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The ultimate irony... peeling off a Scooby-Doo mask!
*stretchhhhhhhhhhhhh SCHLORP!!!
- The appropriate sound effect
Full-head latex masks can be made so perfectly that it is impossible to tell the wearer from the person he is impersonating until the moment he pulls off his face by grabbing an invisible seam at the back of his jaw.
Even close acquaintances and family members will be fooled. Masks of this quality can completely alter the shape of the wearer's face and head, even to the point of making them thinner or smaller as needed, regardless of common sense or physical law. Best of all for those who need them, masks of such exquisite detail can be made without resorting to casting the face of the target — a couple of small black-and-white photos will do just fine as a reference.
Typically, a mask like this can even easily mimic the wearers' expression, making it easier to fool others.
This is the number one tool of the Master Of Disguise. It's not seen nearly as often in modern TV, but it still lurks about and surfaces every now and then. The Darkman movies, for example, and the opening of the first Charlie's Angels film.
The exact polar opposite of Latex Perfection is the Paper Thin Disguise. A usual technique is to use a different actor under the " mask". Remember, We Will Not Use Stage Makeup In The Future, and the latex mask will be subsumed by Applied Phlebotinum.
Examples:
Advertising
- A really memorable but creepy Smokey bear PSA commercial from 1973 had this. It starts off with actress Joanna Cassidy talking to us about forest fires and then towards the end she takes her face off like a rubber mask to reveal a creepy Smokey Bear costumed character underneath. It was remade in 1980 with the unmasking being less scary and Smokey being more cuddly and friendly-looking and have a voice that sounds remarkably similar to John Goodman.
- found the Joanna Cassidy original here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXcrbpMNvTs
- One of those recent Mac vs. PC ads involved this too, with the PC guy impersonating the Mac guy, as if those ads weren't cliched enough!
Anime and Manga
- In Love Hina Again, continuation of Love Hina, Kanako Urashima masquerades as a number of other characters, including her older brother Keitaro and Naru Narusegawa. Her disguises are so perfect that everyone assumes it is actually the person she is disguised as except for the last time she is disguised as Naru, when Keitaro knows the whole time that it is really Kanako. (This lent weight to an oft mentioned dig at the manga artist that many of his characters' faces look alike.)
- In addition, to make up for differences in skeletal structure, she would, without any apparent pain, dislocate and rearrange her bones at the joint. Logically, of course, this doesn't make any kind of sense, but hey, at least they took body differences into account too...
- Anyone capable of making Mutsumi look convincingly enough like Keitaro to pass muster in a Furo scene wearing only a Modesty Towel....
- Lupin III takes this to an extreme with a running gag where an anonymous femme fatale (who looks a lot like Fujiko) seducing this week's villain/victim is revealed to be Lupin himself, in a frighteningly well-made bodysuit. (Fujiko sometimes disguises herself as Lupin, too — which is disturbing in its own way.) Lupin also uses the conventional form of the rubber-mask disguise played straight — well, as straight as Lupin plays anything — fairly often.
- Played straight very recently in Code Geass. A voice modulator of some type was apparently also used.
- KID in Detective Conan seems to have brought this down where he can fool Shinichi that he is Ran or vice versa. This is scary (if hilarious, for some) seeing they have been known as kindergarteners.
- Shinichi's Hot Shounen Mom Yukiko also manages to do this as a part of a Batman Gambit by both her and her husband, Yusaku, to try convince Conan/Shinichi to let them help him. Somewhat justified as she was a prize-winning actress before getting married.
- Deconstructed in Swallowing The Earth by Osamu Tezuka. Much of the story focuses on the development of an artificial skin that allows the wearer to disguise themself flawlessly & the catastrophic effect it has on society.
Comics
- A regular feature of the Italian comic Diabolik.
- The comic book series (and, briefly, TV series) Human Target starred Christopher Chance, a man who is paid to mimic people who have been targeted for assassination. The twist in later versions was that he was so good at mimicking them, he would sometimes forget who he really was.
- In the comics, Batman would occasionally disguise himself (often impersonating Superman to get the bad guys to use their Kryptonite on the wrong target) and then pull off the false face, revealing his cowl, ears and all, underneath. This seems to have finally become a Discredited Trope because it just stretches Willing Suspension Of Disbelief too far.
- This was common in Batman The Animated Series, as well.
