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Two Men, One Dress

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This trope is when two or more characters, usually for reasons of comic relief or Fanservice, share a costume/disguise, be they friends, rivals, main characters, mooks, or even (for bonus points) arch enemies.

An example of the trope is the classic four-legged Pantomime Animal costume (where one character plays the head and front legs, while the second plays as the butt of the joke... literally). Other times it'll be less obvious, where a dwarf might sit on the shoulders of a giant and have a concealing jacket (or the like) to make the look of a Genius Bruiser, or to simply get both characters past an obstacle without leaving one of them behind. A more cunning way of doing this involves a latex suit but sometimes this can backfire due to the strain of too many people in one costume, or the opposite, not enough strain to look "natural". In Real Life, this is often the case when any character with multiple heads is portrayed in live action, with several performers (one for each head) sharing an oversized costume, notably with the Three-Headed Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

A supertrope to the Totem Pole Trench. Not to be confused with Fusion Dance or Grand Theft Me, but somewhat similar to Sharing a Body in some cases.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In the Area 88 manga, Shin's injured legs and Mickey's injured hands force them to do this after stealing a guard's uniform to escape the Mafia's desert carrier.
  • Parodied in a Crayon Shin-chan 4-panel comic featuring the Sickeningly Sweethearts couple, Michi and Yoshirin. Michi surprises Yoshirin with an XXXL-sized shirt with two head-holes so they can spend a whole day shopping literally side-by-side, until she suddenly needs to use the loo. Cue an embarrassed Yoshirin standing awkwardly outside the ladies' room without a shirt.
  • Kid Trunks and Goten do this when disguised as "Mighty Mask" in Dragon Ball Z. The ruse falls apart when #18 catches on and kicks them hard enough that it appears Mighty Mask had been snapped in two.
  • In Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto, Hayabusa asks Sakamoto to teach him how to be classy at a fancy restaurant. There's not enough time to teach him, so Sakamoto has him rent a giant tuxedo and both of them wear it to the restaurant, with Sakamoto using his arms to cut the food and pass it to Hayabusa's mouth. Later that night, they run into some thugs threatening Hayabusa's dad. Hayabusa, who doesn't want his dad to know he's a delinquent, switches places with Sakamoto inside the equally gigantic coat, with Sakamoto being the face and Hayabusa using his fists to fight off the thugs.
  • In Hiwou War Chronicles, Hiwou pilots the giant mech Homura by manipulating an adult-sized suit in the cockpit while riding on Shishi's shoulders. His brother Sai, however, is tall enough that he can do it on his own.
  • In the second season of Nodame Cantabile (which takes place in Paris), Nodame and Kuroki end up playing the donkey in the nativity scene of a big church. They proceed to dance a japanese lion dance in honor of the baby Jesus.
  • One Piece:
    • Boa Hancock smuggles Luffy to Impel Down under her dress. It IS suspicious, but she's able to turn anyone to stone at a whim, so no-one questions her. When she finally has to be subject to a strip search, she freezes the guard and Luffy keeps going along the rafters.
    • Also, the three-headed Judge Baskerville is actually three men in a costume who enjoy pretending to be a three-headed person.
  • In Rune Soldier Louie, the main character, Louie, fist fights in a tournament with an assassin, only to find that his opponent's executioner mask covered head is a disguise for a really, really tiny second assassin, who attempts to knife the tournament's sponsor...and fails.
  • Harima and Eri share a lion costume in the New Year episode of School Rumble.
  • In Trigun, Millie and Wolfwood meet a fleeing casino waitress & make the snap decision to smuggle her under Millie's clothes. Millie is already a towering girl, so she simply pretends to be pregnant — with Wolfwood's child.

    Comic Book 

  • A more elaborate version in Thomas Valiant, three people used shapeshifting Thomas Valiant to disguise their features. They had to stay together so that Thomas could keep them disguised.

