Perfect Disguise, Terrible Acting

"Sure, I can physically replicate anyone. But that doesn't mean a thing if you can't be them emotionally. It's an art."

— Double Trouble, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

They're a master infiltrator. Be it through extensive training or outright shapeshifting, they are able to appear as anyone they wish, deceive anyone they need, and go anywhere they want. They are a true Master of Disguise...

...or they would be, if they could do more than look the part.

This is a character whose skill at disguise or shapeshifting is every bit as good as their reputation suggests but, while they might get the appearance right, they are consistently incapable of actually impersonating the people they disguise themselves as. It isn't so much that the Imposter Forgot One Detail as it is that they never bothered to learn the details in the first place.

Whether they're prone to Bad "Bad Acting", don't do the research, or are simply that bad at pretending to be someone else, they should be spotted right away and the only reason they wouldn't be is because someone isn't paying attention. Often Played for Laughs, as the imposter's marks often do not recognize the very obvious signs of a fake. In more serious settings, if the imposter succeeds it's likely because the cast simply has no reason to suspect an imposter. Once they figure out that's a possibility, things turn around quickly.

Related to Hugh Mann, when it's an alien posing as a human that fails miserably because of this. See Imposter Forgot One Detail, where an otherwise solid impersonation fails due to something the fake could not possibly have accounted for, Cover Identity Anomaly where the imposter forgot a detail they really should have thought about beforehand, Paper-Thin Disguise, which features a known character assuming a very obvious disguise. The inverse of Clark Kenting, where the disguise typically is indeed paper-thin, but the persona's mannerisms and carriage manage to fool everyone anyway.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• This is inverted in Doki Doki Pretty Cure, where Mana uses a piece of paper as a disguise and nothing else, but her acting is actually done quite well, apart from calling Makoto "MakoP", something that the real Princess Marie-Ange would never say.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders:
  • Rubber Soul's Stand, Yellow Temperance, allows him to perfectly mimic a person's appearance. However, he never bothers to truly act like the person he's impersonating, preferring to act like a vulgar parody of them instead. While disguised as Kakyoin, his Out-of-Character moments slowly draw suspicion from Jotaro until the latter finally punches him. Ironically, the one thing that blows his cover to Jotaro — the infamous "Rero Rero Rero" scene — actually turns out to be accurate to Kakyoin's personality.
  • In the same arc, we're also introduced to Oingo and his stand Khnum which lets him perfectly shapeshift his face to resemble someone else. He's able to disguise himself as Jotaro in an attempt to lead Joseph and Polnareff into a trap, and nearly blows his cover at several points. Amusingly, Jotaro's allies never even realize there was an imposter.
• My Hero Academia: Himiko Toga can transform into anyone whose blood she drinks, but she can't (or at least doesn't want to) change her personality.
• In Naruto the Movie: Blood Prison, Kazan can perfectly mimic other ninjas' physical appearance, to the point he has earned the title of "Kazan of the One Hundred Transformations". Regardless, other characters can easily tell he is an impostor, since his Slasher Smile clashes with the stoic nature of the people he impersonates.
• Sakamoto Days: Ex-Hitman-Turned-Convenience-Store-Owner Sakamoto is The Stoic. He's not given to speaking much and even his thoughts are taciturn, as seen through the mind-reading abilities of Ex-Hitman-Turned-Convenience-Store-Employee, Shin. Thus, it's immediately clear that something is off when Sakamoto holds an actual conversation with Shin and Ex-Triad-Turned-Convenience-Store-Employee Lu. It's not until the real Sakamoto arrives and quickly deals with the situation that it's discovered the other Sakamoto is a still active hitman able to change appearance in the blink of an eye stopping in for a visit.

Comic Books

• The Chronicles of Wormwood: The Whore of Babylon is used by Satan to seduce Danny into killing Jesus and starting the Apocalypse. Except Danny knows it's a shapeshifter rather than really her because he's actually friends with her, knows she doesn't dress or talk like a bad sex fantasy, and that she's not onboard with starting the Apocalypse either. Satan is not amused.
  Satan: You weren't supposed to speak, fuckhole, all you had to do was stand there and look the part!
• Marvel Universe: What tends to give the Skrulls away. They're master shapeshifters, but are often given away by never even trying to act like the people they're imitating.
• Royals: What gives Maximus disguising himself as Black Bolt away. His distance and moodiness weren't the game-breaker, because Blackagar and Medusa have had rough spots before. What gives the game away is not trying to help when the Inhumans are attacked by passing Chitauri.

