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"Hello, friends. I am a perfectly normal human worm-baby. You have nothing, absolutely nothing, to fear from me. Just pay no attention to me and we'll get along just fine."

Someone or something decidedly alien is attempting to pass as human. But they do a terrible job of it; acting in an erratic manner, forgetting names, walking stiffly, and talking in an odd dialect. They might as well call themselves "Hugh Mann" and walk around with a name-tag reading "I'm Most Definitely Not A Space Alien" — it would make for about as convincing a disguise.

Luckily for them, nobody notices at all. Or at least nobody anyone will listen to. Sometimes, it helps that the character that's being impersonated normally acts this way. Almost always Played for Laughs, and often results in characters Failing a Spot Check, Comically Missing the Point, or asking Did You Get a New Haircut?

A Sub-Trope to Human Disguise.

Compare Easy Impersonation for a non-fantastic variant of the trope. See also Clark Kenting and Paper-Thin Disguise. Compare Bad "Bad Acting", and Out-of-Character Alert. May overlap with They Look Like Us Now or Human Aliens for further laughs. Not to be confused with Hu Mons, which is about Mons that resemble human beings. Also not to be confused with Dr. Hugh Mann from Interstellar, who actually is a human as far as we know.


Examples:

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    Advertising 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Assassination Classroom: Koro-sensei's "incognito" disguise is pretty much just a toupee and him turning his skin a normal color. It doesn't stop him from looking like a balloon with a smiley face drawn on it.
  • In Dandadan, the Serpo aliens' human "disguises" are horrifying, perpetually smiling masks shaped vaguely like a Lego minifigure's head.
  • Digimon Tamers: The ADR-01 doesn't do a good job impersonating Juri Kato. Even ignoring its creepy eyes and facial expressions, it acts like something that is trying too hard to pass off as a human being. Just how did it fool Takato and some others who know Juri's personally is anyone's guess.
  • Yamamoto of Gugure Kokkuri San doesn't even bother with disguising himself. Doesn't stop everyone from being fooled.
  • Inuyasha: Whenever Inuyasha goes out in public in the modern era, he wears a hat to hide his dog ears. The disguise fails to hide his white hair, claws, fangs, or golden eyes, but no one ever questions it. When Kagome's friends meet him, they assume he's biracial, which is Metaphorically True.
  • In Plus-Sized Elf, a diet clinic worker named Naoe Tomoatsu runs into a girl named Erufuda, which sounds like erufu da, or "I'm an elf" in Japanese. Sure enough, she's a forest elf who needs to lose weight thanks to her obsession with French fries. The English translation simply uses "Elfuda".

    Comedy 
  • Eric Feurer's routine "Two Trenchcoats in a Kid" is an inversion of the Totem Pole Trench trope in which two trenchcoats try to get into a movie disguised as a human child. This involves repeated protestations that they are an ordinary human ("My parents do money and make taxes. My hobbies include baseballing and enjoying having thumbs") and not in any way a pair of trenchcoats in disguise.

    Comic Books 
  • In an issue of Impulse, Bart has to hide the fact that his cousin Jenni is from the future, so he teaches her English with the help of books like "See Spot Run". When introduced to his friends, Jenni's first attempt at conversing with them is to ask if they've Seen Spot Run.
  • The Transformers: Robots in Disguise:
    • Yes, that Jet that suddenly turned into a tank in mid-air is a human-made and driven invention and not one of the genocidal aliens that invaded the planet years ago. He demands your surrender in the name of the United Steaks of America, or whatever it's called.
    • The strangeness of a plane that turns into a tank is somewhat mitigated by the canonical existence of M.A.S.K. in the setting, which allows the concept of 'vehicle that turns into another vehicle' to exist. It's still no excuse for the other mistakes, such as Thundercracker being mistaken for a human on the internet in spite of an apocalyptically bad understanding of human societal norms.
  • The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye:
    • When using their holomatter avatars for the first time, the Lost Light members also get fake human identities. The few we get to know are all of this kind: Rewind is "Joe Human", Swerve is "Mr. Person", Rung is "Mary Sue" and Skids gets a blank card (which actually makes sense as his avatar is designed after the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who).
    • These are, unfortunately, somehow better than the ones that the Scavengers came up with, who while having passable human names (Dennis Taylor and Alex Higgins), "Dennis" is an gigantic woman, who, because Spinister is too stupid to come up with an actual human face under her helmet, simply has another helmet under it. Meanwhile, Misfire's avatar has what can best be described as having a tiny, one-eyed face in the middle of his head. And pink skin. Made worse by the fact that both of their masks are incredibly blatant Decepticon symbols.
  • Invasion!: Some of the Durlans are decidedly less effective at impersonating humans than others. The death of whomever they're attempting to impersonate is also a hangup since they can't go back and pull information from them to help their disguise if the person in question is dead, though this doesn't stop many of them from killing their targets for simplicity's sake.

