The camera adds a few cup sizes.
Kid: Your Zuko costume's pretty good, but your scar's on the wrong side.
Zuko: The scar's not on the wrong side!
Zuko: The scar's not on the wrong side!
This trope is when a celebrity, Super Hero with a Secret Identity, a magical, non-human creature, etc. is mistaken for an impersonation of themselves, and furthermore, criticized or laughed at for their lame "costume".
Picture this: Elvis really is Not Quite Dead after all. He decides to surprise the world by showing up at one of those Elvis Impersonator conventions in full iconic Elvis regalia. What does he hear when he shows up? His outfit is the poorest recreation anyone has ever seen, his accent sounds totally fake, his pompadour is all messed up and wrong, and he's much too tall. Nice try, newbie, but you would never pass as the real Elvis.
May be evoked in Clark Kenting. Yes, this does happen in Real Life because Reality Is Unrealistic. Also, performers who are going to work have cosmetics and costume people to get them ready to look good under the bright lights, compared to whatever day-to-day clothes they wear to go shopping.
In real life, there is many an anecdote about celebrities losing their own lookalike contests. A contributing factor is that impersonations are usually not judged on how much they look and act like the real celebrity in general, but how faithfully they can recreate a small number of recorded performances. Those same recordings are available for the impersonator to rehearse with again and again, whereas for the real Elvis, that performance was only one out of hundreds in his career. Many of the small details in the canonical recording that the impersonators lovingly reproduce would be unimportant accidents to the real performer, or at best just one point on an entire scale of ways they can perform.
Not to be confused with Cheap Costume or Beta Outfit. Also see Recognition Failure, Mistaken for Clown and Genuine Imposter. This might lead to the "impersonator" explaining that Actually, I Am Him. If someone tries to remove the non-existent costume, this can lead to Not a Mask.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Played with in episode 18 of S1 of Bakuten Shoot Beyblade. Tyson returns home briefly after winning the Chinese Beyblade Tournament. When he sees that the local kids have picked up playing Beyblade, he comments on two girls beyblading. When asked who he is, they don't believe he's the real Tyson, commenting that the Tyson on TV is far cuter. However, in this case, it's justified as Tyson is set to head to America to compete in the American Tournament. Most people assumed he was already in America or heading there (Including his friends from his home town)and therefore he couldn't be the real deal. This is subverted in V-Force were whenever any of the Bladebreakers talk with the kids in Tysons town,or whenever Tyson plays or partakes in local shop tournaments as celebrity challenger, the kids there immediately recognize them and are thrilled to meet/play against them.
- In the dub of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Don Patch says he once won third place in a "Don Patch Look-alike" contest.
- Codename: Sailor V: This happens twice to Minako Aino:
- The first time she was mistaken for an impersonator trying to advertise the Sailor V Game (it helped it was her first public appearance, with most people who knew of her having only seen her on the Sailor V Game machine);
- The second time she had just kicked down a youma that had assaulted her school's festival, and the first thing one of the victims said after recovering was to ask who was the crazy girl wearing a fake Sailor V costume.
- Digimon:
- Digimon Adventure: When Pumpkinmon and Gotsumon are kicked out of a pachinko place in "Out on the Town", the bouncer tells them that, if they're going to try sneaking in dressed as cartoon characters, they should at least try to get good costumes.
- Don't Meddle with My Daughter!: In chapter 3, Athena and Clara end up entering an Eighth Wonder look-a-like contest. Clara thinks it will be an easy win for her since she's the real thing. Some villains end up attacking the contest because they think Eighth Wonder is there. Athena is able to take charge of the situation and help get a lot of the civilians evacuated. For this, the judges give her first place reasoning that though she doesn't look like the real Eighth Wonder (even though she is the previous one), her actions inspired people much like the real one. Clara on the other hand gets 10th place.
- Digimon Tamers has Takato walking with Guilmon on the street at plain daylight. Nobody was alarmed because it was a real good life-size replica for a 10 year old. It's okay, a dinosaur that snorts, talks, walks and spits fireballs is just a basic project to do for your average 10 year old. We're in Japan, after all.
- Kotetsu runs into this in the 20th episode of Tiger & Bunny when trying to convince an Apollon Media security guard that he's Wild Tiger. The security guard notes that hero look-alikes try to sneak into the premises all the time, and he has no reason to believe that Kotetsu isn't just a convincing Wild Tiger cosplayer.
