't notice anything.
    • Another one had Dee Dee accidentally shutting down the lab and spending the entire episode tricking Dexter into thinking nothing is wrong by impersonating Computer, Robot, and Mandark. Somehow this worked and Dexter is none the wiser. "Boy genius" my ass.
    • In another episode, Dexter grows a beard and no one seems to recognize him. This is taken to hilariously ridiculous levels when he encounters his TV hero "Action Hank", who is huge and black, unlike Dexter, who's short and redhead, yet people actually mistake one for the other.

Thug 1: Two Action Hanks!.
Thug 2: But which one is the real one?.

    • "Momdark". Mandark kidnaps Dexter's mother and dresses up as her. His disguise is actually quite good, except for the huge glasses on his face (which she doesn't wear) and his voice, which doesn't sound like hers at all. However, it fools Dexter, Dee Dee and their father completely.
  • On Codename: Kids Next Door, one of the villains ridicules the Toilenator by mentioning that he was once fooled by Numbuh One in disguise, even though the disguise consisted solely of a T-shirt that said "I'm not Numbuh One."

Toilenator: I didn't think a T-shirt would lie to me!

    • And in the KND crossover with The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, The Grim Adventures of the KND, Numbuh One's tomato-nose Billy disguise is intended to fool Billy's dad... but fools Grim before Dad can even get home. And when Mandy disguises herself as Numbuh One with his sunglasses and shirt, she fools the entire KND organization and takes over!
      • And changes the name to "Mandy", no less.
    • Numbuh 4-30teen-7 manages to get into a girl's slumber party. Though since the show itself would lampshade and subvert tropes, it's debatable that the girls may have known all along and merely acted surprised when his obvious wig fell off (they're supposed to be Genki Girls in general, closet or otherwise, but maybe that would be the point of their apparently not seeing through the disguise, rather than having IQ levels stereotypical for that).
    • It's unlikely that the girls knew all along-they seemed genuinely surprised when Numbuh Four's wig fell off. Plus, Numbuh 86 clearly didn't want to invite any boys.
  • Pretty much any disguise Pinky and The Brain used. Keep in mind...they're lab mice. And just a few inches tall. And yet, could be mistaken for humans, with the right outfit. Brain even points this out numerous times to people, though they pass it off as Sarcastic Confession:

Taxi Driver: Hey man, not to pry but... what happened to your head?
Brain: Nothing. I'm a mouse in a large mechanical suit.
Taxi Driver: Oh. My fault for asking.