    Fanfiction 

    Films — Animated 
  • In The Mitchells vs. the Machines, two defective robots try to pass off as humans to go along with the Mitchells by drawing crude faces on their monitors, pretending to "eat" by squashing an orange on their face and claiming they are named "Eric" and "Also Eric! No... Debrah...bot... 5000". The Mitchells can see through their lies, but take them in and soon they become part of the team.
  • Parodied in Monsters vs. Aliens where the aliens can tell that the ancient fishman is not one of them (although they believe him to merely be a defective clone) but cannot identify a one-eyed slime monster or a six-foot cockroach as not being one of them. The disguise that leads them to believe that they are mere clones? Simply their ill-fitting uniforms.
  • Dave from Penguins of Madagascar is an octopus disguised as a human using clothing, a wig, and his natural ability to change shape and color. When standing still Dave's disguise is actually incredibly good, but his movements are ridiculously inhuman, with limbs flipping around and bending in a fashion that clearly shows they have no bones. He's still able to become a publicly respected scientist named Dr. Brine without most people noticing.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In the second Cats & Dogs film, a cat (masquerading as his owner) over an intercom gives his last name as "Not-A-Cat". The humans believe him!
  • In The Country Bears, in the opening scene, the anthropomorphic bear living with an otherwise human family SUSPECTS he is adopted — and then follows this statement up with a bunch of silly and subtle reasons for suspecting it and overlooking the elephant in the room, which is of course that he's an anthropomorphic bear in the room, and the "other" son of the family, says "are you SERIOUS? THAT'S why you think you're adopted?"
  • The Strangers from Dark City, and by extension the whole environment they constructed. Somewhat justified in that, under normal circumstances, they never interact with awake humans.
  • Dave Made a Maze: Towards the end of the film, the group runs into a cardboard duplicate of their now dead friend Brynn that is desperately trying to pass as human, apparently completely unaware that it is made of cardboard. It constantly asks for high-fives from people, because "that is what man does".
  • Deconstructed in Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Princess Nuala, when first meeting Abe Sapien, thinks that his name is an obvious alias and that he's one of Nuada's spies, so she reads his mind to find out his real identity, only to learn that "Abe Sapien" is actually his name.
  • In The Human Duplicators, a detective gets duplicated (Surprise!) and the duplicate reports back to the original's superiors to throw them off the case. Despite his random pauses and stiff movement, they don't suspect a thing.
  • Played for laughs, and the core concept of, Meet Dave; a group of tiny aliens come to Earth looking for a probe meant to drain the ocean of salt for their energy crisis, disguising their spaceship as a human. Only problem: the aliens have absolutely no idea how humans act, causing all of humanity to unknowingly become the Only Sane Man to "Dave's" eccentric flailing.
  • In It Came from Outer Space, altruistic aliens that accidentally crashed on Earth entrust a local science-fiction writer with holding off local scrutiny while they temporarily hold a number of local townspeople hostage and imitate their bodies to be able to move about freely in town so they can get their ship fixed. They all talk in straight-faced monotone and walk rather awkwardly.
  • The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra:
    Kro-Bar: My wife sometimes forgets that she is not a space alien.
    Kro-Bar: Aliens? Us? Is this one of your Earth jokes?
  • In Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, a Martian disguises his... her... itself(?) as a voluptuous babe to catch the attention of a horndog White House staffer (the better to gain access to the President). She walks, talks, and does everything "strangely" but he doesn't notice until she bites off his finger!!
  • Men in Black:
    • Edgar from the first movie, a space cockroach wearing the skin of the first human he encountered, and who spends the whole time he wears the disguise looking and moving like an awkward walking corpse. In-Universe, Dennis Rodman is this. "It's not much of a disguise". And according to the sequel, Michael Jackson.
    • Subverted when Kay and Jay went to meet Frank whose cover is a newsstand owner. Jay remarks how that's 'the worst disguise ever, guy's gotta be an alien'. Cue Frank the Pug speaking up.
  • The Skeleton Key ends this way, although at least one person seems to suspect something might be wrong.
  • The aliens from This Island Earth have really obvious rubber foreheads, and their leader doesn't even recognize the name "Mozart", before correcting himself with, "Oh, yes, your composer."note 
  • Stardust: When Lamia sets up an inn as a trap for Yvaine, she transforms Bernard into a woman and passes him off as her "daughter". She also transforms Bernard's goat, Billy, into a human who she passes off as her "husband". Billy still has a goat's brain, so he continues to act like one, such as leaping over furniture rather than walking around it, and eating inedible materials, much to Lamia's frustration when she's trying to maintain appearances and keep Yvaine from realizing something's off.

    Literature 
  • The Alien Way by Gordon R. Dickson: An alien tries to secretly land on Earth and disguises himself to infiltrate a military facility. Actually he looks like a partially shaved flat-muzzled bear in a rough approximation of human clothing. Nobody stops him, because aliens have found a bait sent from Earth, and the scout has been being observed by a human telepathnote  for months. The military were ready to meet him and the human he thought he fooled with his disguise is the observer telepath. Let's say that while Dickson's aliens tend to be dumb and gullible compared to super smart humans, Rumls are probably worst of them all.
  • Animorphs: Several times throughout the story, though never involving the Yeerks, who have already access to their own host's knowledge and personality.
    • In one memorable mess, Jake is taken over by a Yeerk (that gets access to his memories) and it plays the part almost perfectly. When his own teammates realize this, they tie him up in the woods until that alien dies of hunger — then have another alien (who doesn't have access to his memories) play the role of Jake badly, while all this is going on... to his own family's shock.