- Probably reached its apex when Batman disguised himself, full-body, as Killer Croc. While playing poker for what was apparently several hours. And not only did no one notice any oddness in the way his (much taller, more muscular, and all-around bigger) body moved, when the light started swaying and he went into shadow, you could see his Batman costume underneath it. (This last was pretty much purely for dramatic effect, but still.) Making it even more implausible, the show's design of Killer Croc had a very wide, cheekless mouth open on the sides, making it impossible to hide a normal human face underneath it.
- There was also the time that Dick Grayson dressed up as Bruce Wayne so as to discredit a man that had discovered Batman's true identity. Aside from looking and sounding exactly the same as Bruce, Dick's only complaint was that he had to use leg extensions to appear taller, lifting up his pant legs to reveal that he's on stilts. Did no one notice the disturbing bulges right in the middle of Bruce Wayne's shins?
- The Spider-Man comics (several Dis Continuities ago) explained that Aunt May was really alive because the one who died was an impostor in disguise. How any mask or makeup could possibly have fooled someone as closely associated as Peter Parker remained unremarked upon.
- At one point in the comic series, the character Frederick Foswell would take on an alternate identity: a low-life stool pigeon known as "Patch." He would wear a latex mask not resembling anyone in general, just making him look like a middle-aged man with brown hair and an eyepatch, and would also wear a fedora hat with it. Once when he was in this alter ego, he nearly figured out that Peter Parker and Spider-Man were one in the same, until Peter Parker wound up tricking Foswell/"Patch" into thinking Peter and Spider-Man are two separate people via imitating two different voices and a dummy wearing the Spider-Man suit.
- The villain the Green Goblin's costume also consisted of a green goblin-like latex mask in addition to the green-and-purple outfit. The Goblin was often played by different people over time. Originally in the Goblin's first appearances, we never saw the Goblin's true identity's face, until it was revealed that the original Green Goblin was really Norman Osborn. The movie version of the Green Goblin had a more metallic kind of mask, that was also green but had a screen in the mouth area so the Goblin could speak loud and clear, and the eyeholes were also able to be covered by some kind of yellow eye shield.
- In The Spectacular Spider Man, this is Master Of Disguise the Chameleon's standard MO, made all the more peculiar by the fact that he always wears a face-concealing blank full-head mask underneath the flawlessly expressive visage of whoever he's currently impersonating. He's also big on tearing his latex masks off dramatically, which would seem to be quite the waste of labor-intensive, expensive materials.
- In the animated series, he just has a hologram belt.
- Harvey Dent uses one of these in The Long Halloween.
- In The Authority: Kev, an alien infiltrator somehow manages a Latex Perfection disguise, despite being something of a Starfish Alien, having 5 eyes, and about seven short, stubby fingers on each hand.
- The Unknown Soldier
Film
- From Russia With Love contains one of the earliest examples.
- Spoofed at the start of Austin Powers. Austin reveals that a woman is actually a man in disguise. The scene is done with special effects worthy of the 60s, where the actress playing the spy is obviously a (good looking) woman until the camera angle changes as Austin pulls off "his" hair, the actress having been replaced by a bulky man in Drag.
- The movie Mrs Doubtfire seriously abused this trope, as Robin Williams' character would duck into a rest room to put on his "old woman" disguise in a matter of seconds, in spite of the fact that the "making of" documentary on the DVD explained that it took several hours to apply the mask to the actor's face.
- The film White Chicks (the Wayans Brothers' semi-ripoff of Some Like It Hot) featured secret agent brothers Kevin and Marcus Copeland (played by Shawn and Marlon Wayans) disguising as Caucasian blond-haired co-eds (though they seem to resemble pale-faced lower-voiced imitations of the girls rather than perfect replicas), and like the case with Mrs. Doubtfire, prosthetic appliances are used to make the brothers look like white females, with regular latex masks used as props for unmasking scenes.
- However, it has to be given with them an example in one of the beach scenes, in which Marcus appears in disguise, wearing a bikini! White-skin-colored body, fake boobs and all! (specifically the part in which "she" is sunbathing when Latrell (TerryCrews) unexpectedly casts his shadow over "her" just by standing by)
- Similarly to the Slitheen example below, the trope is subverted in the first Men In Black film, where the Bug alien somehow compacts itself enough to fit into the skin of the first human it had come across. The disguise itself, however, is actually of terrible quality, with hanging skin, and the Bug having difficulty just getting from one location to another, let alone remain inconspicuous.