Fan Fiction

• Discussed in I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again!. None of the four time travelers make any effort to hide their change in personality or monstrous increase in strength, which is naturally noticed by those around them. The possibility of them being replaced by spies is very briefly brought up, but Kakashi dismisses it because he knows that nobody who had the means to perfectly replicate Sasuke's Sharingan or Naruto's seal would make such obvious mistakes.

Films — Animation

• In Onward, Ian uses a disguise spell to imitate the chief of police, but almost gives himself away through a combination of stuttering, wishy-washy demeanor, and the fact that the spell weakens every time he tells a lie.

Films — Live-Action

• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, Hermione uses Polyjuice Potion to take on Bellatrix Lestrange's appearance in order to break into her vault at Gringotts. Although the potion makes her physically identical to Bellatrix, Hermione struggles to act like Bellatrix; she's far too polite and friendly, and her attempts to be intimidating come off as awkward. This raises suspicions and Harry has to resort to the Imperius Curse to get them past the checkpoint.
  Griphook: "Good morning?!" "Good morning?!" You're supposed to be Bellatrix Lestrange, not some dewy-eyed schoolgirl!
• Mission: Impossible: Sort of. Latex Perfection allows Ethan and other characters to create masks that perfectly replicate another person's face, but unless they can perfectly mimic that person's voice, the facade is broken if they speak. The sequel introduced a voice modulator that allows them to mimic voices as well.
• Thor: Ragnarok: Loki managed to spend several years disguised as Odin, but Thor is still able to realize it's not their father because of Loki just spending his time eating, drinking, lounging, and watching terrible, self-aggrandizing plays rather than actually ruling Asgard.

Literature

• Rat in Alice, Girl from the Future is a shapeshifter who can adopt any disguise. However, he never acts the part believably, so even the people who aren't aware of his abilities grow suspicious very fast; the one time he succeeds in fooling others for longer than a few seconds is when he impersonates an eccentric loner who rarely leaves his planet. Since in One Hundred Years Ahead Rat briefly becomes a successful film actor, it shows that he could have been better at impersonation if he had simply bothered to try.
• Animorphs:
  • Occasionally happens when the team morphs other people: since morphing is based on DNA, they look exactly like the original but don't have their memories. Marco once morphed into a middle-aged businessman to infiltrate an office building where he'd spotted his mother (the host of the highest-ranking Yeerk on the planet). Then ran into the man's secretary.
  • After the Animorphs encounter the Chee, androids that look like anthropomorphic dogs but use holographic emitters to look human, they arrange for the Chee to replace them at home when on long-term missions. Problem is, the Chee are incapable of any violence and are generally "too nice". Marco was horrified to find out the Chee who'd taken his role had cleaned his room, greatly increasing his father's expectations of him.
  • Ax, an Andalite who's a Sense Freak with No Social Skills in human morph, has acquired Jake and tried to act as him on several occasions: Ax once morphed to Jake and had dinner with Cassie's family. Fortunately Cassie was there to prevent him (read: kick under the table) from acting particularly weird (like asking why Cassie's father had removed the hair from the top of his head), and Cassie's parents were only left with the impression that Jake had an inordinate fondness for very hot chili.
  • Subverted with Visser Three of all people, an Evil Is Hammy brute who is forever bellowing his presence by thought-speak that has been compared to mass email and morphing into horrible giant monsters from across the galaxy. He managed to give a convincing performance as Tobias's cousin Aria, wanting to give him shelter as he was assumed to be living on the streets (in the forest as a red-tailed hawk, in fact). Tobias falls for it until he happens to see Aria in a Controller-piloted helicopter, finally realizing that Aria disappeared every two hours to demorph (to avoid Shapeshifter Mode Lock). Once he's aware of "her" true identity, he's able to spot that the other Controller in the room is terrified of her.
  • In the same book described above, Tobias himself falls into this trap when meeting with the lawyer who is trying to connect him to Aria. The Ellimist has recently rewarded him for his service by restoring his morphing power, then using his Reality Warper powers to allow Tobias to acquire his own human self, thus granting him his humanity back in two-hour blocks. Unfortunately, Tobias has forgotten how to show emotions since he's spent months living as an expressionless red-tailed hawk, which arouses the lawyer's suspicions ("You don't seem surprised").
• In H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the eponymous young man is a perfect physical double of his 17th-century ancestor (and fiendish warlock) Joseph Curwen. However, when the resurrected Curwen finally offs his gullible young descendant and assumes his identity, he makes not the slightest efforts to mimic his victim's voice, speak in 20th-century English, or hide the depths of his arcane learning. It's a wonder that only a single character catches him out, and that he doesn't do so immediately.
• In Royal Flash, the second book in the Flashman series, Flashman is pressed by a group of German conspirators into impersonating a Danish prince (who he is a nearly-exact double of); however, he never attains more than a rudimentary command of the Danish language, and was never taught how to forge the prince's signature.