    • This is something of a running gag for Ax whenever he's in his human form, particularly about food. Due to his lack of taste in his natural state, this boy enjoys eating cigarette butts and other strange stuff... and cinnamon buns (who would blame him? Cinnabons).
    • At one point, Ax gets asked about where he's from. After his first response ("I am from the Republic of Ivory Coast") doesn't work, Ax just lists off a bunch of World Almanac countries — until finally hearing a suggestion of Canada... at which Ax now promptly notes "I am from Canada. I am Canadese," as his reply.
    • Fortunately, the group eventually get access to the Chee, who at least understand not to eat cigarette butts... they do, however, clean Marco's room with pleasure, which is probably just as weird for him. The act irritates Marco to no end, at any rate — and almost blew their cover, as the now very clean room confused the hell out of Marco's father!
  • The Book of Dragons: "Luckys Dragon", the alien scientists try to blend in on Earth by loudly announcing that they are, in fact, regular Earth humans whenever it seems appropriate to do so. One also labels their car, which has eight wheels on telescoping legs, as a "PERFECTLY ORDINARY EARTH CAR" on its license plate.
    ''"This is Lucinda. She lives next door to me on Earth, er — I mean." She cleared her throat. "That is to say. We live on a block in a city that happens to be on the planet Earth, which is a normal thing to report in genial conversation, as it is the planet where we all live."
  • Prelude to Foundation: The name "Chetter Hummin" ("Cheater Human") is a clue that Seldon notices means Hummin isn't actually human. The pun helps him avoid the psychological cost of lying to humans; lying is an indirect violation of the Three Laws of Robotics. From this, and other oddities, Seldon realizes that Hummin is actually R. Daneel Olivaw.
  • Averted most of the time in The Dresden Files, since the majority of the supernatural world has gotten very good at infiltrating the mortal realm (or alternatively, doesn't even bother.) One major exception is the group of beings that the mercenary wizard Binder has bound to his will. In the few times that they've shown up, they've been described as wearing identical grey suits and with identical features, down to the eyes. Good enough to fool a casual observer, but the moment you get a closer look at them, they immediately seem off. They also don't speak or interact with other people unless given an order and will swarm an enemy without a care in the world due to a complete lack of self-preservation.
  • Discworld: In The Science of Discworld the wizards must visit Roundworld, and bring along the Librarian (who is a man who was transformed via magical accident into an orangutan). Hex explains that if they want to successfully blend into Elizabethan London, they must dress the Librarian in a dress and say he's Spanish. This works.
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few borderline cases. Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox both visit Earth without attracting too much attention, despite the former's badly chosen fake name and Zaphod not even trying to hide he's from space; of course, they're both basically human-looking, with just a few subtle (or not; see below) oddities. Later on, the mice offer to replace Arthur's brain with a computer, and Zaphod jokingly suggests that it would only need to be able to say "What?", "I don't understand" and "Where's the tea?" and no one would notice any difference.
    • It doesn't exactly help that Arthur blurts out "What?" on this suggestion.
    • In the game (and in the book Mostly Harmless), it is revealed that the two-headed Zaphod went to a costume party on Earth dressed as a pirate. He put a birdcage over the second head and covered it with a cloth. The head in the cage said "Pretty Polly" every now and again. He also called himself "Phil", but any points gained there are lost by his pick-up line literally being "I'm from a different planet." (Though the girls he was talking to could have assumed he meant it in a metaphorical, romantic way, rather than a literal way.)
  • The Ur-Example could very well be The Big Bad Wolf, who disguised himself as Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. When Little Red sees the wolf wearing her grandmother's nightdress, she merely assumes that grandma's eyes and ears have inexplicably gotten bigger.
  • H. P. Lovecraft
    • A more serious example would be H. P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time", in which the main character is assumed to be mentally ill during the period when a Yithian occupied his body.
    • The alien in "The Whisperer in Darkness" manages to fool the protagonist until the end, but it's pretty conspicuous that the human it's pretending to be has fallen so ill he can't move around and at the same time speaks in a weird voice. Apparently, the aliens just removed the human's face and hands and used them as the disguise. All that said, it does act the part as well as it can in the circumstances — it's clearly very intelligent.
  • The Stormlight Archive: The Dysian Aimians are a species of Hive Minds, each composed of small insectoid creatures called "hordelings". Most Dysian swarms have bred some of their hordelings to fit together into a convincing humanoid body, but they're not very good at it. Nikli, youngest of the Dysians and their best infiltrator, still has to use tatoos to cover up the more obvious seams in his getsalt body and has to pretend to be a Funny Foreigner to cover up any cultural misteps he might make.
  • In the Mark Clifton short story What Have I Done?, an employment agent meets an alien who asks him to help the alien invaders with their disguises. (The agent has a superhuman ability to read people, and is the only person so far who's seen through the Hugh Mann act.) He defeats the invasion by helping them to appear as the most perfect, noble humans ever — so that real humans will destroy them out of envy.
  • Yumi and the Nightmare Painter: Design makes basically only the barest attempt to act human. Probably the only reason that it works is because the locals don't know about intelligent non-humans.
    Hoid: She... did not do a good job acting human. I take no blame, as she repeatedly refused my counsel on the matter. At least her disguise was holding up.