- Not to mention that the 'Edgar-suit' is visibly decaying throughout the movie.
- Another instance happens in the opening sequence where a space alien tries to smuggle into the US with a bunch of Mexican aliens. Averted Trope though, since it's not a latex mask, but a prosthetic head on a stick, designed only to give simple expressions and nod, and the alien wears a large poncho to conceal his body.
- The 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? featured the evil human villain Judge Doom (played by Christopher Lloyd) revealing himself to be an evil maniacal 'toon in disguise wearing a latex mask and a human suit. We don't see Doom unmask or a glimpse of his true identity, and the only traces of his 'toon form are his glowing evil eyes (which were hidden by prosthetic contact lenses resembling human eyeballs) and his yellow hand which can change into an anvil and buzzsaw (hidden by a black glove), and is melted by his own dip, and all that remains is his human mask and clothes. After this scene, a brief sequence can be seen where a sheep peels off his sheep disguise to reveal the Disney Big Bad Wolf.
- Subverted in Minority Report, where several years in the futureTom Cruise's character uses a pen-shaped device to temporarily deform his face, a process that looks to be extraordinarily painful and makes him look many years older.
- Handled somewhat realistically in the recent film Smokin" Aces, where Tommy Flanagan's character has to spend a considerable amount of time (though not quite as much as he should have) applying his make-up/mask and working on a voice imitation of his target. It was more impressive that the film did not use the "actor switch" but actually did the full make-up of the other actor over Flanagan's features.
- Subverted in Back To The Future II, when Doc Brown starts talking at length about the rejuvenation treatments he had in the future, and mentions that he disguised himself so that his new, younger appearance wouldn't catch Marty off-guard. He then rips off his latex mask to reveal... his exact same face underneath.
- This was probably done so as to avoid having put makeup on Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown) all the time. In the first film 1985 Doc only shows up at the begining and end and is played by Lloyd in ageing makeup. The majority of the film features 1955 Doc played by Lloyd as is. However, the sequels follow Marty and 1985 Doc so logically he should look older, except that he doesn't because of the rejuvenation treatments. It's easy to get confused, since the differences between young Doc and old Doc are so subtle.
- Arguably one of the most interesting variations of this trope occurs in 1408, mostly because of who uses it. Specifically, it is Room 1408 itself during the final nightmare sequence before the FinalBattle. Arguably, when the reporter thinks that his entire experience in the room was a nightmare, he then goes into a post office that he visited earlier in the movie. Then a series of workers appear to pull up the floor, tear down the walls and rip down the ceiling to reveal the all-too-familiar colors and textures of Room 1408.
- In The Witches, the evil Grand High Witch (AnjelicaHuston) does this to hide her ugly witch face. At the meeting of the witches, she peels off her "normal" human mask to reveal her hideous witch form. Interestingly, Huston's real face represents the witch "in disguise," and the use of prosthetic masks was used for her true witch form and removing her "beautiful face" mask.
- In the movie The Master Of Disguise, the mask cliche is used (sometimes even parodied) for several of the disguises in this film. Such examples include Fabrizzio Disguisey (portrayed by James Brolin) masquerading as Bo Derek, Michael Johnson, Jesse Ventura and Jessica Simpson. For these disguises, the old "actor switch" technique is used, and only the unmaskings of Bo Derek and Jessica Simpson are depicted on screen, while Fabrizzio in his Michael Johnson disguise lifts up the Constitution scroll to cover his body out of frame, and among moving it back down he goes from black to his true Caucasian identity, and Jesse Ventura is only seen tugging on his cheeks as we cut away to a close-up of the villain as we hear the mask stretching offscreen. Similarly, Grandpa Disguisey disguises himself at one part as a smaller female maid, done via the "actor switch" technique and an off-screen masking, and Pistachio Disguises (portrayed by Dana Carvey) wears various disguises, the majority of them played by Carvey himself under different makeup/prosthetics, yet the only disguise we see him unmasking onscreen is when the villain manages to see through Pistachio's disguise of one of his henchmen (where the actor-switch trick was employed yet again).
