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I Am One of Those, Too

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Homer: Uh, buh, buh, we're new foreign exchange students from... uh, um... Scotland!
Willie: Saints be praised, I'm from Scotland! Where do ya hail from?
Homer: Uh... North... Kilttown.
Willie: No foolin'! I'm from North Kilttown! Do you know Angus McLeod?
Homer: Wait a minute! There's no Angus McLeod in North Kilttown! Why, you're not from Scotland at all!

In creating a false identity a character has invented a piece of backstory. Perhaps, when asked about their hometown or high school, they blurt out a fake name, sometimes inventing it out of whole cloth. Too bad that, not only does that place actually exist, but one of the first people they run into has actually been there, and excitedly wants more details. The pretender has found himself quite a pickle of a problem, which only more and more lies can get them out of.

This situation can be part of a Spot or Bluff the Impostor scene. See also Confronting Your Imposter, which is going one step further: an impostor meets the very person he's masquerading as or the Mirror Routine where they're (or you) are pretending to be the other as if in a mirror. If it actually works, consider Seamless Spontaneous Lie. Compare to Accidentally Real Fake Address, where the fake place does exist, but they're not confronted about it.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Fairy Tail:
    • In the first chapter, Natsu hears of a mage called "Salamander" and goes to investigate him, thinking that he could be a dragon he's looking for. He isn't, and he turns out to use illegal magic to charm women, but Natsu pretty much ignores him after meeting him in person. Then he learns that he's been passing himself off as a member of the titular wizard guild. It turns out, not only is Natsu the actual "Salamander", but he really is a member of Fairy Tail, and he takes major offense to the insult to his guild.
    • In a side-chapter that takes place in the past, Erza hears of an outlaw named Moulin Rogue who has been threatening the town under Fairy Tail's name. Erza promptly confronts Rogue and delivers a beatdown on her. However, unlike the above example, it ends better for the impersonating party since Erza, while she still chews Rogue out for disrespecting Fairy Tail's name, offers Rogue to actually join Fairy Tail since Rogue is a struggling immigrant. Moulin Rogue is actually present-day Fairy Tail member, Bisca Moulin, who managed to find not only comrades, but also a family of her own, in Fairy Tail.

    Fan Works 
  • Amelie Hastings and the Badger's Den: Having just learned that she is actually a vampire, Amelie is very interested to delve into Gilderoy Lockhart's book, Voyages with Vampires (which, like all his books, mixes fact with fiction), but she quickly becomes confused by it.
    Either the author took some liberties with the truth, or there were a lot of strange and confusing changes waiting for Amelie in the future.

    Film — Animated 
  • Bibi und Tina: In the fourth movie, an Albanian girl who ran away from home pretends to be a Syrian refugee. It falls apart when she runs into a family of actual Syrian refugees.