    Live-Action TV 
  • A rare nonhuman-impersonates-nonhuman example in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The first half of the fifth season features the main cast trapped in a Bad Future where what's left of humanity is ruled over by the blue-skinned Kree. At the end of "Fun & Games", the team's synthetic alien ally, Enoch, projects a blue hue on his skin suit to pass off as a Kree to access an elevator to the surface of Earth and, when questioned by a real Kree who catches him who he is, answers stiffly, "I am a Kree, as I have always been, brother." The Kree buys it, only getting suspicious when he sees where Enoch intends to go.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Buffy's close friends take the BuffyBot for the real thing, chalking its odd behavior up to the fact that she had recently lost her mother. Buffy is nevertheless entirely unimpressed with her friends after this is discovered, probably because the robot was still practically wearing a T-shirt reading "Hello, I am a Robotic Impersonator" the entire episode.
      BuffyBot: I wouldn't keep a secret from you, Willow. You're my best friend. You're recently gay.
    • Anya seems to like the robot better than the regular Buffy, particularly after its greeting of, "Hello, Anya. How is your money?" Anya replies with a happy, "Fine! Thank you!" apparently glad that someone now cares about the money as much as she does.
    • We also have all of the demons at Xander and Anya's wedding, and Clem at Buffy's birthday party, without any of the Scoobies' 'civilian' friends realising the truth.
    • And Anya herself, when she's trying to keep the Watcher's Council from finding out she's an ex-demon. (What's weirder is that she was eventually Ret Conned to having been born human, albeit one who was always bad at humaning.)
      Anya: Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins, twenty years old. Born on the fourth of July, and don't think there weren't jokes about that my whole life, mister, 'cause there were. "Who's our little patriot?" they'd say, when I was younger, and therefore smaller and shorter than I am now.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "Rose": Mickey is swallowed by a trash can and replaced by an Auton duplicate. Despite the fact that he looks like a mannequin, his hair is an obvious wig, his skin is waxy, he can't drive, and he suddenly stammers like a skipping record on words of endearment, Rose doesn't realize what's going on until the Doctor shoots a champagne cork through his head. Sure, she's never been very observant when it comes to Mickey, but come on...
    • "The Sound of Drums": The Master gets himself elected Prime Minister of Great Britain using his Archangel network. He also goes out of his way to create a fictional backstory for himself, with pictures and everything. At the same time, he makes it blatantly obvious he only appeared out of nowhere eighteen months ago when he first launched Archangel. All the obviously photoshopped pictures of him as a University student don't look any younger than his current appearance, and he has no paper trail despite getting a first at Oxford and being a former rugby champion. Then he deliberately became one of the most visible people in the world by founding his own political party, leading it to an electoral landslide and becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, to put the eyes of the world on him when he brings the Toclafane in. Thanks to the Archangel network, he's got the populace under subtle mind control that prevents anyone looking too closely...well, 98% to 99% at most, and being able to fool a planet full of stupid humans without even trying probably appealed to the troll in him. The few who aren't mesmerized by Archangel note how obvious the Master's forgery is.
    • "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky": The Sontarans capture Martha and replace her with a clone. The Doctor figures out right away she's a clone but pretends not to notice her obvious out-of-character behaviour (such as showing no concern for her family being in danger) because he doesn't want UNIT launching missiles at the Sontarans' ships, the very job the Sontarans themselves are tasking the clone with. He only drops the act after he tricks the clone into taking him to the chamber where the real Martha is being held captive, and the clone subsequently attempts to betray him.
      Martha Clone: I've been stopping the nuclear launch all this time.
      The Doctor: Doing exactly what I wanted. I needed to stop the missiles, just as much as the Sontarans. I'm not having Earth start an interstellar war. You were a triple agent!
      Martha Clone: How did you know?
      The Doctor: Reduced iris contraction, slight thinning of the hair follicles on the left temple. And, frankly, you smell. You might as well have worn a T-shirt saying "clone". Although, maybe not in front of Captain Jack. You remember him, don't you? Because you've got all her memories. That's why the Sontarans had to protect her, to keep you inside UNIT. Martha Jones is keeping you alive.
    • The Doctor himself occasionally has trouble when he has to pretend to be a normal human. In "Smith & Jones", he nearly gets in trouble posing as a hospital patient when Martha is taking his heart rate because of his binary vascular system. And Amy thinks he doesn't stand a chance in "The Lodger" because the most normal thing about him is his bowtie, and Clara is amazed that he fools anyone in "The Caretaker".
  • In Good Omens (2019), when angels Gabriel and Sandalphon enter Aziraphale's book store, they try to get the latter to speak with them privately, but they do so "inconspicuously" since there are mortals around. So they loudly express their desire to buy pornography (while Gabriel holds a thick tome on household management) and ask to discuss the purchase in private.
    Sandalphon: We humans are extremely easily embarrassed. We must buy our pornography secretively.
    • Gabriel didn't help his case by not bothering to check what it is Aziraphale sells.
      Gabriel: I would like to purchase one of your material objects.
    • In the Russian dub, the word "humans" is replaced with "mortals" since in Russian the same word is used for "humans" and "people", and "We people are extremely easily embarrassed" doesn't sound as odd.
    • In season 2, Muriel very much falls into this trope, as well. They constantly insist that they are a “Normal Human Police Officer,” despite their disguise being an obviously out-of-place, entirely-blindingly-white constable uniform that doesn’t even match the style of modern day police uniforms. They clearly have no idea how to act like a human, either, as they are constantly asking others how a “normal human” would respond to things- even something as simple as being offered a cup of tea.
  • An episode of MADtv (1995) has several campaign commercials for Smith Comma John, Human Being for President, who is definitely not an alien plotting a full-scale invasion to colonize the planet for the Barconians.
    • In one ad, he makes statements like "I am sitting near fire. Willingly.", and introduces his wife, a golden retriever.
    • In another, he partakes in the all-American activity of eating corn dogs, first by sticking his hand into a deep fryer to retrieve one, and then "eating" it via the magic of visual effects: the camera stops for a moment, a bite disappears, and he pretends to chew, before going for another "bite". Sooo not an alien.
      Smith Comma John: Like most Earthlings, I watched Frasier last night. I enjoy relating to his everyday problems. Like, uh, dating, or processing oxygen. [Makes a hellacious noise as he inhales through his mouth] Fraiser doesn't recycle his urine. Neither do I.
  • Mork from Ork was prone to bizarre behavior that was seldom if ever called out. Of course, since his main series did take place in the 70s, in some episodes he wasn't even the strangest one on-screen...
  • In Mystery Science Theater 3000, one of the writers for Reptilicus has such a ridiculous name (Ib Melchior) that Jonah and the bots immediately start insinuating that he's actually an alien. "YES THAT IS MY HUMAN NAME".
  • The Neighbors is about a whole neighborhood of aliens doing this. The fact that they've all named themselves after famous celebrities, and that each of their families is a hodgepodge of ethnicities among supposedly blood relatives, are the most obvious examples.
  • In Resident Alien, the alien who has taken over the body of the doctor Harry Vanderspeigle is this in spades, often having problems faking human emotions and often confusing terms or using vulgar words for medical terms. For the time being, at least, most of the town is simply under the impression that he's a Cloud Cuckoolander, either that, or he's "refreshingly honest." Only a ten-year-old boy, Max Hawthorne, is able to see through to his true alien form thanks to a genetic mutation.
  • Saturday Night Live had one of the earlier examples with the Coneheads who successfully explained their obvious alien appearance and behavior by claiming to be "from France."
  • In The Secret Circle Melissa is possessed by a demon. Turns out, demons aren't very good actors. Apart from general weird and out-of-character behavior, when frustrated she broke into Evil Sounds Deep. Unusually for this trope their friend screaming at them in demon voice because they expressed reservations about her creepy plan was noticed, although the real giveaway was when the demonic snake crawled across her forehead under the skin.
  • In Smallville, after being a Human Popsicle for months, Clark Kent is enraged when he returns and finds that Bizarro (this version looks exactly like Clark, except when sunlight falls on him) had stolen his identity, and no one except Chloe noticed. Chloe had no choice but to stay silent, as Bizarro would have killed her if he found out that she knew. Clark would have been fine with it if Lana had also been playing along, but she was completely fooled and had sex with Bizarro several times.
  • In the comedy soap opera Soap, Burt was replaced by a look-alike alien Burt. Though alien Burt acted very oddly and was sex-crazed, only his wife Mary was really concerned, because the real Burt was pretty odd himself.
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • When Sam is taken over by a Tok'ra, she acts rather odd, but no one seems to notice anything until she starts dialing up the gate. This is partly justified in that this is only the SGC's first year of operation and they believed at this time that the Goa'uld could only enter through the back of the neck, leaving a distinctive scar, rather than entering through the mouth and throat; this event prompts the SGC to start using MRIs after gate travel to confirm that nobody has been taken as a host while off-world.
    • In another episode, Colonel O'Neill is duplicated by a crystal entity, and everyone, even his ex-wife, thinks the entity is him even though he speaks very haltingly and suddenly acts like he's once again depressed about his son's pre-show pre-movie death.
  • Supergirl (2015): Kara is an absolutely terrible liar, and it is amazing that she managed to keep her alien identity secret even before she started saving people as Supergirl.
    Kara: I liked school. Learning all about this new planet... [realizes what she just said] that I'm also from.
  • A That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch parodying Battlestar Galactica has Colin, the infiltrating robot. Who has a bucket for a head, and uses his clearly mechanical voice to say things like "Does not compute."
    • Colin also guzzles down motor oil in the cafeteria, commiserates with his coworkers about the robot infiltration, and successfully frames another (very human) crewmember as the probable infiltrator.
  • WandaVision: Vision gets very upset when anyone compares him to a computer. He is most certainly a regular carbon-based lifeform made entirely out of organic matter, and not a highly-advanced robot of any kind.
  • What We Do in the Shadows (2019): The housemates take the monstrous, decrepit Baron out for a night of drinking and karaoke, dressing him in regular clothes and a baseball cap; no one notices, even when he flat-out tells passersby that he's a vampire.
  • In The X-Files, the episode "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster" features a were-lizard who calls himself Guy Mann.
  • In Zardip Zap, a series of fitness and health information videos for children, the eponymous character is an alien sent by his leaders to re-learn the secret to taking care of one's body. He masquerades as a child named Zardip Pacific in order to gain information. He pulls it off rather well aside from not knowing what the organs in his own body are.

