Surprise Inspection Ruse

• We do not have surprise inspections. Ever.
• Especially not at night, when other guards have been called away to another event.
• The inspectors in front of you? They're intruders.
• Get them.

— Tarquin's Prison Guard Manual, The Order of the Stick

Sometimes, the Supervillain Lair or Elaborate Underground Base has only one entrance — and it's guarded. No problem for our heroes: they just dress sharply, grab a clipboard and approach the guards, introducing themselves as inspectors for a surprise check.

And why not? Guards will always believe them and our heroes will be free to walk around the place.

The Surprise Inspection Ruse is a particular case of Refuge in Audacity when, to enter an unreachable place, heroes present themselves as unexpected control from the higher-ups. This is done for two main reasons: either heroes are too weak for a full-frontal attack, or they want to look around in secret. It feeds on "The Inspector Is Coming" fear, deeply engraved in any corporate worker's skull, and requires some tricky improvisation on the infiltrator's side, as he/she must pretend to work in the company he/she is infiltrating. Popular accessories are Clipboard of Authority and Nerd Glasses.

Mind, it doesn't necessarily end with the heroes entering the facility under the disguise: this trope is in play even if "surprise inspection" only lets them go close enough to enter the place after bypassing the guards.

In fiction, it has a surprisingly high success rate, but we advise not to try this at home. In Real Life, any "surprise inspection" will be checked with the command to make sure this trope won't come into play. This is especially true in high-security facilities, like military bases or government labs — read: the places our heroes usually break into in this disguise. As it is more and more often recognized in fiction, characters usually have finite time before they must start Bluffing the Authorities or run for their lives.

Subtrope of Bavarian Fire Drill and Refuge in Audacity. See Janitor Impersonation Infiltration and Delivery Guy Infiltration for other kinds of infiltration. Connected with Clipboard of Authority and Guards Must Be Crazy. For the real surprise inspection, see The Inspector Is Coming (if those two are connected, the results may be hilarious). Compare The Infiltration, which is more complex and longer, and Impersonation Gambit, where, rather than pretending to be an inspector, the hero impersonates one of the villains. Also compare with Mistaken for Special Guest where a character is confused with the inspector (or another visitor with special permissions) and wasn't intentionally pretending to be one.

The Universal Genre Savvy Guide, as well as Evil Overlord List and Head Of An Alien Monitoring Agency List have it covered.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Aggretsuko: When Retsuko rightfully suspects the new head of the accounting department Haida of cooking the books to make the company they work for appear more profitable than it really is on behalf of the new boss, Himuro, she draws up a plan to get proof. This involves having the OTM girls pretend to be auditors making a surprise inspection in order to get Haida to reveal the combination to the wall safe he keeps the thumb drive holding the original financial records so that Retsuko can break in and copy the files while he goes down to deal with them. The plan is almost ruined when Tsubose reminds Haida that audits are never done without the auditors sending notice of their upcoming visit days in advance.
• One Piece plays with this trope a bit as the G5 Filler arc has an actual inspector visit the base when the Straw Hats are infiltrating the base and figuring out how to get out safely. The inspector in question gets waylaid by Robin shortly after his arrival and she spends roughly half the arc masquerading as him though the marines in the base aren't entirely fooled and keep a very close eye on her.

Comic Books

• In Suicide Squad Annual #1, Bronze Tiger and Vixen bluff their way into a private college that is actually a front for the Kobra Cult by pretending to be bureaucrats from the Department of Education investigating noncompliance with government minority quota rules.

Film — Animated

• A villainous example in 101 Dalmatians where Horace and Jasper pretend to be electric company repairmen making a surprise inspection, but Nanny won't let them in while Roger and Anita are out of the flat. Jasper then barges in, distracts Nanny by locking her in a room, and leaves once Horace has nabbed all the puppies.
• Hoodwinked! plays with this in that Wolf pretends to be a building inspector for the Supervillain Lair to fool the Big Bad himself, whilst making an appeal to the "evil genius code." Ironically, it's the villain's guards who are the suspicious ones.
• In Shrek 2, Shrek, Donkey and Puss get into the Fairy Godmother's factory by pretending to be from "the union" coming to inspect working conditions. The Godmother's Beleaguered Assistant, who confesses that they don't even have dental, lets them in.