    Film — Live Action 
  • The A-Team movie has a scene where Face accidentally switched BA and Murdoch's fake passports. BA manages to bluff his way past his customs official but the one Murdoch went up to is also from Tanzania and asks him a question in Swahili. It ends up working out for the better as Murdoch turns out to know enough Swahili to answer the question, while BA wouldn't have.
  • Done in Catch Me If You Can, when Frank's new girlfriend's father is trying to prove that he is lying about which school he went to. The father asks about the name of a certain professor's dog, knowing that Frank can't possibly know it — Frank manages to evade it by saying the dog died.
  • A Running Gag in Coneheads has the titular aliens claiming to be from France as their oddly effective cover. At one point, they mention it to INS Agent Seedling (currently disguised as a Jehovah's Witness), who then starts speaking in French, which causes them to briefly look nervous ... and then they continue the conversation in perfect French.
  • In Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, Gruesome and X-Ray use a military Trojan Ambulance to gain access to the hospital, claiming to have come from the 291st General. However, on the way out, they run into an ambulance driver who used to serve in the 291st General who spots something something fishy about their ambulance.
  • Ghostbusters II: Peter, Ray, and Egon try to get to the slime river near Dana's apartment by initially just setting up drilling equipment in the middle of the street, dressing like street workers and acting like they're on a job. And whenever anyone questions them, acting like angry New York construction workers forced to work overtime on a Friday night which frightens anyone away. It works for several hours, but eventually a cop and an ACTUAL power company worker notice they're just drilling a random hole in the street, far away from anything they could potentially need to work on like the phone or power lines. Venkman tries to play this off like they were dumb and made a mistake, but the jig is up at that point and they get arrested.
  • In ID, two British police officers are trying to go undercover as football supporters to infiltrate a known hooligan club. They start frequenting the club's pub and eventually strike up a conversation to get chummy with the Shadwell supporters. Naturally the fans are wary and ask lots of questions about their team, which one copper, who did his homework, answers with ease and puts on a convincing performance. He keeps having to jump in and bail out his colleague, who did not do the research, until the club notice and tell him to shut up and let the clueless one answer. John has no choice but to watch helplessly as a guy puts his arm around his partner in a friendly manner...
    Shadwell supporter: Still, Wilkinson's not a bad striker, is he, for a black guy?
    Trevor: [looking relieved] Yeah! ... for a black guy.
    John: You prat.
    [A good hiding ensues]
  • In Inglourious Basterds, because Lt. Aldo and his men don't know enough German to replace the spies originally chosen to attend a Nazi movie premiere, they decide they can use the limited Italian that they know to pass for an Italian film crew accompanying the German actress turned Allied mole instead. The actress says that this might work, since most Germans don’t have a good ear for Italian, and thus won't recognize that it’s being spoken imperfectly. So the plan becomes for Aldo and company to stay mostly silent, mumble a little bit of Italian when needed, and let the germans ignore them. Naturally the first Nazi they're introduced to is the Cunning Linguist Colonel Hans Landa, who greets them in perfect Italian. (Then again, their accents are so comically, ridiculously bad, it's debatable how much actual knowledge of Italian would be needed to figure out that they were imposters.)
  • In the Line of Fire: The would-be presidential assassin is opening a bank account as part of his false identity when he casually mentions he's from Minneapolis. The teller replies, "Oh I'm from Minneapolis!" His Oh, Crap! reaction causes him to fluster his response — worried that she's realised he's a phony, the assassin tracks her home and kills her. The murder later helps Clint Eastwood's character isolate the false identify in time to stop the assassination.