- In a recent short film entitled The Real Deal (starring Courtney Gaines), the five main heroes consist of the Elder (an old wrinkled man with glasses and a fishing hat), the Inbred (a yokel with a semi-disfigured face and stringy blond hair), the Sarge (a tough drill sergeant type of guy with a shaven head and almost always squinting), the Player (an black man in a long black coat and sunglasses) and the Gangster (a bald tough-looking man). The film involves them fighting martial arts style to fend off the main villain's henchmen and protect the money they just stole from the villain. At the end of the movie, the five men meet up and then through a montage we see them taking off their various hats and glasses, unbuttoning their coats or shirts, and then peeling off their super-convincing rubber masks to reveal hot young ladies underneath. The woman disguised as the Player was also black, like her male alter-ego. However, the actor-switch technique was employed here: for most of the film up to the unmasking scene, the five heroes were played by professional male martial-arts actors wearing the masks (and a different voice actor dubbing the voice for The Player), and were then replaced with the corresponding actresses for the unmasking scene and then the rest of the film's finale. This film was a promotion of sorts by the special-effects/Halloween mask company SPFX Masks, which designs convincing and realistic silicone full-head masks.
- Such masks exist and are heavily used in Mission: Impossible 2 and 3.
- Spoofed in the beginning of the Charlies Angels movie, which was nearly a direct spoof of the beginning of Mission: Impossible 2.
- In the film La Femme Nikita, we briefly see a supporting character applying a complex, realistic looking disguide, complete with extensive makeup to alter the shape of his face and a wig. Not quite a mask, but it does completely alter the way he looks.
- Undercover Brother. The title character, while masquerading as an elderly janitor and James Brown.
- The Beatles' movie Help! has the Eastern bad guys getting captured when they knock Ringo unconscious, then find it's Paul, and then John (but not George?) in a Ringo mask as bait for a police ambush.
- The big reveal at the end of Murder By Death is that Bensonmum, after being accused of murdering Lionel Twain using increasingly outlanding deductions by all the assembled Agatha Christiesque detectives, pulls off a mask that he is really — Lionel Twain. And then, after all the detectives go home, he then pulls off another mask to reveal he's really — the mute maid.
Literature
- A very extreme example of this is featured in the Anonymous Rex novels, where the whole premise is that dinosaurs are still alive, just disguised as humans. Using very complicated latex costumes. Egad.
- The TV movie adaptation had the dinosaurs hide themselves using Hard Light holographic projections...is that better?
- In Bruce Coville's My Teacher Is An Alien books, this is how aliens disguise themselves as humans. Somehow it works despite them having very different features such as extra eyes.
- To be fair, it's not simply latex, it's some sort of alien technology (note, for example, that it can automatically change skin tone). And while aliens in that series can look very weird by human standards, the aliens sent to Earth were basically (and probably purposefully) humanoid; Kreeblim just had to deal with only using two-thirds of her usual vision for a while.
- In Dominique Jean's La Fiancée du Vent, the heroin, who can exist in 3 places at the same time, uses a latex mask to pass for a friend and pretend to betray herself, so as to work as a double agent with her enemies.
Live Action Television
- Rollin (Martin Landau), Paris (Leonard Nimoy), and Casey (Lynda Day George) on Mission: Impossible not only made use of this trope, but gradually turned it into a cliche. Early in the series, Martin Landau would often play a guest character, made up to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Then Rollin Hand would be shown applying the makeup to impersonate him. Other times another actor would play both the guest character and "Rollin" in disguise. Nimoy played the guest character much less frequently, and George didn't do it at all, relying entirely on conveniently perfect masks.
- The movie Mission: Impossible 2 provided some particularly egregious examples of this, with Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt apparently carrying perfect latex masks, not only of various bad guy henchmen but also of himself. These he was able to apply unaided to himself (or in the case of the mask of himself, a bad guy henchman), in about ten seconds flat.
- Mission: Impossible 3 made it more realistic and time-consuming than its predecessors, leaving us to wonder what happened to the technology.
- They state specifically that the IMF had never been able to obtain photographs of Philip Seymor Hoffman's character for use in making a mask of him ahead of time. Therefore, we are seeing the "field" version of the technology. This troper suspects that the equipment available at headquarters is larger, heavier... and can produce perfect full-head masks with styled hair about as fast as a photocopier can spit out TPS reports.
- Used frequently in The X Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen.
- A high quality rubber mask was worn by a bank robber in an episode of NUMB3RS and it was totally convincing, though the wearer wasn't impersonating anyone in particular, just concealing his own appearance.