    Comic Strips 
  • The Far Side:
    • A man with an enormous ass is demanding an explanation for why he's always the back half before he'll put it on again.
    • Two guys in a ratty horse costume pitifully drag themselves into the costume shop where they rented it, as the shop-owner remarks the zipper must have gotten stuck again.

    Fan Works 
  • On Ultra Fast Pony, in "How Not To Train Your Dragon", Twilight, Rarity and Rainbow Dash disguise themselves as a dragon as in the original show. Rarity asks why she has to be the rear end and Twilight tells her "Because you have the most practice being an asshole."

    Films — Animation 
  • Disney's Hercules and its following cartoon series have Pain and Panic, two shapeshifting imp-like minions in service to the Big Bad. More curious is their ability to combine into one shapeshifted creature (usually mythological), which can typically be larger than the ones the two are accustomed to appearing as when separate. This also counts as Body Sharing.
  • Another instance of body sharing, and +2 men in one suit, is in Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. Late into the movie, the boy Nemo befriends a gang of goblins called The Goblin Boomps, who were escaping from Nightmare Land. They reveal themselves to be friendly and funny goblins, despite what the others expected them to be (being goblins). They are capable of morphing their bodies together and assuming various forms.
  • Disney's Snow White has Dopey stand on top of Sneezy, in a long coat, to dance with Snow White in the Silly Song number.
  • Disney's Sleeping Beauty has several woodland creatures steal the Prince's cape and boots, and pose as Brier Rose's dream prince.
  • The classic four-legged animal costume makes an appearance in Disney's The Princess and the Frog, where two real-estate agents attend a masquerade ball as a horse. The one who acts worse is the horse's ass.
  • In Inside Out, Joy and Sadness dress up as a dog so they could enter Riley's dream and try to wake her up. Things go horribly wrong after Sadness tears the costume in half.
  • In The Angry Birds Movie, Judge Peckinpah stands upon a similarly-sized bird named Cyrus. Red lampshades this during his court trial—even went so far as to pull the robe off to prove it.
  • In Sherlock Gnomes, Sherlock and Juliet disguise themselves as a squirrel.
  • In a deleted scene from Shrek the Third, Puss and Donkey dress up as a goofy-looking monster (with a moose skull for a head and a blanket for a body) for Artie to "defeat" in order to build his confidence.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • An enforced variation of this happens in Drillbit Taylor when two characters are forced by school bullies to share a shirt (actually two identical shirts combined by switching buttons).
  • The Muppets (2011) features several Muppets trying to sneak into Miss Piggy's office, with Fozzie as the head wearing a fake mustache and hat. They called it "Muppet Man," and apparently it wasn't the first time they used it.
    Miss Piggy: I can't believe I fell for Muppet Man...
  • In Top Secret!, two men disguise themselves in a cow suit (which is represented by a real cow with boots on its hooves). The guy in the back gets an unexpected thrill when a calf tries to nurse. And then the bull notices them.
  • Jane Austen's Mafia! uses this to spoof the famous Pre Ass Kicking One Liner from Scarface (1983). An unusually tall priest assassinates the Godfather with a submachine gun-armed dwarf hidden under his cassock. "Say hello to my little friend."
  • In The Pink Panther (1963), one of the disguises worn by the police at a costume party is a two person zebra costume. During the chase scene at the end it's one of (several) things to run by a drunk standing on the side of the road.
  • In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Eddie Valiant hides Roger inside his trenchcoat to smuggle him into a bar so Roger could hide out there.

