History Main / SuperIdentikit

[[folder:Film]]

* Etch-A-Sketch can do this in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2''; after Woody is taken, the other toys are conducting an "investigation", with Etch drawing a sketch of the guy who took him. When Buzz asks him to draw the man in a chicken suit, everyone gasps as they recognize Big Al, the owner of the Al's Toy Barn toy store.
* The RunningGag in ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'' of Flynn Ryder's wanted posters always getting the nose comically wrong, which continued into [[WesternAnimation/TangledTheSeries the series]], highlights the fact that every ''other'' feature on his face is exactly accurate. The series eventually reveals that the sketch artist is an elderly man with thick glasses (prompting Eugene to forgive him for his problems with the nose), which only makes it that much more incredible how accurate everything else is.

* Parodied in ''Series/StrangersWithCandy'', in the episode where Jerri hits Mr. Jellineck with her car. The police sketch artist is told the perpetrator was male, but nevertheless produces a very accurate sketch of Jerri, which, [[MatchCut when he puts it down, reveals her sitting right in front of him]]. [[IdiotPlot Nobody suspects a thing.]]

** And one notable instance where, upon being given just the skin (the team found only the skin of the victim, with the contents, including bones, having been removed) Angela was unable to recreate a face from it due to lacking the underlying architecture. This didn't stop Hodge and Zac from trying to inflate the skin-face like a balloon in an attempt to help her...

* In ''Sketch Artist II: Hands That See'', the only survivor of a SerialKiller-rapist is a blind woman. The titular character manages to create a perfectly detailed sketch (complete with hair color) based on her feeling the guy's face. Naturally, when the murderer is caught and brought to trial, the defense starts raising doubts about the sketch's accuracy... until it's repeated just as perfectly with a random guy off the street.

* Used, though possibly as parody, in the beginning of ''Farscape'' in which they peel back an image of a spaceship to reveal the pilot.

** There was one particularly grating example: they had a picture of a freckle-faced young girl grinning a toothy, squinty grin. They took us through the early stages of artificially ageing her, starting to make her look like a freckle-faced grinning adult. Then later when we saw the final result it was a picture of an unsmiling, closed-mouthed, wide-eyed young woman, which couldn't possibly have been extrapolated from the earlier picture.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* Double subversion in ''Fahrenheit''/''Indigo Prophecy'': at one point, the player takes control of a witness creating composite sketch of Lucas Kane via a computer program. Later on, the player takes control of Lucas when the police show him the sketch asking him if they recognize the person on it. The only response that doesn't increase suspicion is marked "Joke" where he says "Hey, this looks like a lot of people I know! [[SarcasticConfession Heck, it could even be me!]]" to which the officer replies "Yes, I understand. These composites can be a little vague.". However, if the sketch matches Kane's picture 100%, it can be later used as conclusive evidence.

* Used to varying degrees in the game ''Hitman: Blood Money''. If Agent 47 is not seen in a level, the end-of-level newspaper publishes a sketch that looks nothing like him. The more often he is caught, however, the more the sketch resembles his actual appearance.
* Your wanted poster in ''Zack & Wiki'' starts as a horrible sketch, but gets progressively better as your notoriety increases until they just use photographs.

[[caption-width-right:321:"That's how they looked!"]]

[[caption-width-right:350:"That's how they looked!"]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Series/TheMinistryOfTime https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/superidentikit.png]]]]

* Played with in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/QuackPack'', when DonaldDuck thrashes the living-room while playing with his nephews' VR-videogame, which he'd been admonishing them about earlier, he makes up a description for an assailant to cover for it. This turns out to perfectly match someone - a known criminal with an unbelieveably brutish appearance. Involved in numerous crimes, nobody had ever dared to bear witness against him - and he's then arrested based on Donald's bogus claims.

* On ''Series/TheCloser'', on one occasion, Brenda brandishes accurate pictures of her detectives (who were identified being where they shouldn't be) to prove her point. On other occasion, she's seen grimacing over a ridiculously vague drawing. The strangest version came when her wacky, airbrained sister decided she would describe the killer from her "psychic vision." Incredibly, she successfully describes . . . Chief Pope. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Who she'd never met.]]

* ''Series/{{CSI}}'' had a particularly grating example: they had a picture of a freckle-faced young girl grinning a toothy, squinty grin. They took us through the early stages of artificially ageing her, starting to make her look like a freckle-faced grinning adult. Then later when we saw the final result it was a picture of an unsmiling, closed-mouthed, wide-eyed young woman, which couldn't possibly have been extrapolated from the earlier picture.