- Spoofed in Sledge Hammer: the female KGB spy turned out to be a male KGB spy behind a latex mask, however, the rest of the bodily alterations were apparently permanent (so that he/she could win the Miss Iron Curtain pageant).
- Similarly spoofed in Police Squad's second episode, when a pretty cocktail waitress in a club turned out to be a bearded Frenchman in a mask and wig.
- The Master in Doctor Who uses the latex mask routine several times in the Third Doctor era — totally convincing while he's wearing it, the mask suddenly becomes an obvious lump of rubber when he takes it off. In one episode, the disguise also seemed to involve being nearly a foot shorter while wearing the mask.
- Of course, considering that this is the series (and race) that gave us the Does Everything Tool in the Sonic Screwdriver, the Master being able to create masks that do that kind of stuff is a little more believable. In his first appearance he had a deal with the Nestene Consciousness, controller of the living plastic Autons - he could have gotten them then.
- In the new series Doctor Who, the Slitheen use actual dead people to form complete body suits in this fashion.
- One wonders whether this was borrowed from the Warwolves, in Marvel Comics' Excalibur, who did the same thing.
- Spencer in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive at one point assumes the form of the much younger, much more female Ronny and succeeds. He'd done disguises of this nature before, but this one really embodied the trope. In a similar manner, his Super Sentai counterpart, Makino, does the same with female team member Sakura.
- In another particularly egregious example, aliens in V used latex masks to disguise themselves as human despite having noticeably larger heads (thereby causing some problems for the makers of the action figures). The 2009 version will have the Visitors' masks be more fleshy in nature.
- In the episode "The Secret Underground", the Resistance Duo Mike and Juliet board the main mothership, undercover as Visitor scientists disguised as humans (while wearing the Visitors' distinctive orange jumpsuits), and at one point, Diana nearly catches Mike and Julie, until our heroes peel off their latex masks to reveal Reptilian heads underneath, thus letting them pass without any trouble. But in the next scene, it's revealed that the Resistance Duo "impersonaters" are indeed the real Resistance Duo, wearing latex Reptilian masks and having pulled masks resembling their human selves over their scaly disguises (we don't see them peel off their Visitor heads, although we do clearly see them peeling off the human masks to reveal their alien masks).
- In V: The Final Battle, a Visitor fifth columnist disguises himself as Mike Donovan to make Diana believe Donovan has been killed. One wonders why the Visitors never exploited this ability to impersonate specific humans.
- Done twice in a single episode of Alias, and then never seen or heard of again.
- Used once in the BBC series of Robin Hood. Which is set in 1192.
- In an episode of Due South, Ray Vecchio and Benton Fraser are each simultaneously abducted by someone in a mask of the other.
- A staple of the Canadian action show X: The Series. Averted in the sense that lead character and makeup/effects artist Rollie Tyler often takes several hours to create the masks he wears. The same goes for his arch-nemesis, Victor Loubar.
- In Scifi's The Invisible Man, the character of Arnaud De Thiel (aka De Fohn) manages to disguise himself as a perfect copy of the office gopher, Eberts, for an entire episode. He is found out when the characters find his 'mask' in Eberts's apartment and further identified when he won't shut up.
- As a fun bit of trivia, Arnaud De Thiel is also the name of the first case of identity theft legally recorded in France.
- Better known for the name of the man he stole the identity of, Martin Guerre.
- An episode of The Dukes Of Hazzard used this trope to try and ruin Bo and Luke Duke's reputations. Boss Hogg apparently found a fellow who made such masks to order from people's photographs.
- Used more improbably than usual in an episode of The Wild Wild West when Artemus Gordon wears one latex mask under another for a double reveal.
- An episode of Eerie, Indiana had Marshall using a "Disguise Yourself So Even Your Own Mother Can't Recognize You" Disguise Kit to pretend to be an Amish-like IRS agent, complete with peel-off mask and wig. Also a nice example of Chekhovs Gun, as the Kit was introduced early on in the episode.
- Avoided on The A Team. Hannibal Smith used disguises like this frequently, but just to hide his own appearance, not look like any other specific person. Usually to screen people he would "send" to the A-Team later. He also apparently had a few regular personae.
