Troperville
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Cunning disguise.
Princess Leia: Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper? Luke: What? Oh, the uniform. <pulls off helmet> I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you. Princess Leia: You're who?
"Princess Leia": Aren't you a little fat for a stormtrooper?
"Luke": Why don't you stay here and rot, you stuck up bitch?
Most of the heroes are trapped in a cell, when the door opens and a guard wearing a face-concealing helmet enters.
They prepare for a fight. The guard takes off his/her helmet — and reveals that it's one of their allies.
In the real world, this is illegal for a military operation (under Article 39 of the 1977 First Geneva Protocol ), but not when it comes to espionage. Well, that is, unless you take off the uniform before you start firing, and a lot of other small things that our heroes nonetheless forget and our villains disregard anyway.
Note that the guard the hero knocks out is always wearing the right size uniform to fit him perfectly. (Except in subversions, in which case it fits him very poorly).
This occurs so often that Rule Number 1 on the Evil Overlord List is that the Legions of Doom should wear clear helmets. Another rule from that list calls for guards to wear tailored uniforms which will not fit any hero who attempts this trick.
Actually a very common mythic trope called 'Wearing Enemy's Skin' identified by Joseph Campbell. So, Older Than Dirt.
May lead to Friend Or Foe since you do, after all, look like the enemy.
See also The Mole, Trojan Prisoner, Hey Wait. On a regimental scale, this is a False Flag Operation.
Anime and Manga
- A very odd example comes from Super Dimension Fortress Macross and its Robotech adaptaion: Max is trapped onboard a Zentraedi warship and hides in a bathroom. An enemy soldier comes in and Max knocks him out and steals his uniform. The pockets come in handy for rescuing the three human prisoners.
- Its worth noting that he didn't disguise himself, but rather his Humongous Mecha in the uniform of the equally giant alien.
- Not quite enemies, but the Roberia Zuka Club makes their first appearance in Ouran Academy uniforms, one as a male.
Comic Books
- Played semi-straight in multiple Asterix stories. At Obelix's insistence, they always look for two enemies, one small and one... medium-sized. Note that Obelix is a big man by any standard imaginable, in case you didn't know.
Film
- A similar example to the page quote occurs in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, where the bounty hunter that sells Chewbacca to Jabba the Hutt turns out to be Princess Leia in disguise, there to rescue Han. Also, Lando is in disguise beforehand as a mercenary, bounty hunter, or other kind of scum that would generally hang around Jabba's palace.
- And the only reason the rebels won the battle of Endor was because Chewbacca hopped in an AT-ST and gunned down the others.
- The quote at the top of this page mentions when Luke and Han dressed up as Storm Troopers so they could rescue Princess Leia in A New Hope.
- Parodied in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Miss Kensington and Austin follow a pair of Virtucom employees into the restrooms, one a very tall and lanky man, the other an obese woman, and emerge seconds later in perfectly fitted uniforms.
- Indiana Jones uses it twice in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, once as a Nazi officer — leading to a too-close encounter with Der Fuerher himself — and once as a waiter on a zeppelin.
- Subverted in his first try. He tries to enter the manor where his dad is held hostage by posing as a Scottish artist. The butler doesn't fall for it. Indy promptly punches him in the face.
- However, the earlier Raiders of the Lost Ark spoofs the trope, when Indy knocks out a Nazi guard whose uniform does not fit him. Luckily, he gets discovered by a German officer who mistakes him for the guard, and is able to steal his uniform while the officer is busy berating him. It fits like a glove.
- Inverted in Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls where the American army convoy at the start of the movie are Russians.
- Jeff Bridges pulls this off in Tron, but because the good guys and the bad are simply color-coded, all he needs to do for a disguise is steal the glowing red trim around a Mook's costume.
- The Dirty Dozen won a war game by using this trope. Since the two sides only differentiated by colour of arm-band, it was surprisingly easy ("We're traitors"), although you wonder why the opposing colonel didn't recognize the ones he talked to. The same trick was used in Private Benjamin, using one soldier's non-regulation red underwear to make the red armbands.
- In addition, The Dirty Dozen dressed as German soldiers for their actual mission.
- In Sahara, a straight version of this allows the protagonists entry to the mooks' base, especially since they've "borrowed" the Big Bad's car.
- The Eagle Has Landed points out the illegality of this several times. There is a flimsy rationalisation where they wear their German paratrooper uniforms underneath Polish uniforms, and only engage in actual combat as Germans.