* Subverted in an episode of ''CSI: NY''. Mac and Stella discover the boy who witnessed a murder has great artistic talent so they ask him to draw the killer. He ends up drawing a character from one of his comic books. His traumatic experience caused him to confuse the events in the comic with reality.

* Subverted in the post-Enies Lobby arc in ''Manga/OnePiece'' . Crew members who don't have bounties get bounties and wanted posters. The government got photos for most of them, but couldn't get a photo for Sanji and had to use an artist's impression, and thus the picture on [[FacialCompositeFailure the poster looks nothing like him]]. The DoubleSubversion comes in when [[spoiler:a completely unrelated character was revealed to coincidentally have the same face.]]

* The "funky description" schtick was also done in ''Film/JohnnyEnglish'', where the aforementioned spy makes up an "aggressor" to cover his [[SelfOffense accidentally knocking out of a security chief]]. The "aggressor" looks like Ronald [=McDonald=]'s EvilTwin, yet a matching person appears in the final scene, reading a newspaper.

* ''Film/CasinoRoyale1967'' has a scene at [=MI6=]/Q Branch with an identikit screen in the background shifting around features that end up forming Hitler's face.

* Averted in ''Literature/{{Incompetence}}''. Harry's image is placed on Euronews and it looks more like [[Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes Dr Zaius]] than it does Harry.

* On ''Series/TheCloser'', on one occasion, Brenda brandishes accurate pictures of her detectives (who were identified being where they shouldn't be) to prove her point. On other occasion, she's seen grimacing over a ridiculously vague drawing. The strangest version came when her wacky, airbrained sister decided she would describe the killer from her "psychic vision." Incredibly, she successfully describes . . . Chief Pope. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Who she'd never met.]]
* The "four inches of decaying skull" version happened in an episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}''.
** This is somewhat justified in ''Series/{{Bones}}'', because Angela was hired specifically for her artistic skill and ability to extrapolate faces from remains, and there are real specialists who have this ability.
** There have been at least a couple of cases where she hasn't been able to reconstruct a face because there wasn't enough skull left.
** And one notable instance where, upon being given just the skin (the team found only the skin of the victim, with the contents, including bones, having been removed) Angela was unable to recreate a face from it due to lacking the underlying architecture. This didn't stop Hodge and Zac from trying to inflate the skin-face like a balloon in an attempt to help her...
* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/{{Dexter}}''. The title character has just killed, in cold blood, a man who was about to commit murder; he is now stressed about a sketch being made from a description given by a young witness -- the boy who was about to be killed. Dexter gets a glimpse of the image before it is completed; it seems to resemble him and throws him into a further anxious frenzy. However, at the end of the episode the full picture is revealed to be a sketch of Jesus; the traumatized and delirious boy conflated the two as his savior.
* A similar subversion happened in an episode of ''CSI: NY''. Mac and Stella discover the boy who witnessed a murder has great artistic talent so they ask him to draw the killer. He ends up drawing a character from one of his comic books. His traumatic experience caused him to confuse the events in the comic with reality.
* Used, though possibly as parody, in the beginning of ''Farscape'' in which they peel back an image of a spaceship to reveal the pilot.
* Subverted in ''Series/DarkAngel'' when Max is seen stealing medications from a pharmacy in ''Flushed''. Police pictures of her quickly land her in jail--along with about a dozen other women that approximately fit her description. Eventually, they all are released.
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'': Based on a witness description, Ray produces a sketch that looks like a ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' character.

* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/CornerGas'': a police officer listens and sketches as a perpetrator is described, then holds up a page full of squiggles and asks if it looks like the thief.
* ''Series/QuincyME'' once reconstructed a picture of an entire person from a single fragment of a thigh bone, including hair and eye color (although, to give the show credit, Quincy admitted he was only guessing on the hair and eyes based on statistical averages).
* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' where a sketch artist is told to draw a man with big, dark shades and a hooded sweatshirt. Both Detective Munch and a lead commented that this looked exactly like the Unabomber.

* ''Series/AlteredCarbon''. Detective Kirstin Ortega has to do up an identikit of a man they dub the Ghostwalker, because [[CameraSpoofing he doesn't show up on any camera.]] She shows this identikit to Takeshi Kovacs, who later has an OhCrap when he realises this man has just stepped into a lift with Ortega.
* In ''Series/Dark2017'', the identikit of SinisterMinister Noah looks like someone took a modern passport photo of him and ran it through a greyscale filter or two. Keep in mind that the sketch artist accomplished this with nothing but a description provided by a ''mute pre-teen girl'' who interacted with Noah for a minute at most.