- This happens to Gohan in Dragon Ball Z when he interrupts filming in a movie about the Great Saiyaman. The director and actors mistake him for a meddling stunt double, and when he uses his usual poses and catch phrases, they call him a moron because the real Saiyaman wouldn't be that stupid and corny, unaware that is how he normally acts as Saiyaman. They only realize it's the real deal when, after being rejected, he flies away — dragging a huge crane behind him, no less.
- Dragon Ball Super likewise had a mini-arc where they were making a "Great Saiyaman vs. Mr. Satan" movie, and Satan (who knows Gohan's identity) got him cast as the Saiyaman's stunt double so he could get at least some small recognition for his heroics; the rest of the cast and crew just assumed he was doing his nerdy son-in-law a favor.
- In the Inuyasha manga, chapter 520, Inuyasha shows up on a present-day Tokyo train as he usually appears, haori, sword, ears and hair and all. Some of the innocent bystanders think he is cosplaying, but say that he's not a very good cosplayer. This makes sense since not many manga exist inside their own worlds. So, even if it was Sesshoumaru in his brother's place, he could as well be given the same treatment (after all, some people do cosplays of their own Original Generation characters, which gives some bystanders the right to point flaws in them).
- The 14th chapter of My Hero Academia: Team Up Mission has Class 1A members role-play one another during one of the exercises. Midoriya ends up role-playing as Bakugo and fails to act like him, until he gives some advice to a kid who mistook him for Bakugo and passes the exercise. However, when the kid meets the real Bakugo, he runs away after being offended by his rudeness, claiming he’s “not” Bakugo.
- Played with in Slayers - When they temporarily join a company of traveling actors, Lina and Gourry are given a bit part as the dragon, while Amelia is asked to play the hero. The name of the play? "Bring Us Justice and Peace: The Death of the Abominable Fiend Lina Inverse."
- To Your Eternity: When Gugu revisits his hometown of Takunaha in the modern day, he learns that he has become a figure of legend famed for defending the town against monsters, with a whole festival being dedicated to him. He is then shown by his brother's descendant a group photo of himself, Fushi, and their friends from back then followed by being welcomed back home...only for his brother's descendant to say that his costume is a spot on replica of himself and that it would be a hit at said festival.
- Trigun: Vash the Stampede gets this a lot, thanks to his Obfuscating Stupidity and the over-the-top legend that has grown around him. In the movie Badlands Rumble, Vash attempts to use his reputation as an outlaw to avoid getting kicked out of a bar by Meryl. After a Beat, everyone in the bar bursts out laughing. It helps that the diminutive Meryl had just dragged him across the room by his ear, taking the impact away from anything he could've said. Vash greatly enjoys the mixup.
- Ya Boy Kongming!: Since Kongming refuses to wear anything other than his Three Kingdoms court robes and carries his trademark feather fan with him everywhere, this is most people's reaction upon seeing him. The general assumption is that he's just an eccentric who really enjoys dressing up as Kongming.
Asian Animation
- In Season 3 episode 4 of Happy Friends, to make a lie he told about the existence of a people on Planet Xing called the Blue Stars convincing, Smart S. hires someone to paint actors the necessary colors. When that person sees the partially blue-colored Monster of the Week, he thinks he's one of the actors and complains about the quality of his costume before the monster angrily shouts that it isn't a costume.
Comedy
- In the 1960s, one of Woody Allen's comedy routines was about him shooting a moose, which turns out to be unconscious rather than dead, and driving home with it. Realizing it's awake, he takes it to a costume party, claiming it's a couple in a moose suit... which is precisely who wins the Best Costume award, for which the actual moose comes in second.
- In one of his early comedy albums, Lewis Black tells the story of auditioning for the lead role in a sitcom based on his monologues, which was written precisely with him in mind as the lead. After an audition, the producers cast another actor in the role, thinking that Black playing himself wasn't authentic enough.
"Unbeknownst to me, there was a better ME out there!"
Comic Strips
- U.S. Acres: Roy once dared Orson to dress like a bear.
◊ When a real bear showed up, Roy said it was the worst bear suit he'd ever seen.
- The newspaper version of Spider-Man has Spidey apply to play himself in a movie. He's rejected without even an audition because he's too short. They change their mind when he performs some stunts that make it clear he's the real deal.