    Music 
  • The Duras Sisters eponymous track on "Masquerading as Human" describes something that's doing just that, and finding just how easy it is to do so, even when they do things like order steak with marmalade and have a deadbolt on their closet door.
  • Likewise, filker Karen Lindsey and her song "Nobody Knows I'm Really an Alien". The marooned alien cook is having a great time of it on Earth. He lives in a hippie commune (where the residents have had so many drugs they don't notice), goes to sci-fi conventions (where his looks are mistaken for a great costume), and even gets bit parts in Hollywood films (where again, no one seems to notice). It's only when he goes on a talk show to "set the record straight" that the MiB patrol shows up to cart him off.

    Theatre 
  • In Dark of the Moon, the protagonist, a witch, pretends to be a human. When asked what his name is, he says, "John... Human!" Cue bewildered remarks from the other characters.

    Video Games 
  • Asheron's Call bad guys the Virindi have a shaky grasp of human psychology, being an otherdimensional Hive Mind of energy beings — actually, they have a shaky grasp of the material world, period. Their best attempt at making human infiltrators, the Simulacra, finally got the physical part right, but they still address people they meet as "fellow human" and talk with unnatural Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
  • In The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark, one of the stall holders on Pier 13 is Norm Bearson, who appears to be a bear dressed in human clothes, but is in fact — he asserts every other sentence — a perfectly ordinary human like yourself.
  • In Death's Door, there is Jefferson, a squid who is using a drowned sailor's corpse to pass off as a human selling soup. No one seems to notice or care. He is well-meaning though and gives you tips on where to find secrets.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Jenova. If the dead facial expression and missing arms and feet weren't a tip-off, she's wired into giant, pulsating tentacles and winged appendages. But hey, if a mad scientist says she's your mother, who are you to question? Jenova proves itself quite capable of re-creating clothing (right down to Sephiroth's trenchcoat and masamune sword), so the fact that it starts out looking like a gnarled, naked woman suggests "she" abandoned all disguise once the Cetra overpowered her.
    • When the team sneaks aboard a Shinra ship disguised as Shinra soldiers, Red XIII, a red wolf-like creature, clearly has trouble standing on two legs and doesn't bother to cover his tail. Naturally, their cover is not blown. Played for Laughs.
  • One of many UFO gags sprinkled in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. During the mission "Stowaway," Mike Toreno instructs Carl Johnson to destroy a jet carrying explosives for use in the Middle East. The Men in Black onboard the plane will spout strange phrases while attacking Carl, including: "you evolved from shrews", "this endangers everything", "carbon based buffoon", "idiotic mammal", and "the great day will come".
  • In Guild Wars 2, the Sylvari PC when undercover strays into this, saying that they had been friends with the person they're looking for since they were "tiny weak fleshlings".
  • In Half-Life, the G-Man actually does a decent job of looking like a human, but the way he acts and the way reality tends to get really messed up when he's around show that he obviously isn't human. The devs have said that he's meant to be "something" that's pretending to be human, but not really trying all that hard at it.
  • If you hide for some period in Halo, Grunts may occasionally respond with: "It's okay to come out now, this is Sergeant... Smitherson! Yeah..." Occasionally they'll play it straighter and go with "Sergeant Humanoid".
  • Played for laughs in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft with "Convincing Infiltrator" minion, who's a N'raqi - a race of shapeshifters - in little more than a robe and wooden mask. The fact it has Taunt may be telling of how actually convincing its disguise is.
    "Greetings (heh), fellow humans! Hehehe..."
  • Human Resource Machine has several cutscenes in the break room. One of which has a TV news anchor report on a machine army surrounding the city. Two cutscenes later, the news anchor has been replaced by a robot in a blonde wig, reporting in a robot voice:
    Most Definitely Not a Robot: Breaking news! Previous reports of machine army evaluate to false. Everything equals 100% fine. Weather within pleasant tolerance parameters for human skin layer. You are all going to be fine.
  • Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms features Hew Maan, who is definitely not three kobolds in a trenchcoat.
  • One of the skins for the League of Legends champion Blitzcrank (a giant brass robot) is "Definitely Not Blitzcrank", where he wears a suit, glasses, and a fake nose/mustache in a desperate attempt to appear human.
    • The skin received a thematic follow-up with "Definitely Not Vel'Koz". Vel'Koz, by the way, is a large, floating Eldritch Abomination with three tentacles and a single gigantic eye. He wears a "suit" (well, pinstripe cloth tubes on his tentacles, complete with cufflinks), a hat, a "glass" (he doesn't need a pair of glasses, so one lens is enough), and is holding a mug of coffee in one tentacle.
  • In LEGO Star Wars, your characters can don Stormtrooper helmets to get into restricted areas. Chewbacca is so big that he can only wear his as a hat on top of his head. Not to mention he is seven feet tall and covered in fur. The disguise still works.
  • In MechQuest, you'll encounter an alien NPC named Hugh Munn. Hugh did play his role as a human rather well- if not for those tacky implants on his head and blue skin...
  • One of the new classes in Super Monday Night Combat is Karl, a reconnaissance cyborg developed to infiltrate the society of the lawless Outlanders. Uniquely for this trope, Karl seems to completely buy into the idea that he is human. In-game, he'll often talk about getting goosebumps, needing a drink, or being due for a haircut. His bio mentions that he has an extreme hatred of robots and that his locker room outbursts are "just a little too perfect."
  • In Chapter 4 of Mother 3, Lucas and Boney attempt to gain access to Club Titiboo. The bouncers initially turn them down because pets aren't allowed inside, but not a minute later we see Boney in the Kid's Hat and Shirt and it works...though they still sense a dog-like air about him. Inside, the Fierce Pork Trooper immediately sees (or rather smells) through the disguise, but decides not to do anything about you and enjoy the show.
  • Nobody Saves the World: The aliens from the crashed UFO insist they are totally humanoid human Earth-dwellers. They also wear horrible yet somehow effective disguises that consist of coats, hats, glasses, and/or fake facial hair.
  • Octodad is about an octopus attempting to get through the life of a human with a wife and kids despite the fact that he is quite obviously an invertebrate creature with poor motor skills.
  • Inverted in Sam & Max Hit the Road. At one point in the game, the eponymous duo put on a paper-thin Bigfoot disguise to sneak into a convention. Also subverted in that the bouncer makes it clear that he knows they're in disguise, and he's only letting them in because they did him a favor earlier. Played straight with the rest of the bigfoots, however, who don't see anything out of the ordinary, even when the bigfoot's navel starts talking.
  • In Rift, there are a group of... odd people that, should you greet them, will say things like: "Hello, fellow air-breather!" They also sell strange items.
  • In the Soul Hackers' remake, certain demons, if you already have a member of their species in your party, will introduce themselves as "Hugh Mann", a perfectly ordinary person. Then they notice that one of their friends is with you, blowing their cover and making them run away and possibly give you something.
  • Stellaris: one possible outcome of opening the L-Cluster is to find what appears to be a member of your species hanging out on an airless, lifeless rock. Naturally, your explorers are confused and try talking to it. It turns out to be a nanomachine construct that is trying very hard to pretend to be your species and failing badly at it.
    Gray: Oh! Did I get it wrong? Just a moment... let me just... oh, yes. Ahem. Forgive me. It was not my intention to speak of reproduction when our species is clearly not experiencing mating season. Perhaps we can still build rapport by engaging in jovial camaraderie while imbibing a selection of psychoactive narcotics. Oh, to hell with this. It's getting too complicated.
  • Used as a Funny Background Event in Team Fortress 2: there's a robotic hat salesman with a nametag reading "Hugh Mann".
  • One of the early-game enemies you'll face in XCOM: Enemy Unknown are the Thin Men, alien infiltrators that have been engineered to resemble humans. They don't do a particularily good job of it, as they have reptilian eyes, abnormally lanky limbs, and scaly, mottled faces. However, they can apparently fool civilians, considering that they frequently show up unannounced on specific rescue missions.
    • XCOM2 features the Speaker for Advent, a figurehead for the alien's propaganda who looks like a much more human-like Thin Man: he's just as lanky, but the only real outward sign of his true nature are the small number of scales on his neck.
  • Yrliet of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader poses as a human when you first encounter her simply by calling herself a "mutant" and betting on the fact most people of the Imperium are too ignorant to know what Aeldari are like. It worked for multiple decades, and she immediately drops the act if you meet her with one of the companions who do know about her kind.
  • World of Warcraft has an NPC from the Legion expansion literally called 'Hugh Mann'. He can be fought and killed during a quest and is presumably supposed to represent a demon in disguise, although this is never revealed for sure.