- Dr. Marlena Evans from Days Of Our Lives was shocked when she witnessed her then husband Roman Brady committing a murder, thus revealing him to be the Salem slasher. However several episodes later, "Roman" pulled off his face mask to reveal that it was actually Tony Di Mera underneath, seemingly having undergone a Face Heel Turn, or was it?. The murderer turned out in the end to be Andre, Tony's identical cousin.
- An episode of Get Smart parodies The Fugitive when Max is framed by a rubber mask-wearing impostor. At show's end the real criminal is caught, and in a tv-drama-style night scene Max walks off, putting on the captured rubber mask...and walking straight into a lamppost in the process.
- Spoofed in Scrubs, the episode My Balancing Act. In one of JD's daydreams, Dr. Kelso pulls off his face to reveal Carrot Top underneath.
Music
- Makes a brief appearance in the video for Britney Spears' song "Toxic" when a stewardess rips the "face" off a fat, balding businessman to reveal a Brad Pitt lookalike underneath.
Tabletop Games
- In the tabletop RPG Cybergeneration, there is an entire subculture - the Facedancers - devoted to the high-tech version of this.
- Active Flesh Masks from GURPS: Ultra-Tech even have tiny motors to make then move properly.
Video Games
- In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Naked Snake is given a mask that remarkably resembles a major in the enemy army. If you call a specific character over the radio while wearing it, he explains how it is the cutting edge of masquerade, with the ability to allow the wearer to blink with the mask blinking with it. Naked Snake promptly replies with a query of why they didn't work on the ability to have its mouth move with the wearer, to which the person on the other line shrugs it off, calling the man who invented the mask "just weird".
- In the first game, although the player doesn't find this out until well after the fact, one of the NP Cs you interact with turns out to be master of disguise Decoy Octopus in a very convincing mask. Octopus, in fact, had sliced off his own ears and shaved down his cheekbones in order to remove distinguishing features under masks.
- Well, Octopus is kind of a subversion, right? I mean he hacked off his own face so it'd look right, and background materials suggest he is able to mimmick his subject's mannerisms down to the slightest detail.
- Speaking of Octopus, there's the face camo that Snake nabs off of Laughing Octopus in Metal Gear Solid 4, which is somewhat of a justified example, if only because it's explicitly tech and not just a fancy disguise. Still, it does have the problem that it has nowhere to breathe out of.
- Professor Layton And The Curious Village has Don Paolo disguising himself as Detective Chelmey with a mask featuring a full body suit. It gets more ridiculous in the second game where he disguises himself as Flora who is about half his size.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- Extremely common in Scooby Doo; the vast majority of bad guys were made up this way, to the point where a more efficient way to solve the mystery would be by tugging on the face of everyone they met and seeing whose came off. The more recent Scooby-Doo TV series do not feature latex mask disguises as often, such as What's New, Scooby-Doo? (where holograms, animatronics and makeup are often used for the portrayal of the "monsters") and Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue (a bizarre series where the only latex mask featured in the show was in the final episode when Shaggy finds his rich Uncle Albert posing as the show's main villain's assistant).
- On the same topic, many Hanna-Barbera cartoon series often involved at least one episode where the main character was impersonated, typically by a villain wearing a mask and costume of the character. Such examples include not only the use of a Scooby-Doo mask (in the episodes Never Ape an Ape Man, Scooby's Gold Medal Gambit, Homeward Hound and A Scooby-Doo Valentine, the latter featuring former N'Sync star J.C. Chasez impersonating Scooby, and four extras wearing masks and costumes of the main human characters, all with evil red eyes), but this also occured on Squiddly Diddly (two episodes, Double Trouble where some people attend a costume party and one guy has rented an octopus costume (complete with eight tentacles!) that strangely resembles Squiddly Diddly, and Squiddly Double Diddly where a spy manages to flawlessly impersonate Squiddly Diddly to sneak into the aquarium Squiddly lives in to steal some secret plans), Ricochet Rabbit (in the episode Two Too Many, where a midget master of disguise criminal disguises as Ricochet Rabbit to give him a bad name for sending him to jail, complete with springs on the bottom of the costume's feet to jump around in), Breezly and Sneezly (in the episode Spy in the Ointment, where two spies rent Breezly and Sneezly disguises to sneak into a polar military base to swipe a top-secret box), Hong Kong Phooey (in the episode Hong Kong Phooey vs. Hong Kong Phooey where the titular crime-fighting dog and his cat sidekick Spot are both impersonated, with a short human farmer in a Hong Kong Phooey suit, and his dog in a Spot suit), and an episode of Richie Rich (where Dr. Disguise masquerades as Gloria, Dollar, Professor Kean Bean, and even Richie Rich himself!).