Film — Live-Action

• In Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley sneaks into the impound area of a bonded warehouse to check on the shipment that Victor Maitland received from abroad. When a security guard approaches him he demands to see the guard's supervisor, claims to be "Inspector Rafferty, U.S. Customs" and says he's doing a security check. He then demands to go over all of their paperwork (so he can find out about Maitland's shipment).
• Blade Runner has Deckard claim to be a sexual harassment investigator from a burlesque performers' union when he's tracking a replicant he suspects is performing in the show in question.
• In Diamonds Are Forever, James Bond sneaks into Willard Whyte's laboratory and meets Klaus Hergersheimer from G Section, who goes around checking people's radiation badges to see if they've absorbed too much radiation. Later Bond goes into the lab where the laser Kill Sat is being created and impersonates Hergersheimer, asking to check radiation badges while sneaking a look at the Kill Sat.
• In GoldenEye, the villains are able to use this trope to barge their way into the Goldeneye satellite control center, calling their arrival "an unscheduled test" for a "war simulation", though in this case, General Ourumov's genuine authority is what allows him to order the officers to hand over the launch keys. Bond himself remarks on the theft that for a weapon as dangerous as Goldeneye, no random person can just "walk in and ask for the keys".
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: When trying to infiltrate the castle where his father's being held hostage, Indy poses as a Scottish art conservationist who's there to inspect the castle's tapestries. The butler at the door doesn't buy it at all, so Indy has to cold-clock him to get inside.
• The League of Gentlemen. To provide a distraction while their colleagues steal the weapons from an army base, several of the thieves do a surprise inspection supposedly due to complaints about the food. It helps that the thieves are all former military officers who know just how to act. One of them also rings up the base beforehand with a 'tip off' about the inspection so they're too busy running about making sure everything's shipshape to ask questions.
• At the beginning of Serenity, Simon Tam pretends to be a high-level Alliance official investigating the facility where his sister River Tam is being conditioned. He uses this access to help River escape.
• In the French heist film Les Spécialistes, the two bank robber protagonists pretend to be insurance agents at the targeted place, which is a mafia-owned casino's vault, so they can "inspect" the vault to plan their heist accordingly.
• In the 2005 remake of Fun with Dick and Jane, Dick and Jane's last heist was going to be at the AmeriBanx. As Jane distracts everybody by pretending to faint, Dick secretly swipes a security guard's access card and walks into the back area where the vault is, introducing himself as a vault inspector. But as Dick gets inside, two other robbers also arrive and try to hold up the bank, prompting the employees to set off the alarms and Dick barely gets out of the vault before it's locked up, and he's briefly taken hostage before the police arrive and arrest the robbers, who are revealed to be Dick's old coworkers, Oz and Debbie Peterson, who are said to have also turned to crime to survive after Globodyne collapsed.