  • In Kate & Leopold, Kate's boss is trying to impress her by claiming to either have an impressive manor in England or know someone who does (we don't hear this claim, only the reaction). Leopold immediately points out that such a manor doesn't exist. Kate tries to say that Leopold could be wrong, but Leopold is adamant. He grew up there, and he'd know. JJ also pretentiously tries to fake familiarity with La Bohème, including claiming that it taught him to speak French; Leopold humiliates him again by speaking French at him and smirking when JJ can't respond, and finally twists the knife by pointing out that La Boheme isn't in French.
  • In Live Free or Die Hard, Bruce Willis uses one of these to expose the fake dispatcher, giving her a code for naked people running around, and then calling her out on it...note 
  • In Maverick, Bret Maverick wants to expose/embarrass the con woman "Mrs. Bransford". Well played on Maverick's part because her first response didn't answer the question. Had he said, "Oh, you're from there—" and tried to discredit her, she still could say she was not from there. So Maverick played dumb until she specifically says where she's from.
    Maverick: I can't quite place your accent. Where in the South are you from?
    Mrs. Bransford: Ever been to Mobile?
    Maverick: No.
    Mrs. Bransford: Well, that's where I'm from.
    Maverick: Mobile, Alabama? Hell, I've been there. I'll bet we know the same people. You start.
    Mrs. Bransford: [Beat; in tears] I've tried so hard to forget that place.
  • Somewhat related is the whole Winchestertonfieldsville scene in Mr. Deeds, in which every lie Winona Ryder's character makes up about her childhood ends up actually existing.
  • Subverted in Ocean's Eleven, when Terry Benedict challenges Linus, who is posing as a Nevada Gaming Commission inspector, by asking if he ever worked with Hal Lindley. Linus calls his bluff, pointing out that Hal died last year.
  • In Ocean's Twelve, Tess uses her uncanny resemblance to Julia Roberts to impersonate the famous actress. She finds herself having to bluff her way through a conversation with Bruce Willis.
  • Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins: A scene involves Velma sneaking around an office in the school's library while she's looking for evidence. When the librarian walks in and demands to know what she was doing, she pretends to be a lost exchange student from Russia. Guess who once went to Moscow and learned Russian.
  • In Splash the main character and his brother are pretending to be Swedish scientists who have been sent to examine the mermaid. Unfortunately they run into an actual Swede who proceeds to query them in his native tongue. For his first question they basically respond just by saying "yes" a great number of times. His second question, translated for the viewers, is along the lines of "what are a pair of Swedish scientists doing in the USA". John Candy's character, being an aficionado of pornography, responds by saying "Hey baby, I've got a 12 inch penis," which he only pulls off due to having watched a decent amount of Swedish porn. This convinces the guard who just laughs knowingly.
  • In There's Something About Mary, a crude, low-class private detective is trying to impress Mary by pretending to be a suave architect. Cue her architect friend. Who was also only pretending.
  • In True Lies (and the original French film La Totale!) the main character believes that his wife is having an affair. Since he is a spy, he uses his skills to track down the other man and while listening in on a meeting between him and his wife, he hears the other man claiming to be a spy himself. He fears he might be an enemy agent trying to seduce his wife to get to him ... until the other man claims to have been responsible for an incident that the main character himself was responsible for and he immediately realizes the guy is only pretending to be a spy to get in his wife's pants.
  • The framing device for Y tu mamĂ¡ tambiĂ©n is a road trip to the (fictional, as far as the protagonists know) beach of Boca de Cielo ("Mouth of Heaven"). It's actually just an excuse to try and get the female lead to sleep with one or both of them, but then they actually reach it...
  • Zathura: Parodied when Walter tries to use the Fleet Admiral card (which allowed his piece to move forward some extra spaces) to make the stranded astronaut obey his demand to leave their house:
    Walter: Well, I'm Fleet Admiral, and I'm telling you to hit the road.
    (Beat)
    Astronaut: (Clears throat) ...I apologize, sir. I didn't realize you were Fleet Admiral. In fact... I...
    (Astronaut pulls out identical card)
    Astronaut: I'm a FLEET ADMIRAL TOO! (Flicks card at Walter) It's just a card, bug nuts!