Live-Action TV

• A Series of Unfortunate Events: Zig-zagged with Count Olaf's disguises. Several of them are definitely paper thin, but some (especially Shirley St. Ives) look rather convincing, especially since he shows fairly impressive skill when it comes to disguising his voice. However, he often has difficulty with getting into character and has a tendency to drop the act sometimes. Despite this, people often fall for his disguises anyway.
• Gotham: Clayface is a shapeshifter, but a terrible actor. When he tries to impersonate Jim Gordon in the season 2 finale, his attempts to act like the real Gordon are so unconvincing even viewers who missed the transformation scene ought to quickly catch on that he's an impostor.
• Legends of Tomorrow: Charlie gets better at it over time, but for a while their shapeshifting abilities far exceeded their acting abilities - most notably, their initial attempts at an American accent failed hard.
• The early episodes of Mission: Impossible made a point of showing the team Master of Disguise studying recordings and film of the person he planned to impersonate later in the episode to explain why the trope is averted. He's not just a guy in a Latex Perfection mask, he's also a trained actor who has prepared for this specific role.
• MythBusters: When Adam and Jamie tested the Latex Perfection trope, they both ran into this problem when trying to impersonate each other. The latex masks themselves worked to some degree (from a distance they could fool people, but the illusion quickly fell apart when seen from up close), but despite help from a professional acting coach both men had quite some trouble to convincingly talk and act like the other. Adam ultimately did a better job at impersonating the stoic Jamie than the other way around.
• Late in Power Rangers Dino Fury, Amelia is investigating Site 62 and accidentally discovers Void Queen's base. Warden Garcia suddenly appears out of nowhere, confusing Amelia, as he's supposed to be leading a citywide evacuation at the time. "Garcia" tries to explain that he's on a coffee break before realizing the excuse makes no sense, so he gives up and reveals himself as the shapeshifter, Slyther.
• Power Rangers in Space: One episode has a monster make Astronema look like Ashley, but Astronema makes absolutely no effort whatsoever to behave like her, even when being "attacked" by her minions.
• She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Episode 3's B-Plot involves a court case of Dennis Bukowski against an Asgardian Light Elf named Runa, who has the powers of Voluntary Shapeshifting, and uses them for her own amusement. While she can perfectly mimick other people, Runa doesn't bother try to actually act like the people she's impersonating. This includes having Dennis buy her a Passat while impersonating Megan Thee Stallion, drinking a massive amount of energy drink while Dennis and remaining her mischievous, manipulative and jolly self, even when she's trying to pass herself off as the judge hearing her case. She even tries to convince the judge that Dennis should have known right away she couldn't be the real Megan Thee Stallion due to her poor performance.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • The neural parasites in "Conspiracy" are able to almost perfectly mimic their human hosts down to their speech and mannerisms but as they cannot access the long term memories of their victims they were frequently exposed due to not remembering things that they should.
  • In "Allegiance", Picard is abducted by aliens and replaced with an impostor. The aliens can shapeshift, so the impostor looks just like Picard, but he makes the crew suspicious by being a lot less aloof and more enthusiastic than the real Picard. For instance, at one point, he sings a drinking song in Ten Forward.
  • Lore is an evil android who looks just like an evil version of his "brother" Data, once he removed his Twitchy Eye. However, he's not good at behaving like Data when he impersonates him. He doesn't know what phrases like "make it so" mean, he has a more casual inflection, uses contractions, and he smirks a great deal.
• Star Trek: The Original Series: In "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", Captain Kirk invokes the trope when he's captured and replaced by an android duplicate. During the Brain Uploading process involved in the duplication, Kirk fills his mind with racist sentiments against Vulcans which he doesn't actually hold. As such, when Android!Kirk is returned to the Enterprise, he's able to impersonate the real Kirk with some success—but he treats the Vulcan Mr. Spock with utter contempt and insults him over trivial matters, which immediately alerts Spock that something's off.
• Star Trek: Picard: In the third season, Captain Shaw tells Commander Seven of Nine that while Changelings are really good at disguising themselves as others, they don't have the long term memories of the people they're posing as to keep up the disguise for long. This becomes especially important as Section 31 created Changelings who could evade detection from Changeling POWs without considering those Changelings might later want revenge.
• Supergirl: J'onn J'onzz, despite being both a shapeshifter and a telepath, is horrible at impersonating other people. He maintains a monotone and acts like a grump regardless of who he's impersonating. Special mention goes to the episode "For The Girl Who Has Everything." There, he's forced to impersonate Kara and does such a poor job that he seriously damages her relationships with her friends and co-workers and comes close to getting her fired due to antagonizing Cat Grant.