- In Where Eagles Dare, Richard Burton's team of commandos don Nazi uniforms to infiltrate an enemy castle, purely to get Clint Eastwood running around shooting people in German stormtrooper garb. In a twist, some of the commandos are undercover Nazis, their true allegiances reflected in what they're wearing.
- Something similar occurs in Die Hard as a shoeless John McClane laments "Nine million terrorists in the world and I gotta kill one with feet smaller than my sister!"
- The Guns of Navarone. After turning the tables on and capturing their German Army interrogators, our heroes don their uniforms and escape.
- Inverted in two different way in The Dark Knight. First when the Joker's gang try to kill the mayor by taking the place of Police Officers in a parade, and then when they put their masks on civilians who have their mouths taped shut and their hands taped to the fake/unloaded guns.
- A similar inversion occurs in V For Vendetta, when V dresses up bound and gagged employees of the station he's attacking in replicas of his own costume, leading the guards to unwittingly open fire on them.
- At one point in Dr Strangelove, a column of US Army troops is dispatched to storm the Air Force base which has been commandeered by renegade general Ripper. The base troops think they are battling invading Russians:
""You sure gotta hand it to those Commies. Gee, those trucks sure look like the real thing, don't they? I wonder where they got 'em from?"
"Probably bought them from the Army as war surplus. OK. Open up at 200 yards.."
- Blazing Saddles. Two Ku Klux Klan members are part of the line of applicants to join Hedley Lamaar's army of Mooks. Sheriff Bart and the Waco Kid lure them away, knock them out and steal their robes. Unfortunately, they forget that Sheriff Bart is black...
- Also parodied in Spaceballs. Lone Starr and Barf lure two Spaceballs into their Winnebago, beat the crap out of them, and come out with their uniforms. Barf's is perfectly fitted, even though he's much larger than either of the soldiers...and has a tail...
- Mom And Dad Save The World: A sympathetic mook actually gives the hero his uniform to aid his escape. As the uniform doesn't conceal his face, this doesn't work.
- Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey has the title pair do this to get into Fluffy Cloud Heaven. Once they do this, Fridge Logic rears its head to them: they mugged two guys in Heaven.
- Subverted in the Swedish film The Third Wave. A hitman who's stalking his target through an anti-globilisation riot kills a riot policeman and steals his gun, uniform and face-concealing helmet. This enables the hitman to get close to the protagonist and execute him with a shot to the head — unfortunately it turns out the gun he stole is loaded with plastic bullets.
- Spoofed in Monsters Vs Aliens. Link, BOB, and Dr. Cockroach are all mistaken for cloned mooks just by wearing the same shirt they do. At one point a cloned mook sees through one of their disguises...only to order the other two to incinerate him.
- The Wizard of Oz. Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion are ambushed by three of the Wicked Witch of the West's castle guards. In the next scene, the heroes sneak into the witch's castle dressed in the guards' uniforms.
- "The Simpsons Movie". Homer dresses as a hotel doorman to fool a soldier that he is a superior officer. He's only given away when the soldier queries why an order from the President is written on a leaf!
Game Books
- Inverted and played straight in the Lone Wolf book Wolf'sBane, when you must fight your evil twin who, naturally, looks just like Lone Wolf. Later in the book, though, after defeating Wolf's Bane, you get to talk to his Bossman, who thinks you're the evil one.
Literature
- Even King Arthur makes use of this trope, with tragic results: The brothers Balin and Balan go their separate ways, have adventures, defeat their enemies, plunder the bodies, and put on the better armor. By the time they meet again, their armor and shields make them unrecognizable to each other. Tragedy ensues.
- Similarly, in Homer's Iliad, following the siege of Troy, the Trojans took the armor off dead Greek warriors and put them on in an inevitable resistance. Any poor Greek who thought he was joining his allies was racing towards his own death.
- In The Aeneid, the tactic is shown from the Trojan's viewpoint; it succeeds for a while, but the Greeks figure out their ploy, and the Trojan archers have no idea that the band of soldiers is made of their allies, so Aeneas loses a few men to the Greeks and to friendly fire.
- In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables French National Guard uniforms are worn by several revolutionaries and a jealous adoptive father to pass through National Guard lines into the barricades.