Literature

• In the BattleTech novel I Am Jade Falcon, Joanna investigates a hidden research facility that the Jade Falcon Scientist Caste is running without the Warrior Caste's knowledge. She and the warrior accompanying her are able to infiltrate it fairly easily just by putting on coveralls and carrying clipboards because the Scientists running the facility don't believe that Warriors would ever engage in something underhanded like spying.
• Aziraphale and Crowley try this to get into the military base in Good Omens, but the guard doesn't buy it since they've turned up with two possibly-mad civilians on a scooter. So Aziraphale just makes the soldier vanish to his family's house in America.
• In the Discworld novel Men at Arms, Nobby gets into the city armory by claiming to be "Corporal Nobbs, Ankh-Morpork City Ordnance Inspection City ... Audit Bureau ... Special ... Audit ... Inspection." He realises this sentence has gotten away from him, but rallies. Word of God is that this is a Shout-Out to Beverly Hills Cop. The coup succeeds thanks to Nobby interpreting the armorer's understandable hesitation in handing out weapons as proof of his stealing the weapons he's entrusted with.
• Nick Velvet: In "The Theft of the Faded Flag", Nick enters a foreign consulate through the kitchen entrance while claiming to be an inspector from the Health Department. He really sells it by telling the shirtless kitchen hand having a cigarette outside the door to put a shirt on before he writes them up for a violation as he enters.
• Played straight in the first novel of The Oregon Files, The Golden Buddha, where Batman Cold Open starts with main characters impersonating the inspectors to enter the Cuban prison and rescue people they're looking for.
• The science fiction story "The Spectre General" by Theodore Cogswell plays with this: The commander of a lost maintenance base regularly disguises himself as an Inspector General from Imperial Headquarters to plant the false information among the base personnel that the Empire still exists and still cares about them.
• In Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears, terrorists pose as top brass doing a surprise inspection in East Berlin, and announce a readiness drill. Once the troops line up all their tanks, the disguised terrorists climb into tanks, point them at the American tanks, and fire.

Live-Action TV

• A variant in The A-Team episode "Skins", where the heroes replace the Evil Poacher ring's wares with fakes, then come to the buyers disguised as inspectors and "expose" them as such to sow discord between them and the poachers.
• Better Call Saul: Inverted. After sabotaging Hector Salamanca's operation, Mike is hired as a "security consultant" by Gus Fring so his pay for the sabotage looks legitimate. Mike decides to reinforce the masquerade by infiltrating a Madrigal Electromotive warehouse and conducting a genuine security inspection (turning up several security and safety concerns along the way). Gus is impressed enough by his initiative to make him head of security for both his criminal and legitimate enterprises.
• One of the Burn Notice crew's favorite techniques is to disguise themselves as maintenance workers or inspectors. Sometimes it's to get into a secure location, but one time Michael pretended to be a safety inspector so he could borrow the Jaws of Life from a fire department training center (rather than stealing it from an actual fire department), and another time they got a shut-in to leave home by pretending to be an exterminator who had mistakenly sprayed her yard with too-strong insecticide.
• Doctor Who
  • "Partners In Crime": The Doctor and Donna both independently have the idea to pretend to be health and safety inspectors when they want to investigate ADIPOSE Industries.
  • "Dark Water": The Doctor does this to get more information on 3W from Dr. Chang.
    Dr. Chang: Another government inspection, so soon? [reads psychic paper] Why is there all this swearing?
• In Frasier, Roz and Daphne pull this stunt to find out more about a client of Niles Crane. Niles will not reveal a thing to Daphne, citing professional confidentiality. Daphne fears a love rival. Roz then helps her infiltrate the company where the client works, pretending to be from Head Office on a surprise check...
• In Hannah Montana, Jackson fakes being a health inspector at the school's kitchen to get Mamaw to stop working there.
• Hustle: In "Missions", Ash poses as meter reader to gain access to a man's home where he slips him a laxative to keep him action so another one of the crew can take his place.
• Played for laughs in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In "The Gang Solves the North Korean Situation," Dee tries to get a rival bar's secret recipe for their homemade beer by posing as a health inspector. Given she's absolutely hammered to the point she can't even make up a name, she fools no one and gets thrown out.
• The Leverage team uses this in several episodes as a way of getting into the offices of the villain of the week.
  • In "The Reunion Job", Elliot and Hardison pretend to be health inspectors to enter a restaurant that is a front for a terrorist organization.
  • In "The Inside Job", Sophie and Hardison pose as financial advisers who have come to make job cuts.
  • Subverted in "The Three Days of the Hunter Job." Hardison and the Villain of the Week break into a military base by simply walking in. Hardison breaks out by convincing the soldier who's interrogating him that he's there to inspect their security measures.
• Lost Girl: In "Food for Thought", Lauren impersonates a US government inspector looking into safety violations at a biotech firm in order to figure out what the lab leak was that infected Kenzi and the Fae of the Week. Dyson detained the real inspector at the airport on a made-up charge.
• In a season 7 episode of The Mentalist, FBI computer expert Jason is sent into a Marine Corps office facility claiming to be "from IT, checking your data packages" in order to scope out who has African decorations in their office.
• Psych: Shawn often does this as a type of Bavarian Fire Drill. For example, in "Meat is Murder... but Murder is Also Murder", he pulls this off on a restaurant owner. When he points out that there was already a surprise inspection a few days ago, Shawn responds with "you weren't surprised enough". However, it turns out that the prior "surprise inspection" was carried out by the killer, who used the opportunity to swap his victim's mushroom risotto with one containing poisonous death cap mushrooms.
• In Sherlock episode "The Hounds of Baskerville", Sherlock enters the Baskerville facility by pretending to be an inspection from Home Office. He even uses his brother's entry card to prove his claims. While Mycroft learns about the incident and proceeds to warn Baskerville's commander, Sherlock still has enough time to see what he wanted.
• In one episode of Supernatural, the heroes track down a killer who turns out to be a chef at a fancy restaurant. They break into the restaurant and discover some waitstaff working there for a private party. They claim to be health inspectors shutting the place down until further notice in order to get them to leave.