Podcasts

• The Thrilling Adventure Hour: In the "Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars" episodes, Jupiter spies are notorious for their shapeshifting and infiltration abilities. One in particular, Jib Janeen, is a reoccurring antagonist. However, while his ability to impersonate his targets' appearance is flawless, he does absolutely nothing to change his voice or campy mannerisms. The cue to the audience that Jib Janeen is impersonating someone, besides the fact they're being voiced by Paul F. Tompkins instead of their usual actor, is greeting everyone present with the catchphrase "Hi, all my buddies!"
• Red Panda Adventures:
  • "The World Next Door": The Red Panda encounters Baboon McSmoothie, also known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces". While breaking into a hotel where several prominent scientists are staying during a seminar, he attempts to trick the Flying Squirrel by disguising himself as the Red Panda. He actually nails the voice and mannerisms but blows his cover by getting the costume dead wrong and referring to the Squirrel by the wrong name. The reason for this is that McSmoothie is from an Alternate Universe, where he's friends with that universe's Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel is a teenage boy named Kent Baxter, rather than the adult female Kit Baxter, and he was completely unprepared for how different the two universes could be.
  • "Eyes of the Idol": The main universe's Man of a Thousand Faces, Brian McSweeny, infiltrates the lab of Absent-Minded Professor Doctor Chronopolis by disguising himself as the man's daughter, Anna. He has no idea who Anna actually is, only that she has access to where he needs to go. As the Red Panda notes later, he's actually good at improvising and wheedling information he could use to maintain the act, but he gives himself away when he argues against findings regarding the item he's there to take that were made by the very person he's impersonating.
• In Acquisitions Incorporated, when the crew has to infiltrate a vault owned by Omin's sister, Viari comes up with the idea of disguising Omin as her. The disguise part succeeds with ease, since Omin and Auspicia look eerily similar to each other, despite not being twins, but the acting part almost ruins the heist, because a) Omin has not actually spoken with Auspicia for decades and has no idea how she would act, and b) Omin is generally a terrible actor, forcing Viari, as The Social Expert, to constantly intercede on his behalf, generating suspicion.

Puppet Shows

• Muppets Most Wanted: Criminal mastermind Constantine is Kermit's Doppelgänger, who effortlessly steals Kermit's identity — all he needs is a bit of makeup to cover his mole, and he looks identical to the other frog. He's got a blatant Russian accent, but he waves it off as having a bad cold. Trouble is, Constantine refuses to study any of Kermit's old work due to his big ego and disinterest in The Muppets as a show. During his first time performing, he freezes up onstage and falls off the set. Constantine's apathetic, overly permissive directing style is also a major shift from Kermit's passionate but reasonable directing approach, but the Muppets are so happy to do whatever they want onstage that they don't even bother to question it. Even when Constantine finally checks Kermit's old work, he can't copy it well:
  Kermit: [singing on TV] The lovers, the dreamers, and me.
  Constantine: [badly singing] The lovers, the dreamers, and cheese.

