Paper-Thin Disguise/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

 

 

* In ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'', all Supes has to do is [[Clark Kenting|put on a pair of glasses and a suit]] and call himself Clark Kent and few people make the connection.

** 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 [[Cloudcuckoolander|a man who seems to be completely insane.]] He switches hats and names, telling the gang he's a trio of brothers.

'''"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 [[Title Drop|episode's title]]), and he couldn't be recognized by any of the other characters, {{spoiler|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''}}.

*** 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, [[Dirty Old Man|for obvious reasons]]. However, Brian apparently sees through the disguise, and humiliates him by talking about stretching his "creamy hamstrings."

** 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 [[The Ditz|Bubbles]]) aren't fooled, the other girls and [[Idiot Ball|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 ''[[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''.

** After failing to get the [[MacGuffin|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.

** In a (non-''DuckTales'' related) comic story, this is [[Lampshade Hanging|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).

*** 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.

* 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.

* 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 "[[Most Definitely Not a Villain|I'm not Numbuh One]]."

{{quote|'''Toilenator:''' [[Too Dumb to Live|I didn't think a T-shirt would lie to me!]]}}

*** And changes the name to "Mandy", no less.

** [[The Tough Guy|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 Girl]]s 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).

'''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.

** 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.

** 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".

** 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!

* Subverted in ''[[El Tigre]]'' with Sergio's disguise as his villain alter ego [[Se Ã]]±or 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.

* 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!|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 [[Lampshade Hanging|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!".

** 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 [[Sneeze of Doom|sneezes the earmuffs and nose off]].

* "[[You Look Familiar]]", says Jinx to Cyborg in ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|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.

* On ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes|Jimmy Two Shoes]]'', Jimmy managed to pass for [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|Molotov]] in a spacesuit with nothing but a crudely made stuffed head on a pole.

* In ''[[Futurama]]'':

* From ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars|Star Wars the Clone Wars]]'': Despite supposedly being [[Informed Ability|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 {{spoiler|Orson came up to investigate. It turned out that the Rooster Ranger was actually Lanolin in costume.}}

** 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 [[Conspicuous Trenchcoat|a trenchcoat and fedora]]. [[Up to Eleven|And Groucho glasses]]. Despite the over-the-top silliness, it ''could'' be a effective disguise, if everyone didn't already knew [[Cloudcuckoolander|Pinkie Pie]] would be the only one crazy enough to wear that in the first place.

* 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 ''[[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|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 [[Companion Cube|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 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.