- In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Jingo, after being dragooned into spying on the Klatchians with Lord Vetinari, Fred and Nobby attempt to steal some Klatchian clothing in order to blend in. Unfortunately, since it's dark out they only end up beating each other up, and the men they lured into the alley rob "them" instead.
- Nobby was never on the losing side of a battle when he was a quartermaster, the reason being that he'd sneak off and change into a stolen enemy uniform the moment his lot started losing. Due to his habit of selling all his army's weapons and armor (often to the enemy) this happened frequently: enough that experienced generals kept an eye on what he was wearing to see how the battle was going.
- In Open Sesame by Tom Holt, two main characters prepare to jump on a pair of guards, realise the outfits wouldn't fit, so give the guards their measurements. The guards, who are bound to narrative rules, walk off and send in two more guards, who are promptly knocked unconscious, letting the main characters steal their perfectly fitting costumes.
- Used in the Robin Hood ballad where he faces Guy of Gisbourne, wherein after killing Gisbourne, Robin fakes his death by switching clothes with Gisbourne's corpse and mutilating the corpse's face so it's unrecognizable. There are also occasions on which Robin or his men dressed as the enemy without needing to employ fatal measures.
- Done twice in the 1973 Disney Robin Hood cartoon. Robin disguises himself as one of the sheriff's vulture guards, and Little John as the sheriff himself.
- There's some erotic fanart from Robin Hood that involves this, and which really shouldn't be described here.
- Done in CS Lewis's final Chronicles of Narnia book, The Last Battle. Since the enemies are thinly disguised Arabs, the deception includes wearing blackface. One wonders how the upcoming film adaptation in going to handle this in these more PC times.
- There is a very clear difference between Blackface and using makeup and other chemicals to darken ones skin for espionage purposes.
- The Power Trio of The Wizard Of Oz disguised themselves as guards to get into the Wicked Witch's castle. Instead of ambushing the guards, however, the guards ambush them while they are thinking of a way to get inside. The three just happen to defeat the guards off-screen.
- Horatio Hornblower uses this once or twice - not enemy uniforms specifically, but flying the enemy flag on approach, before whipping it down and running up the Union Jack before opening fire.
- Not an uncommon tactic in naval warfare of the time but to be legal the correct ensign had to be flying prior to commencement of active hostilities.
- Judge Dee and his lieutenants are constantly disguising themselves as assorted members of the underworld. Tao Gan actually IS a member of the underworld, retired.
- Done at least three times in the Redwall series: Brome of Noonvale dresses up as a searat, Jukka Sling (a squirrel) shaves her tail and dyes her fur to pass as a Blue Horde rat, and Midge Manycoats designs elaborate vermin costumes for himself and Tammo. On one other occasion, Mariel and friends are wearing stolen searat clothes while on board a ship, are seen by a helmsrat on another ship, and he mistakes them for other searats even though they weren't expecting other rats to be around and aren't actively pretending to be such.
- In JRR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings, Frodo and Sam disguise themselves as orcs during the last leg of their journey. And no, it doesn't fit either of them right. Good thing it's dark.
- Unfortunately it means they get mistaken for deserters and forced 'back' into the orc army.
- Used in The Silmarillion as well, when Beren, Finrod, and his soldiers disguise themselves as orcs.
- And later in the same story when Luthien disguises herself as a bat and Beren as a werewolf to infiltrate Morgoth's citadel
- In Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novel Death Or Glory, Cain and his group travel in stolen ork vehicles. This does distract the orks, but when they come into firing range of an Imperial force, they nearly get fired on before they manage vox communication, and even then the force demands proof.
- Subverted in "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" by Roald Dahl. The titular main character has found a way to beat the casinos, but he gets cocky one night and the owners send goons to his hotel. The bellboy comes to warn him (not out of altruism, but in the belief that it doesn't hurt to have the gratitude of a man who just won a stack of money) and offers to pretend that Henry overwhelmed him and stole his uniform to sneak out of the hotel.
- The Wraiths of the Star Wars: X Wing Series have reason to do this a few times - dressing as Space Pirates in some situations, stormtroopers in others. As pirates they need no ID, but they run into some trouble as stormtroopers without the proper passwords.
- Bones of the Hills opens with a group of Mongols under Tsubodai engaging a regiment of Russian knights. Jochi's argan manages to kill a detachment of them, then steal their armour in order to attack the main force.