    Literature 
  • Linnea Sinclair's An Accidental Goddess: The time traveling protagonist claims to be visiting from another spaceport, which in her day didn't have a lot of traffic. Unfortunately, the woman sitting next to her at the bar is from there, and is suspicious when the protagonist doesn't recognize the name of a local bigshot. Fortunately, the protagonist is also telepathic, and can pull the relevant details out of the woman's mind.
  • The second Artemis Fowl book references this to build up Artemis's boy-genius cred. He and his bodyguard Butler use fake identities while traveling abroad, one of their favorites being a chess prodigy and his chaperone. A checkpoint official who happened to be a chess grandmaster himself doubted the story...until Artemis beat him in six moves.
  • In Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future novel Outlaw World, Captain Future temporarily ends up with some pirates, and pretends to be a survivor from a recently destroyed band. Then, they visit the pirates' main den, and one person states he served in that band for nine years and had never seen him. The Captain buys a reprieve by claiming he was a freshly recruited technician, and had no opportunity yet to interact with a gunner.
  • Catch Me If You Can: Con artist Frank Abagnale pretends to be a lawyer who studied at Harvard, which works fine until he meets someone else who actually did study there. The guy asks him a load of awkward questions, gets suspicious, and Frank soon has to cut his losses and disappear. Which makes this Truth in Television.
  • In the first Confessions of Georgia Nicolson book, Georgia walks up to a cute guy on the street, pretending to have a limp, and starts speaking to him in fake French (It Makes Sense in Context... or, well, as much sense as Georgia ever makes). The guy, in an attempt to help her, leads her to a restaurant nearby whose waitresses speak French.
  • Discworld:
    • Interesting Times does a Reverse on this trope. Rincewind runs into someone from the place he's pretending to be from, and being smart enough to know that his challenger is going to try to trip him up by asking him about a fictional person or location, calls him on it — only instead the man asked him about a real person whose identity would be very obvious if Rincewind's story was true.
    • In Jingo, some thieves have taken Angua hostage only to be confronted with her wolf shape. So they're confessing to everything Carrot and Reg are suggesting in order to be let out. This happens:
      Carrot: We've got them down for everything but the Hide Park Flasher.
      Thief: We did that!
      Carrot: And that was a woman.
  • In Gregory Benford's short story "Doing Lennon", a man from the twentieth century hatches a plan to live out his dreams of stardom by having himself frozen and upon being revived in the future, claiming to be John Lennon. The plan hits a snag when he meets another cryogenically-frozen person claiming to be Paul McCartney.
  • Dortmunder: Donald Westlake's unlucky criminal John Dortmunder once, under pressure, claimed his name was "John Diddums," and then started to use it as a regular alias. Whenever people asked about the name that sounds like babytalk, he'd tell them, "It's Welsh," and they'd be embarrassed for questioning it. And then he ran into a British gentleman who remarked, "I know a Diddums family near Caernarvon. Might you be a relative?"
  • Earthsea: In The Farthest Shore, Ged tells Arren they are going to pose as merchants from Arren's island, and has the foresight to ask him to give some large town as a fake birthplace — just in case they run into a townsman.
  • In one of Robert Fulghum's books, he wants to be left alone on a flight, so he claims he's a neurosurgeon. Too bad the person next to him really is a neurosurgeon.
  • The Lord of the Rings: When Frodo leaves the Shire, he travels under the assumed name of Underhill. This gets awkward when he passes through Bree — several local Underhills are at the inn that same night and start quizzing him on family history, certain that they must be related somewhere along the line.
  • In The Lost World (1912), Edward Malone pretends to be a paleontologist early on. Professor Challenger gets suspicious and exposes him by asking if he is familiar with some made-up terms and theories, to which Malone says he is.
  • In the novel The Proteus Operation, one of the heroes is taking a train through Nazi occupied territory. Someone else on the train asked him what his profession was and he replied with his cover of an archaeologist. At that point, the other person responded that he, too, was one and what did the hero think about the xxx controversy? At that point the hero got on his high horse and announced that he was only interested in the archeology that proves the superiority of the Aryan race and that all other studies of lesser races was not proper National Socialist thinking. The passenger archaeologist immediately decided they really didn't have anything to talk about.
  • A joke found in an issue of Readers' Digest (and possibly a real incident) referred to a man who liked to pretend he'd had the same operations that other people had been through so that he could share in their complaints. Eventually carelessness resulted in a pair of women asking him, "Really. When did you have your hysterectomy?"
  • Used and played with in Josepha Sherman's The Shattered Oath. A prince of the Sidhe has been exiled into ~9th century AD Ireland, claiming to be an exiled prince from Cathay (China). Naturally a trader who's been in Cathay comes calling. Played with because, even then, China was a huge country. Ardagh, the prince, cannot answer the trader's questions ... but the trader, who does know how big Cathay is (generally at least), also has to admit to not knowing how to answer Ardagh's questions, nor having heard of his family or even dialect (actually the Sidhe tongue).
  • Used by Sherlock Holmes in the short story "The Three Garridebs", in which he tests his suspicions of a con man posing as American by casually asking after the nonexistent mayor of the con man's claimed Kansas "hometown".
  • In Time Machine Series gamebook "The Secret of the Knights", early in the story your time traveling character will defeat a jerkass squire in a bout with a quarterstaff. Impressed by the skill shown, several onlookers surmise that you're a foreign squire from the kingdom of Navarre who was supposed to arrive around that time and start serving Edward the "Black Prince". Your character decides to agree as it makes for a good excuse for some of the gaps in your knowledge. The only problem with this is that much later in the story you'll wind up at the Battle of CrĂ©cy and a wrong choice or two will have you run into that same antagonistic squire (who is still nursing a grudge and believes your story was fake), who will insist on introducing you to his friend who actually is from Navarre. Long story short, they don't have to do much probing before they confirm that you're an impostor and try to get you arrested as a spy.