Video Games

• Baldurs Gate 3: If you get caught trespassing in Wyrm Rock Prison, a Deception check to claim that you're performing a surprise inspection is one of your options. The narrator lampshades how ridiculous it is that the guard actually fell for it if you succeed.
• Beneath a Steel Sky: Robert Foster plays this trick with Howard Hobbins near the beginning.
• Mass Effect 2: While infiltrating a restricted area on the Citadel as part of Thane's Loyalty Mission, Shepard encounters a stock boy named Jim Reynolds. One of the options for getting past Reynolds involves posing as a health and safety inspector (the other options include scaring him away with a bomb threat, knocking him out cold, or just telling him the truth).
• In the Citadel DLC from Mass Effect 3, if you bring Wrex with you to the casino, one of his distraction quotes is him claiming to be a food inspector.

Web Animation

• Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: A variant occurs in "SM64 Guides: How to get dem coins.", Mario teaches how to get more money, with one of the methods being becoming a wallet inspector to take money from people. He has SMG4 show how it's done, although he's not very successful with it.

Webcomics

• When Credenza in Archipelago needs to board a certain sub and is stopped by the guard, she claims to be inspecting for moofs. The guard lets her through immediately.
• Darths & Droids: During the Rogue One campaign, Jim (whose plans are usually needlessly idiotic and insane), uses this to bluff the party through the Scarif shield gate, pretending to be a surprise inspection unit.
• The Order of the Stick: A Double Subverted example. In this strip, Elan and Haley are stymied trying to sneak into Genre Savvy Tarquin's prison this way because he has a section on this trope in his guards' manual. But after drinking a potion of Glibness, she's able to convince them that it was an "elaborate test of your adherence to procedure".

