History Main / HollywoodCopUniform

* Invoked in-universe in an episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' when Beckett notices that three uniformed officers in the front row of an arraignment have the clasps and buttons made of the wrong metal (tin instead of brass) and realizes [[YouAreTooLate too late]] that they're three accomplices in place to free the person being arraigned.

* ''In Pursuit of Honor'': when the deserters cross the border into UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} with the horses they took from the US Cavalry, they are met by a patrol of Mounties, all on horseback and in full dress uniform complete with scarlet tunic, which in itself is inaccurate for the period (in the 1930s there was already a more practical "everyday" tunic). They wear shoulder flashes bearing the inscription "Royal Canadian Mounted Police" in gold lettering, which, while in themselves more or less authentic, do not belong on the full dress uniform. A more minor inaccuracy is the fact that the "Montana peak" on the Mounties' Stetsons is creased as on American campaign hats, with the four dents aligned two in back and two in front, whereas RCMP Stetsons and most other Canadian campaign-style hats have one dent in front, one in back, and one on each side.

This could be caused by several factors. If a show has a low budget and has episodes set in different places, faithfully reproducing various uniforms would likely be a demanding task. Another factor might be that the show is attempting to avoid legal issues based around things like trademarks or jurisdictional laws against impersonating a police officer or unauthorized wearing of a uniform. In other cases, it just might be that [[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed the producers are deliberately trying to obscure the actual setting for one reason or another.]]

Notably, works set in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity or other major American cities often avert this trope. This may have something to do with the appearance of the NYPD uniform being familiar to many, perhaps also with some shows and films set in places like NY or UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} having a good enough budget to faithfully replicate the look. On the other hand, works, especially American, depicting [[UsefulNotes/TheMounties Canadian Mounties]] often inaccurately portray them as wearing their distinctive, historical red dress uniform on a normal workday, something no doubt often done deliberately in order to play into the stereotype.

* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] with ''Series/TheBill'', as while they've generally ShownTheirWork (due to receiving special permission to use authentic UK police uniforms), some eagle-eyed viewers notice the uniforms seem like a mishmash of several British forces uniforms (at one point, they had near-identical uniforms to the Royal Ulster Constabulary in a 1990s episode, which [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece ties it to the 1990s explicitly]].

See HollywoodMilitaryUniform for the military counterpart.

[[caption-width-right:350:Actually she's ''not'' the sheriff.[[note]]She's Marge Gunderson, Chief of Police of Brainerd, MN in ''Film/{{Fargo}}''.[[/note]]]]

* In ''Film/HomeAlone'', the uniform worn by Creator/JoePesci at the beginning of the film doesn't match that of a proper Chicago Police officer; for one thing, the cap is a generic octagonal police officer's hat and doesn't have the CPD-style "Sillitoe Tartan" checkered band. Another inaccuracy is that his badge is a generic shield-shaped badge, not the star-shaped CPD badge. Justified, however, because [[spoiler:he's not a real police officer, but a criminal casing several homes in the area to see which ones will have their owners away for the holidays so he knows which houses to rob]].

* Averted in both ''Franchise/{{Dragnet}}'' and ''Series/AdamTwelve'' -- every uniformed officer that appears in either is dressed exactly the same as a ''real'' LAPD officer of the period, and the badges used by the main characters are authentic. Jack Webb was a notorious stickler for detail and had a [[BackedByThePentagon good relationship with the police department]].

The place shown in this feature is real and identifiable. The police officers likewise are of this place. But something is awry. The cops are wearing uniforms with elements that do not look like the ones they wear in that place in RealLife. In [[UpToEleven extreme cases]], the whole uniform will be wrong. This may well fly over the heads of viewers not from said jurisdiction, but to locals, especially those who have some kind of relationship with law enforcement, this may be a bit of an eyesore. Why couldn't the costume department make a bigger effort at authenticity?

* ''Film/{{Fargo}}'': Taken UpToEleven; the sheriff-like uniforms worn by Chief Marge Gunderson and her subordinates, with their seven-pointed stars and brown and tan coloring, are nothing like that of the real police of Brainerd, Minnesota, which is a standard blue one with an oval shield-shaped badge (however, the state trooper's uniform was more accurate). This seems to have been done deliberately to underscore the small-town nature of the characters.

* ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood'': The Sheriff of Nottingham wears a star [[AnachronismStew like a modern American sheriff's badge.]]

* In ''Film/HomeAlone'', the uniform worn by Creator/JoePesci at the beginning of the film doesn't match that of a proper Chicago Police officer; for one thing, the cap is a generic octagonal police officer's hat and doesn't have the CPD-style "Sillitoe Tartan" checkered band. ANother inaccuracy is that his badge is a generic shield-shaped badge, not the star-shaped CPD badge. Justified, however, because [[spoiler:he's not a real police officer, but a criminal casing several homes in the area to see which ones will have their owners away for the holidays so he knows which houses to rob]].

* In ''Series/AlmostParadise'', there is a fictional police force in Cebu known as the Mactan Police which has its own uniform.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/{{Fargo}}https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/marge_gunderson_1.jpg]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/marge_gunderson_1.jpg]]