    Literature 

    Live-Action TV 
  • Scrubs has J.D. and (usually) Turk form "the world's most giant doctor". When they put Turk on top to form "World's Most Giant Black Doctor" apparently people ran in fear, so they decide to save that version for when they want to scare a racist patient.
    • And Multi-Ethnic Siamese Doctor as well.
  • Season 13 of The Amazing Race had teams don cow costumes in Almaty, Kazakhstan, then run all around the city wearing them.
  • In a Halloween episode of Roseanne, Dan and Jackie attend a Halloween party as Marie Antoinette, post-guillotine: Dan as her body and Jackie as her severed head, which Dan is "holding" under his arm.
  • Dad's Army: In "Operation Kilt", Jones and Walker attempt to use a pantomime cow to sneak up on a highland regiment during a training exercise.
  • The Goodies: In "Gender Education", the Goodies abduct a notorious MP and take his place on a chat show: all three of them. They do this by sharing on enormous moustache and speaking in unison.
  • The shoplifter in Monty Python's Flying Circus: "The Buzz Aldrin Show" is at least two guys stuffed into a trench coat.
  • The Remixes in Kamen Rider Revice are a rare weaponized version of this, having Revi and Vice contort their bodies into the animal that their current Genome is based on, with additional bits of armor completing the look.
  • Saturday Night Live: One of Stefon's clubs features the two guys from Wham! wearing a two-man horse costume. (Spoiler alert: They're both in the back!)
  • One bit of sketch comedy (as in, jokes done with literal sketches) on Important Things with Demetri Martin had a drawing of a horse, which Demetri altered to become two guys in a horse costume just by drawing a vertical line down the horse's body.
  • Quite a few of the quadrupedal Kaiju featured throughout the Ultra Series are represented in this way; particularly prominent examples include Dodongo in Ultraman, Paragon in Return of Ultraman, Brocken and Jumbo King in Ultraman Ace and Zog's final form in Ultraman Gaia. The exact configuration of these two-man suits has led to some interesting design choices, depending on whether the suit actors can move their arms freely, hence why Paragon and Brocken's suits have additional appendages on the front and back sections, respectively, as these are where the suit actor's arms would be placed. Pestar, another monster introduced in the original Ultraman series, is a particularly interesting example of this trope, in that the two suit actors stand side-by-side rather than in single file, with the suit's head located in the middle, between their arms.

    Music 
  • The 'cojoined twin sisters' "Eva" and "Lyn", a.k.a. Evelyn and Evelyn Neville of the Evelyn Evelyn musical act are portrayed by Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley. One supplies the left hand, the other the right hand, even when playing the ukulele. According to the web site "The sisters are parapagus tripus dibrachius twins, sharing three legs, two arms, three lungs, two hearts and a single liver."

    Puppet Shows 
  • In Christmas at Eureeka's Castle, Batly casts Bogge and Quagmire in the role of a reindeer in a Christmas play he puts on. Quagmire is put in front, while Bogge is put in the rear. The latter is not happy about his position.
    Quagmire: I'm the head, the one with brains! (laughs)
    Bogge: But, but, but...
    Quagmire: Yep, that's what you are! (laughs)
  • Emmet Otters Jugband Christmas: The first act in the talent contest is a muskrat couple tap-dancing in a two-person horse costume. Unfortunately, the costume gets accidentally torn in half during setup and they end up just looking ridiculous.

    Radio 
  • From The Goon Show:
    Grytpype: Please, Moriarty, keep still, do you want us both out of this suit?

    Theater 
  • Theres A Burglar In My Bed has a bit where two female thieves dressed in French maid outfits have to share a single skirt. They cut it in half and each holds one piece in front of herself, standing very close to each other even while moving about. They never turn their backs on other characters, but when they have to move, they side-step together in a circle around the edges of the room at one point circumventing the entire space - which exposes their backsides/bloomers to the audience.
  • Used hilariously in A Very Potter Musical: in the films, Quirrell is played by one man, with Voldemort's face CGId onto the back of his head. In the show, it's simply two men, standing back to back, in one gigantic robe with an oversized turban. This is Played for Laughs often, but especially when Quirrell attempts to go to bed by falling backwards while Voldemort falls face forward onto the bed. Also, the Hungarian Horntail is similarly played by three people in a (rather bad) dragon costume.