- When the Animorphs dress as the enemy, the clothes always fit...because they've morphed into whoever they're trying to imitate.
Live Action TV
- Hogan's Heroes used it a lot, to the point where they have an entire wardrobe full of various German uniforms of differing ranks and positions tailored to fit each of the Heroes. In one notable case, a pair of British spies impersonated an SS film crew to film the camp unnoticed.
- Subverted in the Doctor Who episode "The Runaway Bride"; The Doctor steals a guard's uniform and uses it to infiltrate a secret chamber — but the enemies aren't fooled for a second.
- In at least three stories, the Doctor and his allies manage to disable a Dalek, remove the mutant inside, and substitute one of their number. How a whole person fits in there, when the mutant that came out is not much bigger than a human head, is never made clear.
- The chunkheaded hero from the MST3K-lampooned Space Mutiny beats up a guard who's easily thirty kilograms and 25 cm smaller than he, yet his stolen uniform fits perfectly.
Crow: "So he fits into a suit that was restrictive on a really small man?"
- And within minutes, the disguise is blown at the first checkpoint he comes to. A subversion, perhaps?
- Another example from MST3K: The episode Samson Vs The Vampire Women features a mook trying to disguise himself as a wrestler that the titular hero is about to fight — only the mook has a substantially different body shape from that of the wrestler. (This fact is painfully obvious since the wrestler — and the mook who takes over for him — wears nothing but tights and a mask.)
- In Babylon 5 the attempt to free Sheridan on Mars is blown when one of the infiltrators is seen to have fresh blood on his uniform (from the stab wound of the guard he took it from).
- The rebels often borrow the Visitors' uniforms in the miniseries and series V. In the original miniseries, Donovan takes the uniform of a much smaller, female Visitor, who explains that it will stretch to fit him. Apparently they're one-size-fits-all.
- Farscape. John Crichton infiltrates a Peacekeeper base disguised as an officer (a ploy that had worked successfully before) but encounters Big Bad Scorpius for the first time who casually says "Guards, that man is an imposter. Seize him." It turns out that Scorpius has the ability to see the heat signature of others, so he could tell Critchton wasn't Sebacean.
- In Volume 4 of Heroes, Peter is all set to try this after knocking out one of the Black Ops agents, until Tracy points out to him what a stupid idea it is (he still puts on the guy's uniform, though, because why say no to free Kevlar?). In a later episode, Sylar does the exact same thing, with much more success, although he has much more experience in performing that particular trick.
- Used on a number of occasions in Stargate SG-1.
- Star Trek The Original Series
- Lampshaded and subverted in the episode "Patterns of Force". Kirk and Spock attempt to do this on a Nazi planet to try and get close to the Fuhrer, who happens to be a Federation citizen. Not only does Spock question the logic of doing so (only to concede that it is in that circumstance), but they end up getting caught shortly afterward because of a lapse of protocol they didn't know about. Double-subverted when they try it later and manage to succeed.
- In "The Enterprise Incident" Kirk dresses as a Romulan (including getting an "ear job") to infiltrate a Romulan ship and steal its cloaking device.
Machinima
- Red Vs Blue. To fool the Reds into thinking they have more than one freelancer, Tucker and Caboose are ordered to draw the Red's fire while wearing black armour. How do they get black armour? By jumping through a very experimental teleporter.
- Later in the series, Simmons defects to Blue team, originally because he was shunned by the others, but when Church returns, he begins a charade to try and learn information. To get the effect, he paints his armour blue (although he misses a few spots), but it is subverted in that Church is not fooled by this disguise for one second.
Video Games
- In Final Fantasy VI, when Locke infiltrates South Figaro, you can switch between Locke's normal outfit, a merchant outfit, and an Imperial guardsman outfit; if you rescue Celes while wearing the guardsman outfit, Locke hides in plain sight as the enemy soldiers walk out, and there's a Shout Out to Star Wars during the actual rescue.
- A main ability of the protagonists in Spy Fiction.
- It is entirely possible to beat Fallout 2 in around eleven minutes, by swiping a suit of enemy power armor and waltzing into their nigh-impenetrable fortress.
- This trope is also featured in the original, where you can wear robes and almost everyone in the Cathedral will assume you're one of them.
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty featured an enemy uniform that could be worn by Raiden. Konami deceptively hid his presence in the game by only showing him dressed in this disguise for the game's promotional materials, which may have had something to do with the incredible backlash against the character when he was revealed to be the main protagonist.