    • Sometimes he doesn't need a disguise. Once Brain got pulled over by a cop while riding a modified motorcycle. The cop just thought he was a child out for a joyride.
  • Cosmo and Wanda from The Fairly OddParents have passed, floating and all, with signs that read "Normal" and "Human", respectively. They don't even bother with a disguise at a comic convention, as everyone assumes they're wearing costumes.
    • This happened again when Cosmo was being taken to the doctor. His main disguise is a green lamp with the words "Not Cosmo" written on him. This was only made worse by his line "A LAMP!!! The perfect disguise!"
    • Timmy's had a few, but the disguise in "Shiny Teeth" takes the cake: by simply wearing a tiara, no one, neither his enemies or a friend he has rescued before, can recognize him.
    • "The buck teeth look familiar but the tiara leaves me baffled!"
    • In "Love at First Height", Chester and A.J. put on a 'tall kid kit' to pass themselves as someone tall enough for the roller coaster. When their fake moustache fell the first time, Timmy's parents were the only people to see it and didn't suspect a thing. The second time, however, was witnessed by smarter adults.
  • Glaringly obvious in Liloand Stitch, where everyone notices Stitch isn't a normal dog, but Jumba, a six-foot tall purple guy with four eyes and four fingered hands and Pleakley, who has an exposed antenna, 1 eye, and three fingered hands are able to pass for human with human clothes, combined with glasses and a wig respectively.
    • People just assume they're birth defects.
    • Nani does notice the weird shape of Pleakley's head, but assumes it became swollen after Stitch chewed on it. Jumba casually replies "Actually, [Pleakley's] just ugly".
    • Given the fact that within just a few episodes of the series the experiments and Jumba are running amok doing what they were intended to do, the islanders may have started accepting/adjusting to the fact that there's something weird going on and decided just not to bother.
    • Gantu's idea of a "disguise" is to claim he's from Samoa. Gantu is fifteen feet tall and an anthropomorphic shark. It works perfectly.
  • Pet Alien: What's the most paper thin disguise ever? No disguise at all!
  • Eek! The Cat once featured "famous" performers, the Squishy Bearz, being framed for robbery by four rats wearing a Paper-Thin Disguise. How bad was it? One was just wearing a cardboard box with a smiley face on it and another had a large sock over his head. Done again in the same episode when the Squishy Bearz, on the run from the law, were forced to disguise themselves to avoid detection. Among the costumes worn: A grass skirt and coconut bra combo which really didn't cover the face at all. The people in the local diner didn't recognize them until a news broadcast showed how the Squishy Bearz might look in disguise, showing the exact costumes that they were wearing. Hilarity ensued.
  • Subverted in El Tigre with Sergio's disguise as his villain alter ego Se ñor Siniestro. It's actually a very convincing disguise and he's able to fool Manny and Frida. His habit of fawning over Frida is the only thing that could give him away.
    • Played straight when White Pantera infiltrates a supervillain's tournament. His 'disguise' consists of wearing a black suit instead of his usual white one and calling himself Black Pantera. Nobody is fooled, but play along with it anyway.
  • In Krypto the Superdog, Krypto's only disguise is a cape with a shield on it. And yet no one, not even the boy's parents, suspected that their dog is an alien dog.
    • Actually Chris's little sister Sophie figured it right away, but since she's a baby their parents didn't believe.
  • The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh gives us the Play Within A Show "The Legend of Sheriff Piglet", in which the Masked Bear is never identified as Pooh until his mask comes off.
  • Underdog arguably does a better job than many on this list, for the way he changes his tone of voice, loses his rhyme, and generally attempts a different persona. But he does nothing to change or hide his face. And from what we see, anthropomorphic dogs are very much in the minority in his hometown.
    • Actually, at one point during the movie, a man noticed Shoeshine sitting on the stairs and remarked on how much he looked like Underdog.
  • In The Venture Brothers, the original Dr. Venture infiltrates a Super Villain Team-Up dedicated to killing him (who have also kidnapped his son) by pretending to be a Japanese super villain (from the village of Japaninawa). This is done by wearing a wig, fake mustache, a fake nipple on his chin and by pulling his eyes with his fingers so they appear slanted. He makes no attempt to hide his voice or even employ a fake accent. And his cover name, "Dr. Fandragon", is clearly composed of the only two Asian things he could think of. The weaknesses of his costume are all lampshaded by the head villain who remains Too Dumb to Live to connect the dots.

Scaramantula: As do we all, my thoroughly Japanese friend who is easily, easily 6'2".
Scaramantula: What is that my uncharacteristically hirsute Asian comrade?