    Video Games 
  • Day of the Tentacle: In the final act, the three characters believe they've been fused together into a three-headed monster due to a Teleporter Accident. They're all just stuck inside one shirt.
  • Fashion Police Squad has Dull Manager enemies. Defeating them reveals that he consists of two Dull Suits.
  • Hollow Knight: One of the enemy types in the Greenpath, the Moss Chargers, are small bugs that cover themselves in large leafy "shells". Their boss variant, the Massive Moss Charger, is revealed on defeat to be a group of five Moss Chargers hiding inside a single giant shell.
  • Pokémon: Dipplin, one of Applin's evolutions, consists of two wyrms hiding inside one apple to give the appearance of a single creature similar to its pre-evolution. While this doesn't play much of a role in its design, gameplay, or even animations, it foreshadows Dipplin's own evolution: Hydrapple, which consists of seven "syrpents" inside a much larger syrup apple that pop their heads out to resemble a hydra with one or five heads.
  • Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town has an event in which a horse the Player Character runs into turns out to be the mayor and his adult son sharing a costume.

    Webcomics 
  • In a strip from Oglaf, this trick is performed by two men allegedly trying to assassinate a prince; they disguise themselves as a single deer on his hunting grounds, and then are supposed to kill him behind his back. The ploy takes an odd turn when an actual buck tries to battle them for dominance. The man in the front loses his half of the disguise, but wins by punching the buck. The other man "plays along" by asserting his "dominance" by having sex with a doe... which turned out to be his original intent for the ruse anyway.

    Web Original 
  • The SCP Foundation has SCP-1545, a two-person llama costume that brainwashes its occupants into staying "in character" until the costume is removed. Despite the costume's character being friendly, this is dangerous, since the costume prevents its wearers from eating, drinking, or using the toilet, leading to their death if they aren't forcibly removed.

    Web Video 
  • One wrestler in Jerma985's Live-Action Rumble is the Two-Person Horse. Apparently, two wrestlers are allowed to enter the ring together as long as they share a costume. Then both halves end up fighting each other because they don't want to share the victory.