- And in Portable Ops, you recruit your squad from captured enemy soldiers, so nearly all of them are dressed similarly if not identically to the guards found around the levels.
- Metal Gear Solid 3, in turn, requires you to knock out a GRU officer and steal his uniform. The officer in question looks suspiciously like Raiden.
- When playing in most of the uniforms, you can't do anything too weird (rolling around, beating up guards, etc.) or you'll be caught. As the GRU officer, you're explicitly allowed to do anything you want, because "Raikov's just like that". It's probably because no-one wants to tick off the Complete Monster's boyfriend.
- Earlier in MGS 3, Snake is required to dress in scientist garb twice, once to infiltrate a warehouse for a rescue mission and the other to infiltrate a military base...for a rescue mission for the same person. If one of the actual scientists sees you, they will stare at you for a while before sounding the alarm since they don't recognise you. Hence, turn away so the scientists can't see your face. How this works in the first place I have no idea, since Snake doesn't look Russian at all, and he's far from clean-shaven.
- "Gee, that's weird. I don't remember the American scruffy-looking scientist with the eyepatch."
- "... and his bandana."
- "Glasses and a beard, huh? When did we hire Gordon Freeman?"
- Several missions in City Of Heroes and City of Villains give you an enemy disguise as a temporary power, allowing you to move freely among enemies while it's active. Of course, you don't have to use it...
- ...and some of us preferred not to. Especially when you disguise yourself as a cybernetic freakshow◊.
- Partially subverted in Final Fantasy VII. The heroes sneak aboard an enemy ship wearing the enemy army's uniforms. However, one of the teammates, a lion-like quadruped, stands out quite a bit as he staggers about trying to walk on two legs. Also, his tail is showing.
- Which, come to think of it, could easily be a shout-out to The Wizard of Oz, only explaining why that makes sense would involve a lot of Fridge Logic.
- Selphie and her squad in Final Fantasy VIII do this to infiltrate the Galbadian missile base; hijinks ensue.
- Spoofed in Final Fantasy IX. Zidane and Blank steal Pluto Knight armor, and comment about the armor being sweaty, stinky, and breadcrumbs being in the pockets.
- Chrono Cross features a particularly goofy example. Access to the inner sanctum of Viper Manor requires the heroes to dress up in the uniforms of three guards. Three radically different-looking party members will all look the same, but pretty puffy pink pooch Poshul doesn't even bother putting on a uniform. Nobody seems to notice two guards hanging out with a neon-pink talking dog.
- The cartoonish class-based First Person Shooter Team Fortress 2 gives this ability to the Spy class, who is able to dress as any friendly or enemy character class. Opposing players see the model he is disguised as, but his allies see the Spy model in a cheap cardboard mask of the class he's impersonating.
- Red Faction features a slightly more realistic version in which your disguise will only stand up if you avoid getting closer than about ten feet to the enemy for longer than around a second (you're basically public enemy #1 at this point).
- In Knights Of The Old Republic, you have to do this twice: once, you wear a stolen Sith uniform to gain access to the lower levels of Taris, and later you have to wear Sand People's robes to safely approach a Sand People Enclave.
- Subverted on both occasions. On Taris, the uniform only works with the upper lever guard. The lower guard demands that you show him the proper papers before you pass. On Tatooine, the Tusken Raiders realise you're an imposter on closer inspection...somehow...
- The EU states the since Tuskens always wear robes all the time they tell each other apart with their gaderffiis (and banthas) since no two are alike, so to them you're basicly wearing a name tag.
- Planescape Torment allows the main character several methods of escape from the beginning "dungeon"—including stealing one of the "guard's" uniforms or getting oneself disguised as a zombie (which are commonplace). Both of which result in the only change to the character's outward appearance (aside from what kind of weapon he's holding) in the entire game.
- Used twice in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Early in the game, shapeshifter Gandrayda gets the drop on a squadron of pirates by disguising herself as one. Later in the game, after her Face Heel Turn, she lures Samus into a trap by pretending to be a Galactic Federation Marine.
- A major part of the Chapter 2 story mission in Final Fantasy X 2 revolves finding and stealing the appropriate mook-gear to infiltrate the enemies hideout in Guadosalam. Despite the fact that this is mentioned during several of the battles with the mook's bosses, they never realize that those stolen uniforms are being used for infiltration even when you're talking to the mook's bosses in the base.