- Even Disney got into the act in some of their animated movies and shorts. The Big Bad Wolf in the numerous Three Little Pigs shorts sometimes employed through this sort of disguise to catch the pigs, the most famous one being him posing as a Jewish peddler (complete with a mask featuring a big nose and a beard), though usually he would settle for something cheesy. Another example was in the 1986 animated film The Great Mouse Detective, in which Basil of Baker Street disguises himself as a white Chinese mouse, complete with rubber mask and an inflatable bodysuit. And yet another example was in the 1992 film Aladdin, where Jafar disguises himself as an ugly old man to lure Aladdin into the Cave of Wonders (his mask even gives him hideous teeth, one with a gold filling!), and in the 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid, when Ursula disguises herself using Ariel's voice as the sexy Vanessa to marry Prince Eric, in which her skin rips off during the "wedding" to reveal her true self.
- Quite a few Looney Tunes cartoons from Warner Bros. Animation also often employed the mask device as well. Such examples include What Makes Daffy Duck (1947) when Daffy Duck masquerades as a ranger dog, Odor-Able Kitty (1945) when a cat hiding from Pepe Le Pew disguises in a completely convincing Bugs Bunny costume, Scent-Imental Over You (1947) when Pepe Le Pew peels off his skin to reveal a dog underneath, then removes his dog mask revealing Pepe's true skunk features once again, The Sheepish Wolf (1942) which features a twist on the old wolf-in-sheep's-clothing gag ala "The Far Side", Of Fox and Hounds (1940) in which George Fox masquerades as another dog to fool his adversaries, Don't Give Up the Sheep (1952) where Ralph Wolf wears a convincing latex mask and suit to imitate another sheepdog (which his adversary Sam Sheepdog sees through), Paying the Piper (1949) where a cat disguises himself in a convincing rat suit to fool Pied Piper Porky, A Sheep in the Deep (1962) where Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog engage in a "disguise duel," Fowl Weather (1953) when Sylvester wears a very convincing goat mask when hiding behind a fence (which Tweety instantly detects as the "puddy tat"), Ready, Set, Zoom (1955) where Wile E. Coyote masquerades as a female Road Runner to attract his prey but instead attracts a bunch of other hungry coyotes chasing HIM, and Knight-Mare Hare (1955) when the wizard Merlin attempts to use a magic spell to transform Bugs into a pig, but instead it just magically conceals Bugs in a realistic pig suit, to which Merlin transforms himself into a jackass, but keeps unzipping each suit to reveal another mule underneath.
- Similarly, the 2003 movie Looney Tunes: Back in Action had an animated Granny unzip her body suit during the jungle scene (via a CGI effect) to reveal the evil live-action ACME Chairman (played by Steve Martin). Similarly, Tweety unzips in his cage as well, revealing the Tasmanian Devil (who breaks out of the cage doing his spinning/babbling routine), and Sylvester unzips as well, to reveal the Chairman's assistant Mr. Smith, who then unzips his own body suit to reveal an animated female Tasmanian Devil!
- The 1948 Warner movie Two Guys From Texas featured an animated dream sequence (directed by Warner Bros. Animation's Friz Freleng) in which an animated Danny Foster (Jack Carson) is entertaining a flock of sheep by playing a piccolo, but then his rival Steve Carroll (Dennis Morgan) shows up and slips into a realistic 'toon wolf costume and mask (complete with giving him 'toony eyes and becoming completely unrecognizable), which also includes a bowtie, tuxedo jacket and straw boater hat, gets out a music sheet setup and wolf-whistles to attract the other sheep, then peels off his wolf mask once he has their attention, thus causing all the sheep to gallop over to him in excitement. Bugs Bunny then helps Dan with a plan to get the sheep back; as Steve is singing to the swooning sheep, Dan puts on a similar 'toon wolf suit and mask (but without the straw boater) and tries badly singing the same song as Steve is, except here he forgot to take off his mask, so the sheep toss their sneakers at the "wolf" and then a large fat Indian lady comes up and chases Danny away (a running gag in the film itself).