Films — Animation
- In Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, Princess Anneliese encounters Madame Carp, the Bad Boss of her Identical Stranger Erika, after being turned away from the palace by a guard. Carp, believing that she's Erika, drags her back to the dress shop she runs. When Anneliese tries to assert her true identity, Carp sneers at her and mockingly asks if she thinks just changing her hair will make her look like the princess.
- In Shrek the Third, Shrek has to infiltrate Worcestershire high school to find Fiona's cousin Arthur Pendragon, and gets mistaken for a mascot at an assembly (he claims he was working on it all night). This gets spun into a Chekhov's Gun later on as Prince Charming invades Far Far Away and stages a play on the death of Shrek - and Shrek infiltrates it by passing as one of the leads.
- In Megamind, the eponymous villain is about to blow up the Metro-Man museum in the middle of the night when he runs into snarky curator Bernard, who initially mistakes him for a guy in a cheap costume (didn't help Megamind was still in his pajamas), and gets dehydrated and impersonated for his troubles.
- Miles' first costume in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was Official Cosplay Gear bought in a Spider-Man merchandise store causing him to accidentally blend in with similarly dressed mourners at Peter Parker's funeral.
- In Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, When the gang captures a lone pirate zombie, they initially believe it to be an obvious fake, an unusual case of savvy. Unfortunately, in this instance they were Wrong Genre Savvy.
- George Harrison commented that the voices of The Beatles in Yellow Submarine (John Clive, Geoffrey Hughes. Paul Angelis) were better than the band could have been if they'd done it themselves.
Music
- Referred to in "Talk Normal" by Laurie Anderson:
I turned the corner in Soho today and someone
Looked right at me and said "Oh no!
Another Laurie Anderson clone!"
Print Media
- Inverted in MAD Magazine's "A Mad Look at Batman", where the hero chases a crook into a masquerade party, and then walks out with first prize.
- In the Dragon Magazine article "The Ecology of the Troglodyte", the Framing Story is a wizard describing to his fellows how he used a spell to occupy a troglodyte's body in order to learn more about them. Throughout his story, a heckler in the audience criticizes the illusions he uses to illustrate his findings. At the end, the wizard admits he was unable to reverse the spell, and has been using magic to animate his unconscious body from the "illusionary" troglodyte.
Theatre
- Played with in Forbidden Broadway Volume 3, where Carol Channing interrupts an actress impersonating her, asking for help on playing herself. This was loosely based on a Real Life incident between Channing and celebrity impersonator Rich Little.
- In a German cabaret sketch from between the wars, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe returns from the afterlife to come to the aid of a student by taking an oral exam on Goethe in his stead. In this exam he answers questions with things he actually said, such as: "What is Goethe's most important work?" - "The Theory of Colours, of course." Or he replies as Goethe probably would have: "What can you tell me about Goethe's relationship to Frau von Stein?" - "That's nobody's business!" So of course he fails the exam.
Video Games
- Jade Empire has an example of this Trope. At one point, the player character can appear in an ersatz Beijing Opera production of a famous battle... as a female character. If the player is female, the director will comment on how unrealistic they look as a woman.
- Metaphor: ReFantazio plays with this trope a bit with Glodell. During a tournament, he's asked to bring in the head of a monster with the biggest head being the winner. Deciding to emulate his master Louis, he brings in the head of a human. Unfortunately for him, apart from how tiny it is, no one recognizes it as such since the general populace has no idea what a human even looks like, with at least one spectator accusing him of making the head instead of hunting it.
- In MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance, on Saturn before Bowfest '8X, you play as Zarbol and another insectoid in a UFO named Boson, who is bringing the group their instruments to play for the crowd. As Colonel Saturn approaches them and says they are nearly ready to play, a fanboy Shambler approaches them and tells the Colonel that his own hat is off and fights them for the chance to play at their own show. After he gets trounced, he says they'd make an acceptable cover band.
- In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the president of Luigi's fan club wants to meet the man in green personally. If you wear the L Emblem, changing Mario's shirt and cap to green, she'll be convinced that Mario is Luigi and offer him a present... just in time for the real Luigi to show up and get chased off as an impostor. Which is particularly jarring since green Mario still has the "M" on his hat. It's also a Call-Back to the days where Luigi was nothing more than a color-swapped Mario. It was only later that he got his own design, becoming taller and thinner than Mario with a differently shaped mustache.
- In Ultima VII, the Avatar can audition to understudy the lead role in a play... called "Tales of the Avatar". The director will then instruct you to buy an Avatar costume (which looks exactly like what the Avatar's already wearing), and no matter what you do in the audition, the director will politely decline to cast you.