    Western Animation 
  • Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: In "Garbage In, Garbage Out", the monsters begin to starve when the humans stop dumping their garbage in the dump. The only remaining garbage in the dump is being guarded by The Snorch and Zimbo. Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm disguise themselves as The Gromble to order the Snorch and Zimbo to share their garbage, with Ickis as the head, Oblina as the front legs, and Krumm as the rear legs. Unfortunately for them, the real Gromble finds out about their disguise and punishes them.
  • All Grown Up!: Phil and Chuckie wear a horse costume for a pioneer play, but that didn't work out good.
  • In CatDog, this naturally happens to anything Cat and Dog wear, in the rare instances that they do, considering they are literally connected to each other.
  • TaleSpin:
    • In the episode "Stuck On You," Baloo and the main villain, Don Karnage, are forced to do this when the two are near-permanently glued together by SCIENCE!! And due to the saving of his life, Karnage makes a promise not to kill the hero until they detach via the cure. Hilarity Ensues.
    • In the episode "Waiders of the Wost Tweasure", Baloo and a rival pilot swipe a masquerade horse costume from the henchmen of the episode's villain so they can slip out undetected. Things get tricky when they run into the villain and the henchmen appear on the scene saying their costume was stolen.
  • On Rocko's Modern Life, when Ed Bighead is too sick to give a proposal to the Conglomo executives, so Bev puts Heffer and Filburt in a hastily made Ed costume so that they can give the proposal. The plan goes off without a hitch, until Hef and Fil, Comically Missing the Point, jump out of the costume to yell, "Surprise!"
  • An episode of SpongeBob SquarePants has SpongeBob and Patrick disguise themselves as a giant Albino Eel using just a sock so they can get Squidward back into his Secret Lodge.
  • Classic Disney Shorts:
    • In the Mickey Mouse cartoon, "Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip", Mickey and Pluto do this to hide themselves from the conductor (Pete) who is trying to kick them off the train because dogs aren't allowed on it. When the train passes through a tunnel, they snag his jacket and hat and cover themselves with it. Of course, like all their other attempts, they failed.
    • Donald Duck and Goofy do this to disguise themselves as a female moose in the cartoon "Moose Hunters".
    • Parodied and subverted in a Mickey Mouse Works short where Donald is a ride operator and won't let his nephews on the ride. At one point he sees a really tall duck woman in a long dress clumsily walking to the ride, but when he rips the dress off it turns out it really was a woman and she punches his lights out.
  • Peter has done the horse costume gag at lease twice in Family Guy. Once he tried to sneak Chris into the county fair ("Wait a minute... your ass just sneezed! And horses can't talk! No no no, none of this adds up at all..."), and another he had Brian put on the costume so they could sneak past Lois...who didn't even notice ("Okay, I'm just gonna come right out and say it: Why did we need the horse costume?").
  • In the My Gym Partner's a Monkey Episode "Lyon of Scrimmage" Jake poses as Adam's arms by hiding in his jersey to combine Jake's throwing and Adam's running.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • The episode "Dragon Quest" has Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight all sharing a dragon costume. Also counts as a Totem Pole Trench since Twilight is standing on Dash's shoulders in the disguise.
    • In "Stranger Than Fan Fiction", an Ahuizotl cosplay at a Daring Do convention involves two ponies wearing the costume.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In one episode, all the employees have to go through an X-ray machine to get in. No one is stopped including people carrying guns and "... two kids pretending to be an adult".
    • Homer and Barney try this using a large pair of pants on "The Gong Show" which was one of Homer's life long dreams.
    • In another episode, a Native American known as Fibbing Bear is revealed to be two little people pulling this trick.
    • Homer tries doing this to help Bart and Milhouse sneak into the Android’s Dungeon after they’ve been banned. Comic Book Guy sees through it immediately.
    Homer: Hello, my name is Shaquille O'Neal. Let us in please.
    • When Lisa becomes a Buddhist in "She of Little Faith", the rest of the Simpson family tries to lure her back into Christianity by having her celebrate Christmas with them. They do so by wrapping up what looks like a pony, knowing that Lisa has always wanted a pony for Christmas. When Lisa doesn't fall for it, the pony is revealed to be a disguised Ralph and Milhouse, with the former being the front and the latter being the rear.
    • In the "Treehouse of Horror XVI" episode segment, "I've Grown a Costume To Your Face", Patty and Selma attend a costume contest in a horse costume, with Patty as the horse's front and Selma as the horse's rear. When a witch turns everyone into their Halloween costume as retribution for losing the contest, Patty and Selma become the horse's two halves.
  • Looney Tunes:
    • The short "Room and Bird" has Sylvestor, Tweety, and Hector all stand on top of each other wearing a mismatched set of clothes they found in a dresser — the reason being that they are in a no-pets-allowed hotel and had to pass themselves off as being a person to not get kicked out.
    • In "Baby Bottleneck" both Porky and Daffy are working in a stork factory, after a scuffle over an egg, they get trapped in the conveyor belt, and stuff in to one diaper, with Daffy as the upper part, and Porky as the legs.