    • This is based, as also noted on the commentary, directly on James Bond's nearly identical disguise in You Only Live Twice. The supernumerary nipple is based on Francisco Scaramanga, The Man with the Golden Gun and Scaramantula's namesake, put on his face because that's funnier.
      • Also, Hank's disguise as "Russian Guyovitch".
  • Played for laughs in the Wallace and Gromit short film "The Wrong Trousers". There, a villainous penguin dons a disguise, which consists solely of a rubber-glove wig, for his crimes. No one sees through this fiendishly clever ruse, as they all think he is a chicken.
  • Carl the Evil Cockroach Wizard from Yin Yang Yo lives for this trope. On at least one occasion, he actually used it when there was absolutely no reason to. When his brother Herman lampshaded this, he nonchalantly responded "I love to play dress-up." Taking the tone of the show into consideration, there might be some Parental Bonus in that. Yin and Yang are not so good at disguises anyway. One episode Yang put on a mustache and tried to trick Carl. He did fall for that and said "Here, you dropped your mustache... Ah, it's one of my enemies wearing a cheesy disguise!".
  • Totally Spies!: Wanted criminal Tim Scam was able to pretty much take over WOOHP by using an alias that was literally just his name backwards.
    • And he had it clearly written on a name badge just in case there was a slight chance no one would figure it out.
  • In The Teddy Bears Picnic, two teddy bears are trying to sneak a human girl into the picnic, since she's trying to find her particular teddy bear. The disguise they put together for her consists of a pair of earmuffs, a clown nose, and a line drawn on her face. It manages to fool everyone else at the picnic until she sneezes the earmuffs and nose off.
  • Johnny Test: To convince a coalition of girls to transport them back home before their parents arrive, Johnny Test disguises himself as a girl. How does he do it? By combing his hair back, putting on lipstick, and wrapping his outer jacket around his waist. The girls are doubtful at first, but he is feminine enough, and they take him, his sisters, and Dukey back to their house. When his parents come home, even his dad is surprised with his "transformation".
    • And don't forget Dukey. "He's a kid with a rare hair disorder, not a dog." Sometimes he accomplishes this by walking on two legs, and nothing else. He sometimes wears a t-shirt that says Not A Dog.
  • In one episode of Sushi Pack, Ben needs to talk to the Pack while they're in the middle of a mission, so he dons a disguise to keep their connection a secret. His disguise? A moustache that's not even the same color as his hair. That's it. He didn't even bother taking off the apron from the shop he owns.
  • In American Dad, people seem to recognize Roger as an alien only when he's stark naked. If he has so much as a wig on, he's completely inconspicuous despite his obviously non-human body.
    • In one episode, Roger gets in a hit-and-run accident wearing nothing but a wig, a wifebeater and Kevin Bacon's nose from a disguise kit, and Kevin Bacon gets blamed for it. Even Bacon himself is convinced he did it despite not "remembering" it because "it's clearly ME in those pictures!"
      • Steve's friend Toshi knows Roger's an alien, but of course no one understands him.
    • Also played with in the episode "Con Heir", when two FBI agents come to the Smiths' home looking for a man who is 6'2", 65 years old, sometimes leaps from a helicopter, has a salty demeanor and wears a turtleneck. Francine thinks they mean Stan's father until she sees the mugshot. In which he has a mustache.

FBI Agent: No mustache? Sorry to waste your time, ma'am.

    • In the episode "Flirting With Disaster", the Chinese spies infiltrating the C.I.A. are incredibly obvious; they just wear blonde wigs and make Suspiciously Specific Denials while asking for secret nuclear launch codes.
  • Danny Phantom. Just... Danny Phantom.
    • This is even commented on in the "Ultimate Enemy" special. Dark Danny has Danny's family and teacher tied up and reveals who he is. He then asks them why they never noticed that "Danny Fenton" and "Danny Phantom" were so similar. Of course, Jazz does figure it out.
      • I dunno, I'd say that's more an example of Clark Kenting than Paper-Thin Disguise.And anyway, Jazz only knew because she saw him transform once.
  • Superfriends (1973) episode "The Androids". The villain Dr. Rebos sends a video message to the Super Friends that shows his real face. A short time later, he talks to both Batman and Superman at close range, with his only disguise being a small server's cap, and both of them completely fail to recognize him.
  • "You Look Familiar", says Jinx to Cyborg in Teen Titans. Could the young villainess only see past her nemesis' cunning disguise as himself (without cybernetics), she'd undoubtedly fry his wirings on the spot and spare herself a broken heart.
  • The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 could fool anyone by wearing a trenchcoat and fedora, despite their green skin being clearly visible. As soon as they lost the hats, though, it was obvious to all. They did occasionally wear human masks, though.

Michelangelo: Well, we don't look like mutant turtles anymore.
Raphael: Yeah, now we look like mutant turtles wearing people-masks.