Western Animation

• Alvin and the Chipmunks. In "Unidentified Flying Chipmunk," Alvin and Simon pull this to save Theodore, who was captured by a space installation under the belief that he was a Martian. Alvin and Simon pose as a general and his aide to interrogate the Martian but try to bust Theodore out.
• In an early episode of Family Guy, Peter's boss dies of a freak accident while visiting for dinner. While Peter desperately tries to Flush the Evidence, there's a knock at the door from the police, conducting a "Random dead body search!" This is ultimately Played for Laughs, as the visitor turns out to be Death, there to claim the boss' body.
• The Flintstones: In "Peek-a-Boo Camera", Fred and Barney try to keep their wives from seeing them on the titular TV show, since they were filmed at a bachelor party they got to go to by lying to them. They try disguising themselves as TV repairmen come to take the set out for a checkup, but the plan backfires when Dino pounces Fred and licks his face, removing the phony nose and glasses in the process.
  Wilma: The set's right over there—
  Barney: Oh, uh, we know the way.
  Wilma: ...He knows the way?
  Barney: We'll have it back in the morning, Wilma.
  Fred: H-He means "Mrs. Flintstone".
• Futurama: In "Bender's Game", Walt, Larry, and Igner are tasked by Mom to locate the anti-crystal, which if put into contact with a specific red energy crystal would make all dark matter worthless. She does this by having them disguise themselves as owl exterminators in a bid to infiltrate the Planet Express Building, where the crystal is currently being used as a Dungeons & Dragons dice by Cubert and Dwight. Professor Farnsworth sees through their attempt, however, and sends an owl after them, revealing their identity and allowing him to find the anti-crystal that he had thought had gone missing forever.
• Green Lantern: The Animated Series "Reboot": Kilowog distracts Larvox, the green lantern guarding the Science Branch, by claiming he is doing a surprise inspection while Hal sneaks in to retrieve Aya.
• House of Mouse: In the short "Mickey's Mistake", Mickey tries to steal back the new hair bow he bought for Minnie without her knowing. One of his attempts involves disguising himself as a curtain cleaner to enter her home, but when he tries to discreetly suck up the bow with his vacuum, he ends up sucking Minnie along with it.
• When Josie And The Pussy Cats find themselves inside the Elaborate Underground Base of the villainous The Laser, they emerge from hiding and introduce themselves as agents of Q.U.A.C.K.: Quality Undercover Agents Checking Kooks. The Laser actually believes this and hires the Pussy Cats to train his mooks to be mookier.
• King of the Hill: Parodied in "Tankin' It To The Streets", as Dale enters Bill's army base in his own exterminator uniform, then dresses as an officer, then back to an exterminator in order to check on Bill's medical records.
• The Rugrats episode "The Bank Trick" features a side plot with two examiners checking through the same bank Tommy and Chuckie are wandering in. They ultimately deem the bank unsafe and decide to relocate the money. Due to the babies' oblivious hindering, however, they are exposed as thieves who regularly pull off this act to shrewdly rob banks.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
  • "No Princess Left Behind": When Scorpia catches him sneaking around the Fright Zone, Sea Hawk claims to be "the inspector". Despite the Blatant Lies ("I'm here to inspect all the things"), Scorpia believes Sea Hawk and happily takes him around the compound...until she realizes she's seen him before with the Rebellion.
  • "Save the Cat": Bow and Entrapta are caught aboard Horde Prime's ship. Bow asks the clones, "Would you believe that we're the inspectors?" They would not.
• She-Ra: Princess of Power:
  • In the episode "The Inspector," Prince Adam disguises himself as Horde Inspector Darkney, with Adora as his assistant, so they can gain access to the Fright Zone to save the Rebels.
  • In "Honey I Shrunk The She-Ra," Bow repeats the trick, calling himself Inspector Kowl, in order to gain access to a Horde lab where the antidote to a shrinking formula is kept. It doesn't work as well here because Bow doesn't know any of the call signs used by Inspectors, but fortunately Scorpia happens by and a bit of flattery causes her to override the lab guards' concerns.
• The Simpsons: In a variant on the trope, Snake robs a group of naive college students by claiming to be "the wallet inspector".
  Homer: Hey...that's not the wallet inspector!
• Played with in one episode of Spongebob Squarepants. A health inspector is coming to the Krusty Krab. After Mr. Krabs ordered Spongebob to give said inspector the best food they have, a news report appears on the TV about rumors of fake health inspectors. Suspecting the inspector of Krusty Krab to be said fake, Krabs and Spongebob then tried to feed him "Nasty Patty" as a form of payback. Right after they (supposedly) knock him out, however, another news report appeared on the TV that said fake has been captured — and it means Krusty Krab's inspector isn't fake after all.

Real Life

• In Chinese Internet slang, the phrase "checking the water meter" is an acceptable by-word for intrusion by law enforcement, since Chinese police will often use utility inspection as a ruse to enter people's homes.
• People who work for Western Union or other money transfer services are taught not to accept calls for tests for equipment or any other type of checks over the phone as they are ALWAYS scammers.

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