- To be fair, the uniforms are fully covering and Yuna says only a few lines while in disguise. Also the Syndicate leaders aren't the smartest people in the game anyway.
- This is one of the most common gameplay mechanics in the Hitman series. No matter who you knock out, their clothes will always fit, and the others will never notice that their friend is now a bald white guy with a barcode tattooed on his head.
- As much as the series loves prison break chapters, only Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance has a character pull this off: Naesala, to rescue the captured heron princess Leanne. But how did he hide his wings? I know he had a cape, but still!
- In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, one mission includes you and Lance Vance beating up two cops and taking their uniforms. They fit perfectly, although Tommy Vercetti complains that it's "a bit tight around the crotch".
- One of the missions in Bully has Jimmy put on an Aquaberry sweater and posh hairdo to infiltrate the Preppies fraternity house.
- Funny that he can change his length of hairstyle at will, despite having a buzz cut. The magic of video games!
- This Trooper hasn't played the game, but it could logically just be a wig...
- And don't even ask about some of the disguises that Leisure Suit Larry fits in. Granted, it's all parody, but still, the Vegas-style showgirl outfit????
- Happens multiple times in Mother3, and two times the enemy helps you disguise yourself. When the team infiltrates Thunder Tower, the Pig Masks mistake Lucas for their commander, and give him his "usual" clothes, and Pig Mask outfits for the rest of the party. Later, Lucas and Boney infiltrate the Chimera Labs and are given Pig Masks to complete their masquerade as part-time workers. Given who the aforementioned "commander" is, this makes sense.
- Some missions in Medal Of Honor games require dressing up as a German officer and displaying credentials to gain access to valuable targets like a submarine or rail gun.
- In Light Crusader, you get a goblin costume that you use to sneak past guards.
- In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Princess peach dawns a disguise as an X-Naut in order to get information from her captor. The disguise is flawless, despite X-Nauts (an Peach in the X-Naut uniform) being around half of Peach's height.
- Used in the third Sly Cooper game to sneak past mooks. They still grill you for a 'password', but won't attack.
- In Perfect Dark Joanna was able to dress up like a Scientist, and a Flight Attendant in order to sneak into a Lab where an Alien was about to be dissected, and Air Force One.
- Worldof Warcraft features a few opportunities to disguise yourself as an enemy, usually only for the duration of a quest. There's also a very rare item that allows the player to disguise themselves as the enemy player faction (A Horde Player becomes disguised as the Alliance and an Alliance player becomes disguised as the Horde, respectively). Creative-minded players have even gone to the trouble of purposefully not completing those quests where a Disguise item is provided, and have used it in various ways, such as pranks, getting the drop on an enemy player (which is playing this trope straight), or just for fun.
- This occurs in the beginning of Half Life 2. Barney is officially a Civil Protection officer, which leads Gordon (and by extension, the player) to initially believe he has been captured when Barney helps him escape.
- In Call Of Duty 4, your squad briefly takes the uniforms of enemy soldiers to ambush a convoy. Griggs comments that "you look like a clown in that outfit."
- A major controversy erupted over a level in the game's sequel, in which the player disguises themself as a terrorist, infiltrates the villain's group, and then helps (optionally, the player can choose not to) open fire on dozens of innocent civilians at a Russian airport. However, the villain appears to be too Genre Savvy, abruptly killing the undercover player at the end of the mission, framing the US for the attack and prompting a Russian invasion of Washington DC. However, the villain was actually told of the undercover player by US General Shepherd himself, who wanted to start a war in which he could use the full power of the US military.
- In StarFox: Adventures, after a certain point in the game, Fox gets a Sharptooth disguise, which although it allows him to open certain doors and not get attacked by the enemy, leaves him unable to use Krystal's staff.
- Prototype takes this one step further: not only can you dress up as the enemy, you can become the enemy by consuming them whole.
- Pokemon of all things does this in its latest releases, Heart Gold and Soul Silver, in which the main character has to dress as a member of Team Rocket to infiltrate the building they just took over. It actually makes sense that it works. Too bad your rival shows up and blows your cover.