  • It wasn't just the turtles either. Shredder, Rocksteady, and Bebop could also easily fool anyone, including our heroes. In one episode, April can't see past Shredder's disguise despite it simply being a train conductor's outfit worn over his metal costume... and yet, she found out Bebop and Rocksteady hiding behind a sheet only by catching sight of their shoes. In another episode Shredder was able to fool an alien tourist by disguising himself as a hot dog vendor - again, wearing the disguise over his armor - but this time, April recognized him quickly.
  • On Jimmy Two Shoes, Jimmy managed to pass for Molotov in a spacesuit with nothing but a crudely made stuffed head on a pole.
  • In Futurama:
    • We see a video recording of customers in an alien sex shop. One of the clients (who is obviously Lrr in a ball cap and sunglasses) tells the clerk he's "just some guy...RULER OF THE PLANET OMICRON PERSEI 8!!"
    • And when the Decapodians declared war on Earth, and Zap Brannigan couldn't spot their spy, "Hugh Mann", despite suspecting his loyal assistant Kif (Kif seemed to be able to see through the disguise, but didn't say anything, probably because he never gets listened to anyway).
    • In "The Bird-Bot of Ice-Catraz", Bender is able to disguise himself as a penguin simply by squatting and putting on a tuxedo.
    • This is played with in the episode which introduces Flexo, the robot who's identical to Bender save for a small metallic "goatee". In a scene, we see what is clearly Flexo trying to pass up as Bender by wearing scarves and other items of clothing and referring to himself almost literally as "Not Flexo, but Bender". Later is revealed he was actually Bender all along and was wearing that clothing because of fashion sense.
    • When Fry and Leela visit a robot planet, all they need to blend in perfectly is to wear metal containers and pots.
  • Phineas and Ferb: Perry the Platypus frequently employs this trope during missions to deceive his arch-nemesis Dr. Doofenshmirtz, who is completely incapable of recognizing Perry when he's not wearing his secret agent hat.
    • Another time, Perry disguises himself from Linda by putting on a pair of fake glasses and nose. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Doofenshmirtz is also fooled by it.
    • The best example has to be when he disguised himself as a plumber with a hat and a tool-belt. When he confronted Doof, this conversation followed.

Doofenshmirtz: What kind of plumber are you?
Perry: *removes hat*
Doofenshmirtz: A platypus plumber?
Perry: *puts on fedora*
Doofenshmirtz: Perry the platypus plumber?
Perry: *drops belt*
Doofenshmirtz: *gasp* PERRY THE PLATYPUS!!

    • In one episode, Perry gets out of Doof's trap simply by removing his hat. Doof immediately releases him, thinking he's a perfectly ordinary, innocent platypus who was put there by Perry the Platypus. Makes you wonder why Perry doesn't do that every time. Maybe he just likes a challenge.
      • Not to mention in the episode "Not Phineas & Ferb" Baljeet & Buford dress up as the titular duo to fool Irving's older brother Albert, with their disguises consisting of P&F's regular clothes and some very unconvincing masks (resulting in Buford having, as Irving later states "eyes in his mouth"). Ironically, Albert is the only one fooled by them.

Baljeet: (pretending to be Phineas) I know what we are doing today.
Buford: And I'm British and I don't talk much.

    • In "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted," Candace disguises herself as TV personality Morty Williams.

Drill Sergeant Nasty: Aren't you a little female to be Morty Williams?
Candace: Well, You Know What They Say. The camera adds masculinity.