    Visual Novels 
  • In one route of Sable's Grimoire, Sable takes his half-dragon friend Drakan on a trip to a nearby city. Since a half-dragon openly strolling around would attract unwanted attention, Drakan magically disguises herself as "Ciel", Sable's fictitious childhood friend. While the actual disguise is flawless, being a human version of Drakan's normal Draconic Humanoid form, the acting leaves something to be desired.
    Drakan: Hmm... Where do I begin? Sable and I went to the same human school. It was in a human city near our human hometown. We went there with lots of other humans, and learned all about human subjects, like hunting wildlife to extinction, and killing demi-humans.

    Webcomics 
  • Warmech of 8-Bit Theater. When he pretended to be a human, he wears a fake mustache (which he grew on his human lip between acts of defecation).
    • HE HAS NO LASER AND WILL LASER TO DEATH ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.
  • Appears word for word on this page of Atomic Robo.
  • Awful Hospital's Token Human doctor, Ichabod Malachinote  Man, definitely has the name and the mannerisms down for this trope, but it's implied that he may just be eccentric. Certainly the Locked Files have implied that he's a real human who accidentally wandered into the Hospital and was recognized as staff simply by being a doctor by profession, but by his own admission even he isn't entirely sure he's really who he thinks he is. He still makes a passable(-ish) attempt to seem like one.
    Jay:...What are you...
    Man: A fellow humble herman beam, Jaything.
  • Taken to its flimsiest extreme in this Buttersafe strip.
  • A Casey and Andy comic had a small, one-eyed green alien trying to pass off as a human by wearing a yellow smiley-face mask. Casey comments on how stupid the disguise is. The alien comments on how stupid humans are for having their most vulnerable part so exposed. Via a practical demonstration, naturally.
  • When Corlis (dragon) and Moppy (cat) from Dragon Tails attempt to board a plane with a Paper-Thin Disguise, Corlis delivers "I am Bob Human, and this is my friend Bill Human. We are both human."
  • Often seen in El Goonish Shive. Notably here, and handwaved here. (Note that just about all of the 'aliens' seen in EGS are Earth-born Uryuoms, and the technology exists to give them completely human forms.)
  • The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! has the alien Princess Voluptua in a (more understated than usual) human disguise visiting a hamburger place and placing her order a little clumsily. She then glances up and notices her acquaintance Galatea wearing a human disguise that doesn't even cover up her tail.
  • Parodied in this Legostar Galactica strip.
  • In two strips from Oglaf (NSFW), some normal humans attempt to enter a castle. Yep, just your average "swarm" of totally identical, completely naked, "authentic" humans, talking disjointedly about normal human topics and activities. Surprisingly, the ruse works, though it's more likely that the gate guard was Distracted by the Sexy.
  • The Broodax of Penny Arcade.
  • Also parodied in the Sluggy Freelance "Stick Figures IIIIIN SPAAAAAACE!!!" arc, where the android infiltrator is the only stick figure to have a square head, and his alias is "Ensign Bandroid".
  • This VG Cats strip combines a (rather squicky) example with a case of Most Definitely Not a Villain.
  • Used in this xkcd comic. Also used in the Alt Text.