    Live Action TV 
  • A double example in 24. At the start of Day 5, Jack is working at an oil refinery under the alias "Frank Flynn" after having faked his death at the end of Day 4. He starts a relationship with his landlady, but her son Derek doesn't trust Jack. At one point, Derek asks "Flynn" about his past and Jack claims he used to work in an oil rig in Alaska called "the Albatross". Derek replies that the brother of a friend of his worked there but he had never heard of "Flynn". Jack maintains calm and claims they were mostly known by nicknames and asks the one of his friend's brother ... which prompts Derek to leave.
  • Subverted in the 30 Rock episode "Reunion." Jack is mistaken for a popular former student at Liz's high school reunion, and after his initial denial is muffled, he plays along. Then he meets what appears to be the man's ex-girlfriend from high school. He manages fine in not giving away any details until the woman asks, "Say to me what you said that night." Jack looks her straight in the eye and says, "No." From her reaction, this was exactly what she wanted to hear. The ruse only falls apart when the ex-girlfriend decides that it's the opportune time for Jack to meet "his" son.
  • In Bottom, Richie often claims to have served in the Falklands War. In "Parade", he meets someone who actually did serve, and who promptly beats Richie up for lying.
  • An episode of Coupling ("the man with two legs") has Jeff for various reasons claiming to a woman he fancies that he has only one leg: It's too bad her brother also lost a leg.
  • In an episode of Criminal Minds, the female FBI agents are out at a bar having a night out drinking. A guy tries to impress one of them by telling them he works for the FBI, but can't talk about his job. They ask him if it's a dangerous job, and generally puff him up with softball questions, before showing him their FBI badges and telling him to buzz off. This scenario also formed the basis of a series of British Territorial Army recruitment adverts.
  • Desperate Housewives: Rex and Bree are going to couples' therapy, and Bree asks Rex to tell everyone that they are going to tennis lessons instead. It turns out that Carlos has been wanting to get back into tennis for a while and he flat-out asks Rex for the number of their trainer, inadvertently putting him in a very tight spot.
  • Dharma & Greg:
    • One episode has Dharma and her friend pretending to be German tourists, speaking faux-German. When Dharma learns her niece shoplifted from that store, she has to return to the store, but can't drop the masquerade. Eventually, the clerk gets tired of not being able to communicate with the "tourists", and asks, "Does anyone here speak German?" Naturally, someone does.
    • Dharma makes Greg do this in another episode, pretending to be a southerner in a golf accessory store asking for a "Naan Aaron". Unfortunately there is a man FROM Memphis a few feet away from them, who turns out to be the newly appointed local judge. He's quickly shown to have an extreme dislike for people mocking his accent, forcing Dharma and Greg to participate in a increasingly more and more elaborate charade leading up to being introduced to Vice-President Al Gore with all of the Finkelsteins and Montgomery-Burns family members dressed up as southern stereotypes.
  • On an episode of The Drew Carey Show, Oswald is pretending to be German while talking to a bartender to see if she cheats him. She immediately says she was born in Germany and starts talking to him in German. He then says he is actually from a small town in France called Germany. She then says she went to school in France for several years and starts speaking French.
  • Friends:
    • For complicated reasons Monica has claimed her name to be Monana, which she also claims is Dutch. When the inevitable happens, she covers by specifying Pennsylvania Dutch.
    • In "The One With the Red Sweater", a variation is used when for complicated reasons Ross is at the wedding reception for complete strangers and is posing for a picture at the rostrum. People start clinking their glasses to demand a speech. Ross pretends to be working for the hotel, saying that a certain car will be towed. A guy rushes up nervously. He has that exact make, model, and color of car. What are the odds?
      Ross: A '95 LeSabre?
      Man: Yes!
      Ross: A green LeSabre?
      Man: Yes!
      Ross: I'm sorry, I meant a blue LeSabre?
      Man: Yes! Green-blue!
      [beat]
      Ross: Well go! Go move it!
    • In another episode Phoebe found a lost police badge, which she then starts flashing around to intimidate people. Eventually she tries to pull it on a real cop and tries to bluff her way through his questions, like which precinct she works at. After a while he seems to believe her, then he asks "So where did you find my badge?"
  • Hogan's Heroes:
    • Col. Hogan is trying to convince Col. Klink that he (Klink) is psychic as part of a complex scam (Business As Usual). As part of the convincing, he cites a "famous German scientist" who studies psychic powers, making up the name off the top of his head. Later, Klink has acquired a book about psychic powers by the same scientist, leading Hogan to remark "Maybe I'm the one who's psychic!".