    • Even her own parents are fooled. When they put the same Paper-Thin Disguise on a cactus, everyone thinks it's Morty Williams. When the drill sergeant shows the guards that it's just a disguise by putting it on in front of them, they think he's Morty Williams.
  • Hilariously subverted in League of Super Evil, where the gang are attempting to gain access to a prestigious restaurant. A man enters the lobby who is quite clearly just all four members of LOSE stuffed inside a trenchcoat and matching hat with a pair of sunglasses and a false moustache on. He is allowed through without incident, and is immediately followed by an IDENTICAL man, whom it turns out IS the gang in a trenchcoat. After the disguise has failed epicly and LOSE have been thrown out into the bins, Red Menace remarks "Maybe we should have gone in before the other guy."
  • In the King of the Hill episode where Dale is a Bounty Hunter, when he disguises himself as a flower delivery man to attempt to gain entry into the fugitives house, he doesn't even bother taking off his "Bounty Hunter" hat. Unfortunately for Dale, this works about as well as you would expect. To be fair, he never takes hat off unless forced to, since he is self-conscious about his bald spot.
  • In the episode "Revenge of the Dark Stone" of Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, the evil Lady Kale supposedly dresses as her good twin Queen Anya to infiltrate her palace while wearing a burqa-like robe. It's a strange disguise, as Anya is never seen wearing anything like that, her eyes are still of a different color and her voice is still different too, so presumably she didn't just change her hair color in order to smuggle her two Dweasel creatures with her under the robe. Needless to say, such disguise worked perfectly.
  • Newton, of Neds Newt, is a 6-foot tall Shapeshifting blue humanoid newt. But as long as he's got some human clothes on, nobody notices. Of course, pretty much all the adults in the setting are more or less idiots.
  • When in his civilian identity, Robin in Young Justice needs to be in disguise (apparently it's something Batman insists on). All he does is pull on a pair of sunglasses.
    • In Robin's defense, the team does not have any contact with Dick Grayson unless Artemis goes to Gotham Academy.
    • A better example of this trope would be Conner. He doesn't wear a mask or any costume at all, but so long as he isn't wearing a Superman t-shirt, no one recognizes him to be Superboy.
  • Brain from Inspector Gadget is able to fool Gadget sometimes just by wearing a hat, glasses, and fake mustache and he never recognizes him no matter how bad his disguise is.
  • From Star Wars the Clone Wars: Despite supposedly being the best Bounty Hunter in the galaxy after the late Jango Fett, Cad Bane's Jedi disguise is pretty pathetic. You'd think that a guy like him would put a little more effort into it.
  • Parodied and inverted in Garfield and Friends, with Orson wearing nothing but a moustache and costume posing as the Rooster Ranger to play a trick on Roy. Roy immediately recognized it as "Orson in a pathetic disguise", but when Orson fell into his mudhole Orson came up to investigate. It turned out that the Rooster Ranger was actually Lanolin in costume.
  • Philemena pulls this off successfully with a fake moustache in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It should be noted that she's a bird in a town populated solely by ponies. (And Spike.)
    • Fluttershy used a large hat and sunglasses to go unnoticed during her fashion model career, which would have been more convincing if her canary yellow body and distinctive cutie mark were also concealed.
    • Inverted in "Party of One". Pinkie Pie disguises herself as a block of hay. Wearing a trenchcoat and fedora. And Groucho glasses. Despite the over-the-top silliness, it could be a effective disguise, if everyone didn't already knew Pinkie Pie would be the only one crazy enough to wear that in the first place.
    • In "Dragon Quest", Rarity disguises herself, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle in a silly-looking dragon costume. This fools the dragon herd, especially since there's an actual dragon that resembled the costume.
  • My Dad the Rock Star: Out of desire to be a normal kid, Willy Zilla introduced himself as "Willy Zillowsky". When he told the truth to Quincy and Alyssa, Quincy's reaction was commenting that it explained Willy appearing at the cover of a Rock Zilla album.
  • In a Sylvester Cat and Tweety Bird cartoon, Sylvester attempts to disguise himself as a monkey in order to infiltrate Tweety's apartment. Initially it seems as though his disguise was actually working, but then he lifts his hat up and she whacks him in the head, with her also saying "Did you really think I would be fooled by that disguise?", making this a subversion similar to the Mr. Burns example.
  • Inverted on The Cleveland Show in the episode where Roberta dons a Fat Suit. It's a very convincing disguise and almost everyone is fooled, but somehow Cleveland, Donna, and Rallo see through it.
  • "Dr. Aschleppwagen" from UFM: Unidentified Flying Mater.
    • Even more so with Mater's disguise as Ivan in Cars 2.
  • In Johnny Bravo, one episode features a shark walking on its tail fin wearing a Richard Nixon Nixon Mask at the tip of its snout. Although a scarce few are suspicious, most are fooled by the disguise.
  • In every episode of the British children's animated series Poppy Cat, the badger Egbert appears in the characters' adventures as a villain wearing a paper-thin disguise. The catch, however, is that unlike most instances of this trope, the characters always recognize him who he is and even call him "Egbert," but he insists "I am not Egbert, I am such-and-such character."