    Web Original 
  • Humansville, Missouri, definitely is full of normal humans.
  • This real human on Tinder.
  • Game Grumps: Arin and Danny once pretended to be aliens from the planet Zognoid just to annoy people. "This song is pleasant to my HUMAN EARS!"
  • The D&D saga of Mister Bearington (or Sir Bearington depending on the version), a rogue with entirely too many points in "disguise" and a fondness for rare steaks. Once in a great while, someone figures out that he's actually a bear.
  • Reddit has the subreddit /r/totallynotrobots, where redditors post pictures, videos, and other media containing humans that don't really act like humans. The whole place is laden with Suspiciously Specific Denial and Hypocritical Humor.
    "HAH HAH. A HUMOROUS JOKE. WE ARE ALL PERFECTLY NORMAL HUMANS IN THAT SUBREDDIT."
  • Seanbaby:
    • The girl in the first "Spontaneo: The Dog that Doesn't Give a Fuck story. She looks human enough, but she calls a goat a "horrible Earth creature" and insists she was raised on an "ordinary human farm", among a couple of other things. It's also not very clear what she stands to gain from impersonating a human preteen girl.
    • Seanbaby makes fairly frequent use of this joke; towards the end of this article (or whatever) is "Skks'Hhs Meathunt", who deflects questions by claiming to be "Earth sing beast, like you."
  • Something Awful: Dungeons & Dragons: Minerelle is a Shardmind (a being of living crystal) passing herself off as a human through illusions, but she often seems a bit unclear about how biological creatures work and disdainful of what she does know. It's something of a running joke how readily the other characters accept her ridiculous behavior, although it helps that most other party members aren't humans anyway.
    Minerelle: Eating is wonderful. It is great to produce saliva from your mouth and then put things down your throat so they can be digested.
    Joey: I know exactly what you mean! [gives her a high-five]
  • In two of the Sparks Nevada: Marshall on Mars episodes of Thrilling Adventure Hour, a shapeshifting alien spy from Jupiter is comically bad at impersonating Sparks and Croach in back-to-back episodes. It is complete with …But He Sounds Handsome.
  • Ted Cruz for Human President. Mean? Yes. Funny as hell? Also yes.
    I wish to shut down the space program and destroy all telescopes, abruptly and without explanation.
  • In TFS at the Table, resident merman Wake Scalebound poses as a human when they reach Bulkard by using Ezra's disguise kit. He doesn't get Ezra to tell him how to use it first. As a result, 'Sheldon Flash' looks like an early 00's CGI human, and when starts sweating his makeup runs badly. Most people don't seem to realise.
  • In Welcome to Night Vale, five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels went on the run wearing a human disguise, frequently introducing himself as "normal human Frank Chen", despite his five heads loudly and visibly arguing with each other all the time.
  • The fictional book Crabitalism, on the book parody Twitter account Paperback Paradise, indulges in this on the back cover, which is entirely about how great an economic system about grinding people up to feed to giant alien crabs is:
    Dr. Lawyer Nxlyn Moklyx: Boy oh boy, I am a human doctor and lawyer and I must say this new and exciting economic system is something. United States should adopt immediately! Humans will love.
  • Slate.com writer Hugh Mann who, according to his bio, is "a human being who lives in a house in the human city of Kentucky with several other humans, including his mate". He wrote a 2020 article called "There Is No Secret Underground Base on Mars." Someone is evidently a fan.
  • Overly Sarcastic Productions uses this during some of the videos on myths, specifically those recounting myths that were written down by Christian monks who were very insistent on referring to the pagan gods who the story is about as "great heroes," "wicked sorcerers," and "totally not gods, don't worry about it" in order to bring them more in-line with Christian theology. The gods in these videos are typically depicted wearing t-shirts and hats with things like "Definitely Human Person" and "Totally Not Odin" written on them, worn over their normal clothing and otherwise drawn as they are in any of the other videos on the channel that they appear in.
  • Played for Horror in Vita Carnis with the Mimics, skinless Humanoid Abominations grown from the titular Meat Moss. They exclusively feed on humans, and particularly successful ones that have consumed enough of our flesh will start growing skin and hair to look more human while donning clothes to blend in. Problem is, this does nothing to hide their inhuman facial features or Creepy Long Fingers, but by the time you're close enough to notice it's likely too late.