- In Mass Effect 3, during the Citadel DLC, if you bring Javik along to the Silver Coast Casino infiltration, when Shepard needs a distraction so s/he can disable a camera blocking his/her progress, Javik goes up to a guard and says that he's a Prothean. The guard responds that Javik is the fourth one he's seen this week alone, but his costume's better than the rest. Something similar happens if he's around when you meet Kirrahe at a salarian intelligence base; he thinks Javik is a surgically altered drell meant to screw with the Reapers.
- In Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong, bringing Gaichû with you to the deckers' convention will lead to at least two comments on his 'cosplay', one noting that his (authentic) Red Samurai armour is the wrong shade of red and the other geeking out over Gaichû's 'commitment' by making his Red Samurai 'replica' out of actual metal instead of just going with cardboard or styrofoam.
- At the "Ransome jerk-alike contest" in Thimbleweed Park, nobody believes that Ransome is the actual Ransome the *BEEP*ing insult Clown. Ransome comes in third place (out of 3), no matter what you try.
- Zig-zagged in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, where at one point B.J. steals the identity of an actor named Jules Redfield to infiltrate a casting call to play the role of "Terror Billy"... that is, himself. He flubs an initial line-reading, causing Hitler to comment that he could learn much from another actor who nails the reading. Then comes time for a mock battle with a fully-armored guard, and the first actor panics over a light nosebleed after taking a small smack to the face, and he's laughed off (and also shot)... and then B.J. steps in and straight-up murders the guard, emptying his own gun into him, smashing his corpse repeatedly with it, then throwing it at the glass and threatening to do the same to every other Nazi in the world without a care that by all rights this should have blown his cover. They eat it up, with Hitler specifically praising him for being so attuned to the psychotic urges of "Terror Billy", and he gets the part.
- In Chapter 3 of Fire Emblem: Awakening, Raimi calls Chrom out for impersonating Ylissean royalty, despite the fact that Chrom is a Prince of Ylisse, wields the Falchion, and bears the Brand of the Exalt. The yonkoma lampshades this, with Robin staring at Chrom's Brand and planning to show it to Raimi, but Chrom insists on fighting.
- In Spider-Man (PS4), background chatter from pedestrians includes someone mistaking Spidey for a street performer. He actually sounds impressed - "This guy almost looks like Spider-Man."
- In the intro to the Call of Duty: Zombies map "Call of the Dead", George Romero is shooting a zombie action film when a real zombie shows up, missing its jaw and looking very gory. Romero's response is "Get back to Hair and Makeup, you don't look nearly dead enough!"
- In Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary, during Satan/Dark Prince's story mode, Klug says that Dark Prince's wearing a costume, more or less saying he isn't really who he is. Let's ignore the fact that Klug said Satan (the Dark Prince is explicitly supposed to be Satan and is named that in Japanese) was a myth, but let's focus more on the fact he's saying that our green-haired villain is wearing a costume of a guy from an entirely different section of Puyo Puyo's history. Which he got from a book about another dimension. ...Unless he means the real Satan...
- In Labyrinth City Pierre and Carmen are searching for Mr. X during a carnival celebration. A man identified by a bystander as Mr. X, who turns out to be dressed as him, asks who you're supposed to be and replies "Pierre the Maze Detective? Your costume isn't great." He then states that he saw a "less convincing" Mr. X near the carousel, who of course is the real thing.
- Zenless Zone Zero: A group of Bangboo are having an Astra Yao lookalike contest, but the real Astra Yao learned about the event and enters herself, only to win 3rd place because she's not convincing enough and her stage costume is inaccurate.
- Psycutlery: In the game's epilogue, Terra Zaic, the goddess of Geozaic, is mistaken for a cosplayer of herself by the planet's inhabitants as she was fixing the damage she caused to the world.
Web Animation
- Inverted in Homestar Runner: Homsar enters a Strong Sad impersonation contest, and his costume is so good he gets mistaken for the real Strong Sad and disqualified.
- A Red vs. Blue ad for RTX has Sarge complaining he lost the "Best Sarge" at the cosplay contest to Simmons.
Webcomics
- The Adventures of Gyno-Star: A fan mistakes Gyno-Star for an impersonator, then insults her when pointing out how she can't be the real Gyno-Star.