- The 1990-1992 WB TV series Tiny Toon Adventures was full of masks and disguises, including in the opening sequence (Buster and Babs pose as each other), Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow (Furball, Fifi Le Fume and Tyrone Turtle all disguised as Buster Bunny), Buster and the Wolverine (Babs attempts to pose as a female wolverine to woo the male one terrorizing our heroes, by only wearing a mask that comes right off during a kissing scene), Pluck' of the Irish (in which a beautiful lass reveals herself to be three leprechauns in disguise), Kon Ducki (which explains how latex masks are made in a cartoony manner, as Plucky Duck has a mask of his head upside-down grafted onto his head), Real Kids Don't Like Broccoli (where a bunch of missing androids disguise themselves as many of the main characters, but Buster sees through their disguises because they're eating broccoli, which real kids don't eat), Stuff That Goes Bump in the Night where Buster Bunny wears a Fantasia-esque demon suit in the opening act, and then Babs scares Buster with a devil suit, later in the episode a vampire scares Babs, but the vampire turns out to be Buster in a mask and on stilts, and at the end Buster and Babs both disguise themselves as a two-headed monster, The Horror of Slumber Party Mountain (with a surprise ending featuring Elmyra posing as a monster), It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas (where Bugs Bunny wears a convincing disguise as Harvey, a white rabbit in a purple bowtie and with a different voice actor as well!), and Night Ghoulery (where Babs is disguised as Satan, a gremlin is disguised as a female stewardess - which looks strikingly like Lt. Uhura from Star Trek -, and the ending reveals Buster and Babs to be monsters in disguise).
- Its sister show Animaniacs also had quite a few mask scenes as well, but not as much as Tiny Toon Adventure did. Some notable examples include in Chalkboard Bungle when the Warners impersonated their teacher Miss Flameel near the end (with Dot on top wearing the mask and easily imitating Miss Flameel's voice, thanks to Dot and Miss Flameel both being voiced by the same actress), and The Three Muska-Warners with a Honeymooners-esque ending where the Warners announce the people playing the king, the wizard and the window wiper, whom all unmask to reveal actors and actresses from the Honeymooners (the King is played by Sheila Mac Rea, the Wiper is played by Art Carney, etc.)
- Biker Mice From Mars has Lawrence Limburger (the villain)a plutarkian who wears a latex human face mask, a couple of other plutarkians disguise themselves this way. Limburger is rarely seen with his mask off but in some episodes he is such as in the first episode where in one scene Throttle (it's Modo in the comics) unmasks him- which is also done near the end of the intro by Vinnie.
- Sherlock Holmes In The Twenty Second Century had "elasto-masks" justified by the use of future technology.
- Sherlock Holmes arguably deserves his own sub-section of this trope, in that one of his shticks was that he could follow a client or a suspect anywhere in Victorian London due to his "mastery of disguise". This troper recalls an off-handed reference to a Sherlock Holmes comic book series in which Sherlock Holmes effectively became a card-carrying shapeshifter capable of disguising himself as lampposts, discarded newspapers, and whatnot... as long as he had access to his just-short-of-magical make-up kit.
- The Misfits' pal, Clash is quite guilty of this trope. Her best known disguise is her attempt to fake Jem from "One Jem Too Many".
- Parodied in Sam And Max: Freelance Police. When the trusted doctor reveals himself to be the big bad (and a woman) by removing a mask, the reaction is simply "Oh, that old parlor trick. We can top that!" Sam, Max and the Geek then each remove several layers of masks, but eventually stop when the villain orders them too (and we don't see them reveal back to their normal faces on-screen).
- Totally Spies
- An episode of Spongebob Squarepants has Mr. Krabs in a Plankton suit, and vice versa. Then the trope is parodied, even going as far as having Patrick impersonate Sandy Cheeks!
- An episode of The Simpsons ("The Monkey Suit") parodied this. After Bart tries to have Milhouse stand in for Lisa (by wearing Lisa's clothes and a wig of her distinct hairdo), Bart tells Milhouse he can take off the wig, to which Milhouse responds in Nelson's voice "I'm Nelson," then peels off his mask to reveal Nelson underneath, which is then followed by a puzzle-piece transition to the next scene with spy-like music playing (ala The Saint). This also occurs at the end of the episode, when Nelson impersonates Todd Flanders.
- Played straight in "The Great Money Caper".
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