- In the manga, this happens a bit more often. Red dresses as a Rocket to infiltrate one of their ops, but Blue robs him of the outfit at one point deep in enemy territory. Diamond also infiltrates the (more retarded than usual) Team Galactic airliner by dressing as one of them. Gold, of all people, even gets away with disguising himself as Guile Hideout - and because it physically resembled his own cursed suit of armor, this actually gets Archie killed! That wasn't part of Gold's plan, of course, but a welcome fringe benefit nonetheless.
- Way back in Ecco II: Tides of Time, you gained the ability to transform into various enemy creatures using the Asterite's metaspheres. Doing so made them oblivious to your presence (generally foes that either cluttered the screen or could kill you instantly) — but you would also be attacked by other dolphins in the area.
In Tales Of Symphonia the healer of the group and the failure assassin Sheena, if you chose the hard path dress up as Desians to infiltrate one of their ranches to destroy.
Western Animation
- Spoofed in an episode of Family Guy, where Peter beats up a bellhop and robs him of his uniform (which doesn't fit) only to be informed that the person they're after doesn't know who they are, making that unnecessary. Fortunately, another man wearing the exact same outfit as Peter happens to walk by.
- Spoofed in an episode of The Simpsons, in which, while trying to sneak out of Vegas away from their new wives, Homer and Ned Flanders pull two janitors into a broom closet to rob them of their uniforms. Punching sounds are audible, and the two janitors walk out content, leaving a beat-up Homer and Flanders.
- A similar thing happens in Scary Movie 4, where the would-be clothes stealers are themselves beaten up and have to settle for garments on a clothesline instead.
- Turning the trick around, in an Avatar The Last Airbender episode, the Fire Nation antagonists dressed up as allies of the protagonists. However in the first half of season 3 the trope is used straight in that the gAang travels though the Fire Nation in local outfits, change their hair styles and Aang even uses a fake name (Kuzon; and when Sokka doesn't he's given away instantly).
- This example is possibly justified, as they had a large choice of clothes to find ones that fit. However, that still doesn't explain all the guard uniforms.
- Also in the most recent episodes, Sokka and Zuko disguise themselves as prison guards. Cue icons of Suki delivering Princess Leia's line.
- Aang adds a hat to hide his arrow tattoo when the gaang don the Fire Nation garb again in "The Ember Island Players," although Zuko's costume needs work.
- Subverted in the season 1 finale, when a Water Tribe warrior uses antique Fire Nation armor to infiltrate the flagship, and when he tries to kill the admiral, he gets offhand backhanded.
- Danny and Tucker briefly disguises themselves as two ghost henchmen in Danny Phantom to rescue Sam from marrying a ghostly prince, much to her dismay as she was orchestrating her own method of escaping just fine.
- Done in the "Baloo Thunder" episode of Tale Spin with Baloo, Kit, and their friend Buzz the inventor taking the place of a Corrupt Corporate Executive 's three security guards in order to return a top secret prototype helicopter to its rightful home. Baloo perfectly fits into a uniform even though he's at least twice the size of the largest guard. Also, the bad guy doesn't notice his feline guards replaced by two bears and a bird until it's too late.
- In an episode of Quack Pack, Dewey and Louie don the clothes of the human henchmen of the stock villain of the week (some weird pale-faced woman bent on world domination) in order to rescue their brother Huey and foil her evil scheme. Once again, the bad guy in question doesn't notice the species difference.
- A common occurrence in the various GI Joe series.
- Played so painfully straight in one episode of Mighty Max. Needing to dress as members of a cult, Max, Norman, and Virgil mug some average-size cultists and steal their robes. It's worth noting that Norman is over 7 feet tall and heavily muscled, Max is a skinny kid, and Virgil is a four foot tall chicke...er...fowl. The robes, of course, fit perfectly.
- A frequent issue for Darkwing Duck; it seems Saint Canard thinks anyone in the purple suit, cape, and hat is Darkwing. Very annoying when your Evil Twin does this, of course.
- Jonny Quest TOS episode "The Fraudulent Volcano". Dr. Quest and Race do this while escaping the enemy base.
Webcomics
- Subverted in Anti Hero For Hire. While the protagonist wears a Mantis Agent's outfit, which conceals the individual from head to toe, the Mantis use electronic and DNA based identification systems, and is immediately recognized as an intruder.
- Double-subverted in this Sluggy Freelance.
- Subverted (notice a pattern?) in Another Gaming Comic - the player characters done cultist robes, but the Genre Savvy villain has magicked said robes to alert him and all of his other cultists to the fact.
Real Life
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