  • In the "Christmas: Impossible" segment of Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, Huey, Dewey, and Louie mosey around Santa's workshop wearing their usual monochrome shirts plus green hats. Their doubts of success disappear the moment an elf addresses one as "fellow elf."
  • The Tom and Jerry short "Puttin' on the Dog" has Tom disguising himself as a dog to infiltrate a dog pound that Jerry is hiding in, with nothing but a yellow dog mask. The short's gags revolve around Tom trying to keep track of his mask. At one point, Jerry hands a suspicious Spike this message: "Yes stupid, it's a cat."
  • In Get Muggsy, the title character's friends (an opossum, raccoon and spider) need only stuff sticks of white gum in their mouth to fool others into thinking that they are beavers.
  • In an episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy, the Eds manage to sneak past Kevin by disguising themselves as Jonny. Which means all three Eds are crammed into a gigantic papier-mâché sphere vaguely shaped like Jonny's head, with the eyes cut out and all three Eds plainly visible inside and an imitation Plank glued to the side. Kevin doesn't seem to notice, saying hi to "Jonny" and muttering "What a freak" when "he" hits the fence and falls over it.
  • In the Rugrats episode "Angelica's Twin", Angelica pretends to have a twin sister to get two toys instead of one. Angelica becomes "Balina" by tying her hair in a knot and rolling up her sleeves. Tommy tells Angelica to stop pretending but falls for it once she plays dumb. When Betty asks Didi if she is really going to buy two toys, Didi answers that she shouldn't stifle Angelica's creativity. The babies end up liking Balina more than Angelica.
  • In the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, He-Man is basically Prince Adam with different clothes and... that's it. Same face, same haircut, same body, same VOICE. Likewise, Kringer becomes Battlecat by... putting some bronze armor on.
    • Averted in one episode, where Kobra Khan disguises himself as a human: there is no resemblances at all, except in his speech... and Orko is still able to see through it.
    • Averted in the 2002 remake. He-Man has a very different build from Adam. Played straight in one episode where Cringer is able to get past Whiplash and Mer-Man guarding the entrance to Snake Mountain after Orko uses magic to turn his fur purple. While Cringer is much smaller and skinnier than Panthor, the two still assume its him and let him pass. Although, Whiplash does seem to notice a difference but figures Skeletor might just not be feeding him as much.
    • His sister has the same problem. Adora's disguise is nothing more than a costume-and-hairdo change, and unlike Adam, she makes no Obfuscating Stupidity act as Adora. Seeing as Adora used to work for the Horde, one gets the idea that Hordak isn't very smart.
      • In the Netflix remake, this is averted, as Adora does not keep her identity secret; subverted in one episode where Adora fails the old Dressing as the Enemy routine because she has no poker face whatsoever.
  • In Miraculous Ladybug, Marinette's domino mask does very little to hide her identity. As Cat Noir, Adrian puts a little more effort into it, his eyes turning green and cat-like while in costume, but still not much of a disguise. Despite Marinette's obsession over Adrian and Adrian's similar feelings for Ladybug, neither seems able to figure it out, despite always working as partners. Also true with Hawk Moth (most viewers figured out who he was before the "official" reveal) and villains like Lady Wifi whom the two heroes have problems identifying.
  • In The Owl House episode "Eclipse Lake", this is inverted twice over. Hunter tries to infiltrate Kikimora's project, and his disguise - a regular Emperor's Coven uniform - seems sound, having a full-head helmet. Unfortunately for him, Kikimora quickly recognizes his "whiny voice", as does Eda when he flees and runs into her.
  • In The Tick episode “Armless But Not Harmless”, one-shot villain Venus uses a high-tech device to steal the Tick and Arthur’s arms, and then place them on robot “duplicates” to frame the heroes for her crimes. Both these robots are the wrong color, aside from the arms and heads (the imposter Tick is red, imposter Arthur is brown), the heads look like buckets with faces drawn on by markers, and everything but the arms looks jury-rigged and mechanical. Even the dim-witted Tick notices, “That doesn’t even look like me, they got my antennae all wrong!” Despite these obvious fakes, the press, the police, and even the manager of the Comet Club (where both heroes are regulars) are fooled by the ruse, requiring both to clear their names.
  • In the Harley Quinn episode "Icons Only", Harley has a very hard time fitting in at the villain-exclusive resort now that her Heel Face Turn has become public. She is able to pass as a villain when she simply puts on a pink wig and glasses and calls herself "Hargret". Despite not changing the rest of her costume at all, only Ivy recognizes her. Every other villain there whom she is familiar with, even Clayface (a former member of her gang) is fooled.
  • Downplayed in Hazbin Hotel, where Vaggie is able to conceal her true nature - that of a former Exorcist - from Charlie for three entire years. Carmilla, however, is not fooled:

Carmilla: You have a giant X over your eye and wield an angelic spear. It's not rocket science.

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Paper-Thin_Disguise/Western_Animation?oldid=2048257"