Video Games

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Spies and Sudden Transports can infiltrate as infantry and vehicles respectively, allowing them to go undetected unless there's an Attack Dog, War Bear, or Burst Drone nearby, but they can't attack. They're most visible when doing things the original unit can't do like moving across water (or land, for dolphins and ships), moving in directions the player didn't tell them to, and not responding when clicked on.
• Subverted in Fire Emblem Fates, specifically in the "Birthright" route. The heroes believe this is the case when they meet Izana and decide he's a fake because there's no possible way a spiritual leader would behave the way that he does. Izana was, in fact, being impersonated by Zola, but the real Izana is exactly as Zola had depicted.
• The Hitman series mines a lot of its humor with this trope by Agent 47 meeting targets and notable NPC's this way. 47 is a Master of Disguise, and able to impersonate anyone with the right uniform....but he barely changes from his deadpan, stoic delivery when he says anything, and yet, almost everyone he comes across is taken in by him and acts like 47 is the real deal. The World of Assassination Trilogy does try to justify this, in that people tend to look at uniforms, not faces, and do have targets and NPC's that know specific people personally, but it by and large doesn't explain why a drug cartel leader is so easily persuaded into 47 tattooing him, other than "it wouldn't be funny otherwise".
• In Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, Underling's disguise as Chika Hakozaki. She looks the part, but she apparently didn't bother to do even the slightest bit of research, as she is completely unable to answer any of the heroes' questions, such as why Chika had summoned them to Leanbox, or copy her personality, essentially resorting to an extended Sure, Let's Go with That sequence to get the heroes out of her hair. This later gets Lampshaded when Uni pulls an I Never Told You My Name to reveal Underling's bluff and asks the heroes how they could have possibly fallen for it. To be fair, it was the first time the heroes had ever met Chika, but the fact that she had the exact same personality, insult of choice, and (in mk2, but not in Re;Birth2) even voice as Underling should have tipped them off.
• Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Rena Minami has the power to change her appearance into anyone she pleases, but her strong personality often ruins her attempts at impersonation, especially when she's upset.
• Paper Mario 64: Chapter 7 has three moments where shapeshifters known as Duplighosts copy Mario's partners, and Mario has to find the real one. They shapeshift perfectly, but they have increasingly obvious tells.
  • The first time, it's downplayed. Kooper comes back from hitting a switch with another Kooper. You can tell who the real one is by the fact that the fake is more of a Jerkass than the real deal, insulting Mario to his face for no reason.
  • The second time, it's played straighter. Bombette blows up a wall, and five of her show up. The way you tell the real one from the fakes is that the real one is the only one to talk without any sort of idiosyncrasies that she's never displayed.
  • The third time, it's zigzagged. Kooper breaks through a wall with four Duplighosts, each claiming to be the real Kooper. Their disguises are perfect, with their behaviors lining up perfectly. However, their tell is the most obvious: None of them actually disguised themselves as Kooper, instead shapeshifting into other characters in the game!
• Saints Row: The Third: The boss infiltrates STAG's aircraft carrier by disguising himself perfectly as their commander, Cyrus Temple, but fails to adopt the mannerisms and lexicon of the old leader. Excessive slang and a lack of knowledge of STAG ultimately tip off Chief Lieutenant Kia to the boss's real identity.
• Starcraft II: The Changeling unit instantly transforms into a Marine, Zealot, or Zergling to infiltrate and provide vision of enemy units. They're relatively easy to detect, as they can't attack and mindlessly follow your units around.
• Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World: Decus can use Solum's core to impersonate anyone, with the only thing giving him away being his cologne. When Emil, Marta, and Zelos see him disguised as Lloyd Irving and fighting against the real deal, the strong stench of the cologne prevents them from identifying Decus, so they have to choose which Lloyd is the imposter. The imposter is the one spouting cliched lines about justice, which anyone who has played the original Tales of Symphonia would know is a major pet peeve of Lloyd.
• Bad Spy players in Team Fortress 2 end up falling into this trope — while the disguise kit allows them to mimic any enemy player and any class, they often end up acting suspicious and appearing somewhere they shouldn't be and get revealed pretty easily.
• A running gag in Machine Games' Wolfenstein games is that BJ is very tall, very broad, with bright blonde hair and piercing blue eyes and as such can easily blend in as the Nazi idea of Aryan perfection, but his German stinks. He can't remember practiced lines, has an American accent, and tenses up when on the spot. Amazingly, this only gets him in trouble if you let it happen.