  • In the Chowder episode "The Bruised Bluenana" Panini hops into Chowder's clothing to keep an eye on him while he takes care of a spoiled fruit.
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Mac, Bloo, and a pizza guy made a disguise of a tall trench coat man named Orlando Bloo. The result is that Mac's tiny child arms have difficulty using utensils to eat at the table and Frankie kicking "Orlando" in the shins repeatedly gets no reaction from Bloo. In a later episode, Bloo uses the Orlando Bloo disguise again, but by standing on top of Wilt instead. Mac is disappointed to learn he did this without him.
  • Adventure Time: In the episode "Wizard Battle", Finn and Jake disguise themselves as the wizard "Magic Fist", with Finn as the head and Jake as the limbs and body. When Jake's head pops out, Finn claims that it's his "magic second head".
  • On an episode of Madeline, Madeline and her friend get stuck on a Ferris wheel after it breaks down. The circus employees rescue them and have them stay at the circus performing in a lion costume. After a while, they decide they don't like it and just want to go home.
  • Littlest Pet Shop (2012):
    • The pets perform a Totem Pole Trench in the episode, "If the Shoe Fits", using Roger's trench coat along with some fake arms and stilts, with Zoe on top and Sunil on the bottom.
    • In the episode, "Shanghai Jinx", the pets all perform the Chinese dragon act with Vinnie at the head and Penny Ling at the tail.
  • Wander over Yonder: Wander and Sylvia pull off this in the episode, "The Fugitives".
  • There's an episode of Quack Pack where Huey and Dewey dress up as a giant rat.
  • In the PAW Patrol episode, "Pups Save a Dragon", Chase and Marshall wear a dragon costume as part of a play they are putting on. Given the two halves of the costume are not attached, Marshall (at the rear end) had a habit of detaching himself from the costume.
  • On two separate occasions in The Flintstones, Fred and Barney ended up wearing a dinosaur costume and a cow costume, with Fred in front and Barney in back (being forced by Fred under penalty of a punched nose).
  • In one episode of Doug, Doug and his nemesis Roger ended up playing a horse in a Founder's Day pageant, with Roger in front and Doug in back.
  • In the Halloween Episode of Kim Possible, Ron suggested that he and Kim wear a joint costume of a unicorn. Monique suggests that Kim go with the half with the horn.
  • Get Ace: In the Halloween Episode, Ace and Gordon agree to temporarily put their differences aside and share a two-person unicorn costume (it was the only one left in the shop) in order to try and win a costume contest. They butt heads the entire time and Ace, as the back of the unicorn, is forced to follow Gordon's lead. This culminates in a comical moment where Ace and Gordon try to run in opposite directions and get snapped back together like an elastic band.
  • Hamster & Gretel has this one in "The Ice Queen Cometh," however they successfully have been able to enter Ice Queen Ice Cream.
  • Happens in the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation: L.O.V.E.". The five Delightful Children wear a giant leather jacket because they were cast as the play's love interest (who is one person).
  • A Catscratch episode had Mr. Blik and Waffle wear a unicorn costume together to create "found footage" photos of a unicorn so Mr. Blik could profit. And also so they could trick Human Kimberly into thinking Gordon had seen a unicorn.
  • Molly of Denali: In "Midnight Sun Fun Run," Molly and Tooey dress up as a moose together. Tooey is the head and Molly is the rear, and unlike most examples, Molly's head sticks out of the costume. However, Tooey can't see where he's going, so they decide to make the costume backwards.
  • Wacky Races (1968): One of Dick Dastardly's traps in "Idaho A-Go-Go" involves him setting up a fake cattle crossing. He disguises himself and Muttley as a cow, with him in front, and Muttley in the rear. The two end up getting mistaken for a real cow by a bull and chased away by said bull, costing them the race.
  • Pocket Dragon Adventures: The Pocket Dragons once got together in a manually controlled robot to trick someone.
  • The Loud House
    • "Potty Mouth"has Lori and Leni sharing the former's sweater after they stretch it out.
    • In "Scales of Justice", Lana and her animal friends dress up as a swamp monster to scare away a construction worker.
    • In "Jeers for Fears", all the sisters (except Lori, who wasn't home at the time) pretend to be a multi-headed monster to help Lincoln and Clyde prepare for a haunted house attraction. The boys end up becoming too frightened.
    • "On Thin Ice" features Lynn sharing an oversized jersey with Lincoln, Luan, and their dad as part of her good luck rituals.
  • KaBlam!: The Race Rabbit episode, "Moose in the Road" (part of "You'll Love Our Selection") has the Boolie brothers disguise themselves as a moose as part of their plan to catch Race. Zit is in the front and Winston is in the rear. Zit farts while in the costume, much to Winston's dismay. The two halves then get separated when a truck that brakes for nothing pushes Zit away.
    Real Life 
  • In Japan, Nininbaori is a form of comedic act in which two people wear the same haori and pretend to be one hunchbacked person.

 
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Two Person Horse Joke

The strength of two wrestlers combined into one mighty stallion, the Two Person Horse is one formidable contestant in the Jerma Arena.

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