    • Played straight when Newkirk attempts to pass himself off as an expert forger. The head of the forgery operation asks him if he's familiar with a certain forger and certain machine and Newkirk claims to know both intimately. Of course, one's a composer and the other's a piano.
    • Another is a test Colonel Hogan uses to see if escapees are actually German spies, asking if they know certain people from the unit they claim to be from. All of these people are fictional.
  • On Home and Away, Xavier poses as a university student in a philosophy course while trying to get with Miranda. When she introduces him to her friend, an actual philosophy student, it takes him all of a few minutes to trick him by claiming that Jerome Kern is a philosopher who'd interest him. However, the friend does nothing with this information, as Xavier is quickly exposed when Miranda comes to his high school to give a talk about Uni life.
  • Referenced on a first-season episode of House, following Cameron's very brief resignation. Interviewing candidates for the empty post, House asks one, "Do you really speak four languages, or are you just betting on never being interviewed by someone who does?"
  • On How I Met Your Mother, Barney recruits Ted to be his wingman and tells a potential date that Ted is deaf for sympathy points. Naturally, the girl knows sign language and starts signing to him. Fortunately, it turns out Ted also knows sign language. Unfortunately, Ted signs that Barney is lying to her and she should give him a fake number.
  • In The Nanny episode "The Butler, the Husband, the Wife, and Her Mother", Maxwell Sheffield is posing as Sheffield family butler Niles when some butler inspectors arrive to evaluate Niles' performance.
    Fran Fine: [trying to explain away Maxwell's initial reluctance to act as Niles] He's been a wreck ever since all that unpleasantness in the Falklands.
    Butler Inspector #1: Ah, you saw action too? What ship were you on?
    Maxwell: The other one...
  • Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: Cookie's attempt to pass himself off as a British transfer student for a new class falls apart when he meets an actual British transfer student in the class, who almost immediately exposes him as a fraud. He later deduces that the "Brit" was also a fake because he kept using American terms such as 'soccer' and 'fries'. When Cookie asks him how he saw through his own attempt, the other kid replied that he was just bluffing and Cookie caved.
  • In Sanctuary during a flashback episode to WWII Watson poses as a Nazi tank driver and when stopped at a checkpoint claims to be from Bavaria when the Major can't place his accent. Guess where the real Nazi was from. Watson then remarks in clear English something like "what are the odds?" causing the German to immediately realize he's a British spy.
  • In the Scrubs episode "My First Kill", J.D., panicking, finds himself claiming that his patient is from Luxembourg — which is not only untrue, but nothing to do with what he's actually lying about! Dr Cox spent two weeks in Luxembourg. Subverted in that J.D. does answer Dr Cox's questions accurately ("Thank you, third grade book report!"), but Dr Cox still realizes he's lying because, well, it's really obvious.
  • Seinfeld: Happens to George Costanza all the time; since he's always making up more interesting jobs for himself — to the point that he has studied up on how to pass himself off as an architect. In one memorable example he tries to pass himself off as a marine biologist, and then he's asked to save a beached whale. He saves it, but then admits he was lying and is dumped.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: In the two-part episode "Time's Arrow", the Enterprise crew travels to 19th century San Francisco. While there, Riker poses as a policeman. He tries to bluff a real policeman by saying he just transferred from downtown, only to learn that the cop actually works downtown.
  • Captain Jack of Torchwood took his identity from a deceased fighter pilot from WWII. When he finds himself in that time period, he starts to introduce himself according to his fictional backstory. This trope's subverted when he doesn't go into any more details, as he finds himself introducing himself to the real Captain Jack Harkness. Interestingly enough, the real Jack Harkness turns out to be gay, while the immortal one is of the Extreme Omnisexual variety. The Jacks end up being attracted to each other, which "our" Jack finds painful, as he knows the real Jack is destined to heroically die the next day.
  • The Veronica Mars episode "The Wrath of Con" sees Veronica and Wallace infiltrating a college party posing as prospective students. Wallace claims to be a math major and finds himself having to come up with plausible-sounding answers to questions like: "The PoincarĂ© conjecture or Fermat's Last Theorem: which one do you think better defines the geometry of three-dimensional space?"
  • In an episode of Will & Grace, Will pretends to be a professional tennis player (because being a lawyer at a party kills conversations), and then panics when he finds out there's an actual professional tennis player at the party. Who is also a fraud due to his real job being an even worse conversation killer: IRS agent.