Webcomics

• Han of Archipelago is a Shapeshifter who forgets important details and never even bothers to watch how the person actually acts. He can't fool Tin-Can Turtle for a second (who's blind and hears the difference between Han and Simon). When he manages to fool Vaniji by pretending to be his girlfriend, Han himself mocks the guy for not being able to tell. Then again, Han is The Sociopath and not a fan of thinking ahead.
• Hitmen for Destiny: Jymre is probably the worst shapeshifter of all time. He doesn't bother to try to act like the people he's impersonating and, when questioned, he panics severely.
• Second Empire: The Daleks manage to jury-rig a set of Mechonoid disguises in Trapped in Amber and even have someone capable of speaking their language. Unfortunately, that someone is Grexzol, whose mastery of the Mechonoid language highly suspect at the best of times. While they manage to infiltrate the Mechonoid enclave, the moment they are caught, Grexzol tries weaseling out of the guards' attention. Unsurprisingly, his awful accent blows the mission.

Web Videos

• Scootertrix the Abridged: Changeling spies infiltrate Equestria, blending in seamlessly thanks to their natural shapeshifting ability. Some of them, like Kyle and Leslie, are good at acting the part, too — but a large mass of background changelings are completely incompetent. Crowds fill up with "twins and triplets" as multiple changelings copy the appearance of the same pony and then congregate together, and one dope walks around on just two legs in public, forgetting she's supposed to be imitating a quadruped.