    Western Animation 
  • Inverted on Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers where humans on Tortuna usually have to pass themselves off as some other alien species, like Lumwumps or Zanguils, as any human caught on Tortuna gets sent to the Queen and has their soul ripped out.
  • American Dad!:
    • In the episode "Da Flippity-Flop", Klaus tricks Stan into switching their bodies. After claiming that years of studying his behavior will allow Klaus to impersonate Stan, all he does is say "Hi!" and Francine and Hayley immediately know what's happened.
    • Roger's various disguises in general. You'd think just putting a wig and clothes on a grey-skinned, bug-eyed lanky alien with no nose wouldn't fool anyone, but you'd be wrong.
      • In a later episode, Roger reveals that though the Smith family usually see right through his disguises in general, he has one persona for each family member that that particular person cannot see through.
  • "Chicken Boo" from Animaniacs always goes the same way: A giant chicken wearing a Paper-Thin Disguise manages to fool almost everyone until his costume falls off and everyone realizes what he really is. HE'S A CHICKEN, I TELL YA!! A GIANT CHICKEN!
    Naysayer from earlier: I told you that guy was a chicken!
  • In Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a clone of Master Shake is created and sent by the Plutonians to impersonate him, but is horribly deformed, calls himself "Major Shake", and loves to give blood (whereas Master Shake thinks donating blood is part of a pyramid scheme run by Dracula and his night slaves). Frylock pretty much immediately figures out that "Major Shake" isn't really Shake, and hilarity ensues.
    • The hilarious part is that "Major Shake" is a seemingly normal, decent, average person, whereas Master Shake is a sociopathic obnoxious Jerkass. Major Shake also looks like a slightly melted version of Master Shake, wearing red high-heeled shoes to make up for the height difference, and with a jambox melted into his side.
      • And he doesn't actually have any mission or agenda, and is rather confused about what the heck the Plutonians are hoping to accomplish.
    • Also Frylock, after he murdered Ray (the boyfriend of a girl he liked) and grafted his exploded body parts onto himself in a horrifying mashup with an exposed brain covered with a big novelty cowboy hat. It's every bit as disturbing as it is unconvincing.
  • The human disguises on Back at the Barnyard usually consist of the barn animals throwing on wigs and clothes despite their obvious snouts, paws/hooves, and furs. To top it off, Otis' human disguises have names like "Dick Human" and "Bob Notacow."
    Otis: [extending his hoof for a handshake] My hands are black and weird!
  • Torgo the alien from The Bagel and Becky Show is a green-skinned man who refers to himself by his first name. Yet, only Becky can see through his disguise.
  • Ben 10: Omniverse: One episode deals with a secret invasion by the Ectonurites (Ghostfreak's species). They possess humans to blend in, but fail to convincingly act human in any way— one is seen vacuuming the lawn, another standing around the sprinklers in the middle of the night, others are holding umbrellas and hair dryers without any reason to, and so on. Ben, Gwen, and Lucy have no trouble detecting that something weird is going on, the issue being that ghost aliens are hard to track down.
  • "Vincent Adultman" from Bojack Horseman is clearly three kids in a Totem Pole Trench, has the aforementioned unconvincing alias, and no knowledge of the adult life (he tries to order "an alcohol" at a bar and claims to work in a "business factory"). Yet not only is everyone except Bojack completely fooled, but "Vincent" even manages to pursue a relationship with Princess Caroline.
  • Rayla in The Dragon Prince has a "human disguise" with three essential elements: 1) a hood to cover her ears and horns, 2) gloves to disguise her Four-Fingered Hands, and 3) spouting elven stereotypes about humans in an exaggerated Appalachian accent.
    Rayla: How d'y'do, fellow humans? Human fellas?
    • Inverted in Season 3 when Callum disguises himself as an elf when he and Rayla cross into Xadia. His disguise consists of a pair of sticks tied in his hair, pinching some of his fingers together to hide he has five instead of four, and spouting human stereotypes about elves in an exaggerated Australian accent.
      Callum: All me best mates are trees!
  • In one episode of The Flintstones, The Great Gazoo creates a duplicate of Fred. The duplicate can only utter the words "Yes yes yes", separated by one-second pauses. Despite this, absolutely no one notices the difference.
    • There's a second episode in which aliens produce multiple Fred clones. They can say nothing more than "Yabba. Dabba. Doo." And almost no one notices.
  • Futurama:
  • In the first episode of Gravity Falls, "Tourist Trapped", Mabel meets a new boyfriend who calls himself "Normal Man" — Mabel presumes he meant Norman — who acts very off. Dipper can clearly see the ruse and tries to prove he's really a zombie. It turns out that he's actually a bunch of gnomes.
  • Zim from Invader Zim is... not a very convincing human, to say the least. Luckily, Earth is filled with morons and apathetic people who won't listen to Dib. The reason that no one believes Dib is the fact that he has a history of doing things like this and people think he is crazy. The only other human to catch on is Dib's sister, who recognizes Zim as far too incompetent to have much chance of success and so doesn't give a damn.
    • Later on, Zim is abducted by some other aliens who have even less convincing human disguises than himself, and are absolutely convinced Zim is human regardless of what Zim tries to tell them.
  • Vee from The Owl House fell into this trope hard when she first arrived on Earth. After taking on Luz's appearance, her first words to Luz's mother were "Hello, fellow human! Uh, skin's sure weird!" Fortunately, because Luz is a massive Cloudcuckoolander, Camila believes she's just joking. Vee winds up in a summer camp specifically designed to teach kids how to behave normally — the camp Luz would have gone to if she hadn't run off to the Boiling Isles.
  • Frequently used heroically by Scooby-Doo, who seems to get away with impersonating the bad guys' own human and/or monstrously-disguised henchmen with ease, despite being 1) a terrible actor, 2) impaired by a speech impediment, and 3) a freakin' Great Dane.
  • The Simpsons: In "Treehouse of Horror VII", Kang and Kodos attempt to sabotage the 1996 American presidential election by assuming the identities of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. In one campaign speech, Kang (as Clinton) monotonously intones "I am Clin-Ton! As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me, and obey my brutal commands!" before crossing his arms over his chest and shouting "End communication!" His staffers attribute the behavior to an "over-tight necktie".
    Marge: That's slick Willy for you, always with the smooth talk.
    [later]
    Kang: And so, when you are sealed into your voting cubicles tomorrow, remember to vote for me, Senator Ka— [looks at campaign button] Bob Dole!
  • "Bill Cosby" from the South Park episode "Trapper Keeper" is a Terminator-esque operative from the future who takes a contemporary name.
    "Oh, I see. Alright, I'll pay 100 geliga stones — uh, I mean, hu-mon dollars! — eugh, I mean dollars!"
  • In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Imitation Krabs", Plankton tries to infiltrate the Krusty Krab inside a Mr. Krabs robot. The robot is clearly made of sheets of metal with visible rivets, runs on wheels, has a sputtering exhaust in the back, and talks in Robo Speak, in Plankton's voice no less. SpongeBob, of course, is completely fooled. Squidward sees through the ruse immediately but plays along after robot Krabs gives him the day off.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars has an interesting example in "Rookies". A commando droid pretends to be a clone to try and get Rex and Cody to leave without a fight, but speaks with sort of a stilted rhythm, gesticulates wildly... and ultimately gives itself away with "Roger, roger". When a droid attack flare is fired by the real clones nearby, Rex immediately puts a bolt through the "trooper's" head and, at Cody's shocked reaction, takes off the helmet to reveal the droid. Note must also be made of the droid who first responded to Cody and Rex announcing their impending arrival for a routine inspection, attempting to get them to leave and succeeding only in making them extremely suspicious of what was going on down there. Especially since it also signed off with "Roger roger". Hilariously inverted when Rex retakes the base by ending his sentences with "Roger, roger" and fooling the droids into thinking he's one of them. In addition, he's wearing his own custom armour, which the droids never seem to notice.
  • Steven Universe: When Connie's parents insist on meeting Steven's for dinner in "Fusion Cuisine", Steven and Connie are concerned they'll react poorly to learning about her adventures with him and the Crystal Gems. They decide to make his family seem as normal and mundane as possible by having one of the Crystal Gems pretend to be his human mother. Problem is, the Crystal Gems all crash headfirst into this trope, each in their own special way:
  • In an episode of The Tick, Arthur was cloned by their alien neighbor. The clone was greenish and could only say "I Arthur", yet he fooled the Tick (not that it's very difficult with him). When he found both the original and the clone, he told them to say something only the REAL Arthur would know. Arthur delivered a lengthy anecdote about a personal incident they had once, which convinced the Tick... while the clone said "I Arthur", which ALSO convinced the Tick, since he couldn't find any fault in the statement.

 
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Harry Vanderspeigle

On "Resident Alien," an alien has assumed the identity of the human doctor Harry Vanderspeigle and is masquerading as him in Patience, Colorado, something nobody realizes because nobody there actually knew the real Harry Vanderspeigle. The Harry alien's odd behavior and speech is rationalized as social awkwardness, total honesty, or simply being an asshole because, after all, there's no way there could be an alien in the small, sleepy town of Patience, right?

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