    Music 
  • A skit by Lorne Elliott tells the story of a St Patrick's Night gig where an angry audience member demanded that he play Danny Boy — which he didn't know the words to. In a desperate effort to placate him, he announces that he will sing Danny Boy in the original Gaelic — and sings nonsense syllables to the tune. "Turns out he spoke fluent Gaelic..."

    Radio 
  • Adventures in Odyssey: Happens to Monica when she poses as Missions Board intern Paula Jarvis. Walter is from near the real Paula's town and first realizes "Paula" is hiding something by asking her about phony details like the "annual blueberry festival."

    Theatre 
  • In the musical Anything Goes, the mobster Moonface Martin sneaks onto the cruise ship that the play takes place on in the disguise of a minister. He then runs into a real minister not five minutes later. Being a "clever" man, he tries to deflect suspicion from the minister by claiming to be from somewhere far away, and settles on China. Guess where the real minister practices?
    Moonface: Well, I wasn't actually in China, I was in, uh...
    Minister: Ah, I see. You were in Indochina.
    Moonface: That's it! I was in Indoor China, and you were in Outdoor China, heh heh heh...
  • In the opera Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss II, two characters pretend to be French at a ball in Vienna. This results in an exchange of simple phrases and nonsense before the other characters insist they speak German. Later, they share a brief duet with the chorus 'Merci, merci, merci.'
  • In his stand-up show "The award winning mince pie", Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert says that he made up a home town called Llanbobl. There follows a five minute rant against people who claim to have been there, including a rugger-bugger type, who said that his team beat Llanbobl 64-17. Rhod is impressed 15 imaginary rugby players scored 17. Gilbert eventually produced a BBC radio sitcom called Rhod Gilbert's Leaving Llanbobl, set entirely in the fictional town. His production company is Llanbobl Productions.

    Video Games 

    Webcomics 
  • In Gorgeous Princess Creamy Beamy the alien "X" Hoshibana claims to be from USA. He eventually realizes he should have picked a more obscure nation as his fake background.
  • In Terror Island, Stephen makes up the name "Ned Q. Sorcerer, D.D.S." on the spot when attempting to crash a class reunion at Center of the Earth University. The real Mr. Sorcerer shows up a few strips later (but is catapulted away.) Stephen must later do a presentation in front of all the university alumni entitled "Ned Q. Sorcerer answers trivia questions about his life." He attributes the real Ned showing up to bilocation. Ironically, this actually convinces the previously-skeptical audience that Stephen really is Ned, since apparently bilocating and accusing one's self of being a fake is a very Ned Q. Sorcerer-esque thing to do.

    Web Original 
  • Numerous stories on Not Always Right have a scammer or angry customer impersonate a lawyer or someone with knowledge of law, only to have a customer behind them step forward and reveal they are a lawyer as well, then disprove the customer. This usually leads to the customer fleeing the store in shame. Another common variant is for the customer to angrily claim to be a friend of the owner, only for it to be revealed that they are actually speaking to the owner or a relative of the owner — who has, of course, never seen them before. Several examples have had the employee/sane customer also lying about being the owner/lawyer, but successfully scaring away the troublemaker.