Western Animation

• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: The Skrull imposter replacing Captain America. They manage to pass off the suddenly different outfit as just a change in wardrobe, but frequently flub several details, such as letting their Fantastic Racism toward the Kree show, forgetting details they should know, or letting Bruce Banner be handed over to General Ross without a word. Making the poor imitation worse is that Skrulls in this continuity magically absorb all the details of the person they're replacing at the start, so apparently this particular Skrull is just a really bad actor.
• The Batman: This show's iteration of Basil Karlo (who is the second Clayface here instead of the original) was always a terrible actor, even before he became the new Clayface. A Running Gag in his debut episode has people point out his terrible acting skills, which even blows his cover to Ethan Bennett when he impersonates Robin. The one time he manages to trick someone successfully is when he takes on the appearance of an old lady, but that was only because of his newly gained shapeshifting powers rather than any real acting.
• In Batman: The Animated Series, this is what happened when Superman had to disguise himself as Batman after he had gone missing (thanks to Bruce being kidnapped by Brainiac). His voice is spot on, his mannerisms are not. Robin actually Face Palm's at how bad he is.
• In the Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes episode "My Neighbor Was A Skrull", several Baxter Building residents are replaced by Skrull infiltrators ... who have literally not the slightest idea how humans behave. Reed easily identifies them with the most blatant Bluff the Imposter questions ever.
• Gargoyles: The episode "The New Olympians" introduces the shapeshifting criminal Proteus, who can perfectly mimic another being's body and voice, but who ironically is really not a great actor and makes little effort to affect his target's behavior or manner of speech. Goliath is only fooled by his Elisa impersonation because he wasn't aware of the shapeshifter beforehand, and Elisa very quickly sees through his Goliath disguise, only playing along until she can ditch him and try to warn the local authorities of the switch.
• Harley Quinn: Not only is the show's incarnation of Clayface a terrible and hammy actor, but he's also an idiot whose love of "drama" causes him to invent and act out excessively complicated backstories for the "characters" he plays for basic infiltration missions (he once blew his cover while infiltrating Maxie Zeus' house disguised as a mailman by claiming he also happened to be Zeus' long lost son). One of the few people Clayface managed to successfully impersonate was Aquaman, who is as much of a Large Ham as Clayface is.
• Justice League: In "Secret Society", Clayface impersonates the Flash to lure Batman into a trap. However, his Totally Radical speech pattern lets the hero see through his disguise.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In general, the changelings — insectoid ponies who can flawlessly imitate the appearances of others — tend to be given away by the fact that they're rarely very good at imitating the personalities of those they mimic.
  • "A Canterlot Wedding": Downplayed. The changeling queen Chrysalis has almost perfect Voluntary Shapeshifting of Princess Cadance except for small instances where her eyes revert to their original color and keeps Shining Armor, Cadance's fiancé and the pony closest to her, hypnotized so he doesn't suspect. While Twilight Sparkle's suspicions are sparked by Chrysalis not knowing her and Cadance's shared childhood rhyme and her snide behavior during the wedding preparations where Twilight Sparkle remembers the very sweet, positive, and caring Cadance that used to foalsit her, nobody actually realizes that Cadance has been replaced until Chrysalis reveals herself — Twilight simply assumes that Cadance has turned evil, and the others brush off the discrepancy as Cadance being a Bridezilla due to stressing over the wedding.
  • "To Where and Back Again": While Starlight and Trixie are off at Starlight's old village, several Changelings replace the main characters. Although several of them put some effort into their performances they still ultimately fail to truly act like who they are impersonating, such as Pinkie's imposter not remembering Starlight and bailing on their conversation instead of being talkative, Applejack's and Rarity's imposters start laughing at Starlight when she tells them how she ran away from the festival, and Twilight's imposter gives very poor "friendship advice" that sounds nothing like how the real Twilight thinks. The biggest example though is the fake Spike, who doesn't even attempt to show any of the qualities the real Spike has, acting like a complete jerkass and attempting to lock Starlight out of the castle when she returns home.
  • "School Daze, Part 1": Ocellus uses her changeling ability to perfectly imitate the appearance and voice of Rarity, but her impersonation of her is an absurdly overblown caricature. It still fools Fluttershy, however.
• The Owl House: In “Labyrinth Runners”, while Hexside is under siege by the Emperor’s forces, Hunter and Gus come across “Willow”, and while Gus is briefly fooled, Hunter immediately notes that Willow is acting way too timid. “Willow” is revealed to be a coven guard using an illusion to pose as Willow; bonus points for operation leader Adrian Graye, who acts like a prima donna director, actually taking the opportunity to criticize the guard’s poor acting.
• One Popeye short has Wimpy disguising himself as Popeye so that he can eat a hamburger meal that Olive Oyl is preparing for the real Popeye. The physical disguise is perfect, but he hardly bothers to imitate Popeye beyond saying "I'm Popeye" in a voice that barely resembles the real guy's. Nonetheless, this not only fools Olive anyway, even Popeye himself starts having an identity crisis.
• On Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Fred's parents get plastic surgery with his dad passing himself off as Fred to the gang while his mom poses as an older version of Daphne making Fred believe he's in a dark future. As it turns out, each imposter is found out almost immediately from Fred realizing "Daphne" isn't saying her catchphrase right while the gang easily see through "Fred" unable to get Shaggy's name right (and that no one calls him by his real name anyway) and other actions. As Fred sums up "how can you impersonate me when you know nothing about me?"
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: The page quote comes from Double Trouble, a shapeshifter who in defiance of this trope goes to great lengths to ensure they never fall into this, always making sure they capture their roles perfectly. Despite this, they did fall into this once while impersonating Prince Peekablue to perform at a club, despite him being a known hermit. Justified in that they weren't trying to copy his personality, only using his looks as they thought playing an elusive seer would be good for business.
• In the The Simpsons episode "Burns' Heir", Burns tries to permanently separate Bart from the rest of his family by showing him a recording of them saying they don't miss him. In reality, they are being portrayed by a couple of actors; Homer's is implied to be Michael Caine and Lisa's is a male little person from Estonia. Their costumes are exact replicas of the family's and their masks are absolute Latex Perfection, but their stilted acting and flat delivery make Bart suspicious anyhow, and it takes Burns a minute to convince him.
• Sonic Boom: In the episode "Where Have All the Sonics Gone?", Morpho is a shapeshifting robot who is able to transform into anyone. He teams up with Dr. Eggman to send Sonic to a dimension where Sonic doesn't exist so that Morpho can transform into Sonic and take the real Sonic's place. While Morpho is able to look like Sonic and even imitate his voice flawlessly, he has no idea how to act like Sonic, using such catchphrases as "What's up, Doc?" and "Gotta Catch Em' All!" and ordering a salad at Meh Burger instead of a chili dog. Naturally, the people of Hedgehog Village aren't fooled.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Shell of a Man", Krabs is too embarrassed to meet his Navy friends due to his molting, so SpongeBob wears the crab's old shell to attend the meeting in his place. Though he manages to physically resemble his boss, his cover is nearly blown when he starts talking about his childish hobbies, such as blowing bubbles or jellyfishing. Krabs then orders him to leave the meeting before his navy buddies figure out he is an impostor.
• The Tick: In the episode "The Tick vs. the Uncommon Cold'', the alien Thrakkorzog creates a clone of Arthur, perfect in every respect except the only words it can say are "I Arthur". Luckily for him, the Tick is an Idiot Hero, so it nearly works.

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