** Similarly, your wanted poster in ''Zack & Wiki'' starts as a horrible sketch, but gets progressively better as your notoriety increases until they just use photographs.
* Double subversion in ''Fahrenheit''/''Indigo Prophecy'': at one point, the player takes control of a witness creating composite sketch of Lucas Kane via a computer program. Later on, the player takes control of Lucas when the police show him the sketch asking him if they recognize the person on it. The only response that doesn't increase suspicion is marked "Joke" where he says "Hey, this looks like a lot of people I know! [[SarcasticConfession Heck, it could even be me!]]" to which the officer replies "Yes, I understand. These composites can be a little vague.". However, if the sketch matches Kane's picture 100%, it can be later used as conclusive evidence.
** Hilariously, the above is still the only non-suspicious response even if you deliberately [[FacialCompositeFailure make the sketch look nothing like Kane.]] [[FridgeBrilliance Then again, if some guy you're questioning about a murder starts getting nervous about a composite sketch that blatantly looks nothing like him... That'd be a red flag there.]]
* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{DefJam|Series}}: Fight For NY'': the police sketch of the guy who rescued D-Mob from police custody is used as the character creation system. Naturally, once the sketch is done, the PC looks exactly like it.
* ''VideoGame/CookServeDelicious'' features a rare minigame based around this for when the player's restaurant gets robbed.

* Played with in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/QuackPack'', when DonaldDuck thrashes the living-room while playing with his nephews' VR-videogame, which he'd been admonishing them about earlier, he makes up a description for an assailant to cover for it. Similar to the Simpsons example, this turns out to perfectly match someone - a known criminal with an unbelieveably brutish appearance. Involved in numerous crimes, nobody had ever dared to bear witness against him - and he's then arrested based on Donald's bogus claims. Cue fame, fortune, and said criminal breaking out of jail to get revenge on Donald. Naturally, HilarityEnsues...
* Played with in an episode of the [[AnimatedAdaptation animated]] ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack'' series: The "sketch" artist used the witness's face instead of a sketchpad to physically recreate the criminal's appearance.

** Hilariously, the above is still the only non-suspicious response even if you deliberately [[FacialCompositeFailure make the sketch look nothing like Kane.]] [[FridgeBrilliance Then again, if some guy you're questioning about a murder starts getting nervous about a composite sketch that blatantly looks nothing like him starts getting nervous... That'd be a red flag there.]]

** Hilariously, the above is still the only non-suspicious response even if you deliberately [[FacialCompositeFailure make the sketch look nothing like Kane.]]

* Subverted in the Post-Enies Lobby arc in ''Manga/OnePiece'' . Crew members who don't have bounties get bounties and wanted posters. The government got photos for most of them, but couldn't get a photo for Sanji and had to use an artist's impression, and thus the picture on [[FacialCompositeFailure the poster looks nothing like him]]. The DoubleSubversion comes in when [[spoiler:a completely unrelated character was revealed to coincidentally have the same face.]]

* Subverted in recent ''Manga/OnePiece'' stories. Crew members who don't have bounties get bounties and wanted posters. The government got photos for most of them, but couldn't get a photo for Sanji and had to use an artist's impression, and thus the picture on [[FacialCompositeFailure the poster looks nothing like him]]. The DoubleSubversion comes in when [[spoiler:a completely unrelated character was revealed to coincidentally have the same face.]]

* ''Film/CasinoRoyale1967'' has a scene at MI6/Q Branch with an identikit screen in the background shifting around features that end up forming Hitler's face.

* Subverted in recent ''OnePiece'' stories. Crew members who don't have bounties get bounties and wanted posters. The government got photos for most of them, but couldn't get a photo for Sanji and had to use an artist's impression, and thus the picture on [[FacialCompositeFailure the poster looks nothing like him]]. The DoubleSubversion comes in when [[spoiler:a completely unrelated character was revealed to coincidentally have the same face.]]

* ''Series/AlteredCarbon''. Detective Kirstin Ortega has to do up an identikit of a man they dub the Ghostwalker, because [[CameraSpoofing he doesn't show up on any camera.]] He shows this identikit to Takeshi Kovacs, who later has an OhCrap when he realises this man has just stepped into a lift with Ortega.

* ''CasinoRoyale1967'' has a scene at MI6/Q Branch with an identikit screen in the background shifting around features that end up forming Hitler's face.

* ''Series/{{Quincy}}'' once reconstructed a picture of an entire person from a single fragment of a thigh bone, including hair and eye color (although, to give the show credit, Quincy admitted he was only guessing on the hair and eyes based on statistical averages).