    Western Animation 
  • Stewie on Family Guy manages to completely bluff his way through one of these without missing a beat or showing any signs of panic (having stuffed himself into the top of a corpse's suit so as to appear as the head on the body):
    Officer: Everything alright here?
    Stewie: Oh, fine officer, just enjoying the sunset. No law against that, is there?
    Officer: What happened to your shirt?
    Stewie: Oh, you know, just a pizza party at the office.
    Officer: Oh yeah, where do you work?
    Stewie: First Fidelity Insurance over on Weybosset Street.
    Officer: Oh, my cousin Arnie works over there.
    Stewie: Oh, Arnie's your cousin is he?
    Officer: You know him?
    Stewie: Oh somewhat, good middle management type. Just sort of blends in with the furniture, though, never really wowed anyone at the office.
    Officer: Yeah, that's always been Arnie's problem. Well, take it easy.
    Stewie: Yes yes, you too. Oh and if you see Arnie, tell him "boogity boogity boo." He'll know what it means.
  • Hurricanes: In "Big Sister, Big Trouble", Amanda learns that she has an older half-sister. The sister turns out to be an imposter who's being coerced into spying on Amanda's soccer team by the owner of the Opposing Sports Team. When she claims to come from a town named Schnitzelheim, the Beethoven twins reveal that they were born there.
  • Played with in Ninjago, when the ninja are trapped in the Realm of the Dragons and Oni, Cole disguises himself and age-shifted Wu as Rodney Dangerbuff and Rodney, Jr. A local declares that he's familiar with the Dangerbuff clan and turns away to call one of them over (he's not suspicious, just trying to be friendly). The ninja hightail it out of there while his back's turned, but when he sees them running away, he chuckles and says "Just like a Dangerbuff." They're able to continue using the identities later.
  • In the Pinky and the Brain episode "My Feldmans, My Friends", the Brain attempts to persuade his neighbour that "Mr. The Brain" was his high school nickname by inserting his picture into a high school yearbook. The high school he picks happens to be the one his neighbour attended, so Brain is left trying to convince his neighbour that they were, in fact, classmates.
  • The Simpsons:
    • Parodied in "Lard of the Dance": Homer is breaking into Springfield Elementary, and is caught by Groundskeeper Willie.
      Homer: Uh, buh, buh, we're new foreign exchange students from... uh, um... Scotland!
      Willie: Saints be praised, I'm from Scotland! Where do ya hail from?
      Homer: Uh... North... Kilttown.
      Willie: No foolin'! I'm from North Kilttown! Do you know Angus McLeod?
      Homer: Wait a minute! There's no Angus McLeod in North Kilttown! Why, you're not from Scotland at all!
    • In "22 Short Films About Springfield", Skinner ruins the food he's been cooking. When Chalmers asks about it, Skinner covers by claiming he's making some steamed clams, and then tries to replace them with hamburgers:
      Chalmers: I thought we were having steamed clams.
      Skinner: Oh, no, I said, "steamed hams." That's what I call hamburgers.
      Chalmers: You call hamburgers "steamed hams"?
      Skinner: Yes, it's a regional dialect.
      Chalmers: Uh-huh? What region?
      Skinner: Uh, upstate New York.
      Chalmers: Really? Well, I'm from Utica and I never heard anyone use the phrase "steamed hams."
      Skinner: Oh, not in Utica, no. It's an Albany expression.
      Chalmers: I see.

    Real Life 
  • In one episode narrated in The Colditz Story, a pair of British escapees pretending to be Flemish ("As Flamands we could pass off our bad German and our bad French — a useful nationality!") were in a bar when a genuine Flamand came up. Fortunately, they were able to bluff their way through by bursting into laughter at the man's (presumably) hilarious story, buying him a drink, and quickly departing.
  • A man impersonating a police officer pulled over a real undercover cop car. Some people have all the luck.
  • Stanley Johnson, father of British politician Boris Johnson, used to be a spy. Supposedly, the first time he tried out his cover story — that he was working in the Foreign Office as the desk officer for the Sudan — it was at the Foreign Office, to the actual desk officer for the Sudan.
  • Physicist Richard Feynman, according to Ralph Leighton's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", liked listening to Italian radio programs so much as a boy, despite not understanding a word of the language, that he came up with his own form of "mock Italian," which he used successfully on numerous occasions. ("...maybe it's Milano instead of Romano, what the hell. But he's an iTALian! So it's just great. But you have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing will happen.") He was likely helped by the fact that the Italian language is quite regional, so the Italian spoken in one part of the country can be fairly different from that spoken in another, and sometimes even native Italian speakers from different regions may have trouble understanding each other if both are speaking different dialects.
  • In DVD Commentary on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, series head writer David Willis told a story about a time he overheard a guy in a bar talking up some girl and bragging that he's the head writer on SGC2C. After the guy struck out with the girl, Willis introduced himself to him as the show's real head writer, and they talked (amicably) for a little bit. If anything, Willis was flattered that somebody thought the show was so good that they claimed to be head writer in hopes of getting laid.
  • In this Cracked article, Seanbaby details an encounter with a bouncer who regaled him with obviously fake fight stories. In this case, the bouncer knew Seanbaby was into fighting because it was all over his shirt, but clearly mistook him for a hobbyist or even a wannabe like him. "The story made me sad. [...] because this idiot managed to tell the story to maybe the one person in the bar with academic certainty that he made it up."

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