- In Buster Wilde Weerwolf, a drag queen meets Buster and thinks he is just a lunatic in a costume and tries to pull off Buster's mask but Buster really is a werewolf.
- In a strip where Casey and Andy goes to a comic-con, some kid claims that his Wolverine-claws are much more realistic than Mary's — and while she might not actually BE Wolverine, her claws are actually razor-sharp, retractable claws implanted through mad science!
- In Dork Tower, Sonya, a furry, believes that Carson, a genuine anthropomorphic muskrat, is "a guy in the worst dog suit ever. Or marmot suit, or sheep suit, or something." Later, Carson gets this from a bunch of costumed furries at a convention: "Worst muskrat costume EVER!" This is probably also a Lampshade Hanging of Carson not looking much like a muskrat at all.
- Exterminatus Now: Lothar uploads a video of Demon Morth getting killed by a Greater Demon online as "Extreme Badger Baiting". Several comments list it as "fake" with one even claiming you can see a zipper. And another asking how they did the CGI.
- Girl Genius:
- Subverted when Aaronev Sturmvoraus catches his son up on the play they were watching; he mentions a "hilariously bad midget in a cat suit." Sounds like he was talking about Krosp, right?. Well... no. Turns out there really was a midget in a cat suit.
- Also deliberately invoked by Mama Gkika. Jägermonsters aren't allowed in Mechanicsburg, and she runs a club where the girls all make themselves up to look like Jägers. With all these fake Jäger girls, nobody notices the real ones in their midst.
- Later, the crowd in the street is at first not convinced that Gilgamesh Wulfenbach is exactly who he says he is. At least, until he puts on the hat.
- Agatha and the circus arrange a horde of Jägers, consisting mostly of actors, but lead by Da Boyz. One of the actors tells Dimo his make-up needs work.
- Subverted when Aaronev Sturmvoraus catches his son up on the play they were watching
- Grrl Power: Bonus art by Dave Barrack shows Sidney Scoville (the real superheroine Halo) losing a "Halo Lookalike Contest" to a much bustier contestant. Sydney isn't happy.
- Hookie Dookie Panic strip named "Full Metal Jacket vs. Fullmetal Alchemist":
We all learned what happens when one confuses a Marine in his uniform for a cosplayer...
- Karkat goes to a Convention: There are multiple instances in the story where the real Homestuck characters have their costumes critiqued by the various cosplayers. This actually becomes important, as it's eventually revealed Homestuck got some of the details wrong about the characters.
- Julie of Our Little Adventure is told this by one of the Elven agents posing as her.
- In Schlock Mercenary Schlock tries to get a part in the circus demonstrating his various abilities, but fails because his abilities aren't as impressive as the ones possessed by Sergeant Schlock in the TV show very loosely based on his adventures.
Schlock: The TV-me is putting me-me out of a job.
- In Venus Envy, Chris, a cross-dresser, critiques Zoe (a transgender woman)'s breasts and dress, upsetting her... and then starts critiquing Lisa, who, unlike Zoe, is cisgender. It doesn't end well for Chris.
Websites
- In this Drawception game (a website hosting games of "telephone Pictionary"), a player dismissively described one of the drawings as "a bad imitation" of a certain user's characteristic drawing style. Of course, said drawing was in fact made by the very user in question.
Web Videos
- Played straight in the Half in the Bag review of The Dark Knight Rises, in which Mike uses his signature Plinkett voice to impersonate Fake Plinkett in a phone call. This is the first half of the exchange:
Mike: (normal voice) Hello?
Radio Guy on Phone: Hello there! Is this Mr. Harry S. Plinkett?
Jay: (softly) Oh, pretend to be Plinkett.
Mike: (Plinkett voice) Yeah, this's Harry-ass Plinkett, who is this?
Jay: That is the worst Plinkett impression I've ever heard! He's gonna think you're a fake!
Mike: (whispering) Shut up! - Ross of Game Grumps and Steam Train claims to have once been asked to do an Australian accent for a cartoon, only for people to pan his "unrealistic and shit accent". Though to their credit, Ross also acknowledges that while he was born and raised in Australia until he was 24, he has an "international" accent now from living in the United States.
- During BissFlix's reaction video on The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), Biss remarks that Jim Caviezel, who plays Edmond Dantes, "looks like Henry Cavill". Humorously, Cavill plays Edmond's son Albert, and when he shows up in the film, she initially asks "everybody looks like Henry Cavill in this movie or what?".