A character makes a weak attempt at forgery — either because they're immature/stupid or because they consider their audience to be. The faked signature is impossible: the real person would obviously never sign a document that way.
If authority figures fall for such blatant forgery, it usually signifies how incompetent or easily gullible said authority figures are.
If this is being done by a child, they will likely sign the document with "Mom" or "Dad", especially if the child doesn't know the parents' real names.
Compare The Con. Compare and contrast Children Are Innocent. Contrast the Master Forger who does slightly better work.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Azumanga Daioh: In March 2001, Tomo bribes her way into Chiyo's 12th birthday party by claiming that she'll gift her an autograph from famed Yomiuri Giants infielder Kazuhiro Kiyohara, taking advantage of Chiyo's love of the baseball team. In the next strip, Tomo gives Chiyo the autograph, only for the latter to discover that it's just a blocky rendering of the kanji for Kiyohara's name, which Tomo gladly admits was her own handiwork. Chiyo's only response is to give the "autograph" back to Tomo while trembling with rage.
Comic Strips
- The Beano often featured a joke which inverted this trope:
"Why is this homework written in your father's handwriting?"
"...because I used his pen, sir?" - In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin attempts to do a parental signature for a document from school, signing it "Calvin's mom".
- In some Dilbert strips, Dogbert sells autographs supposedly made by famous people. In one such strip, he offers a baseball signed by Jesus. In another, he offers a ball signed by Martin Luther. When the prospective customer says he was looking for one signed by Martin Luther King, Dogbert tells him to come back in a few minutes.
- In FoxTrot, Paige attempts to forge her father's signature on a note to get it out of gym. She not only signs it 'Mister Fox', but she dots the i with a little love heart.
Film — Animation
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: Early in the movie, Plankton steals King Neptune's crown, framing Mr. Krab for it by leaving a poorly written note where the crown was kept. The signature Plankton provides on the note is in poorly scrawled print, whereas Mr. Krab's real signature is clean old-fashioned cursive as previously seen on his driver's license in the episode "Sleepy Time". Somehow, the signature Plankton provides is enough to fool King Neptune, kicking off Spongebob's quest to get the crown back.
Film — Live-Action
- In The Sandlot, Smalls steals his stepfather's signed Babe Ruth baseball to play with, only to knock it into "The Beast"'s yard. While he and his friends try to get it back, they replace it with a cheap store-bought ball that his friend Benny signed "Babe Ruthe". They specifically note that this won't fool the stepfather at all, but fortunately he's away on a business trip. It does fool Smalls' mom, long enough for the gang to retrieve the original ball.
- In Sweeney Todd, the Con Man Pirelli claims to have shaved the pope. The document that proves it is signed simply "The Pope".
Literature
- Bimbos of the Death Sun: Fantasy writer (and Asshole Victim) Dungannon deliberately signs books he wrote as "J. R. R. Tolkien" when an obnoxious fan admits he only wants the autograph for the resale value.
- In Bored of the Rings, the Boggies' attempts to remain undercover when signing into the inn leave something to be desired: Alias Undercover, Ivan Gottasecret, John Doe-Smith, and Ima Pseudonym.
- In Frances Edmonds' Cricket XXXX Cricket (an account of the 1986 Ashes series) a fan insists her husband Phil is actually his teammate John Emburey, and then asks for his autograph. "In deference to the fan's encyclopedic knowledge of the game" Phil signs as Don Bradman, an Australian cricketing legend of decades before.
- In the novel True Grit, Ned Pepper makes Mattie forge a signature on a check. She does it, thinking as she does it that nobody will think it's the real signature: you can tell it was signed with a stick rather than a proper writing utensil, whereas the real person wouldn't have done that.
- The eponymous protagonist of Wilt is pressured (up to and including sleep deprivation) to confess to a crime that he actually wasn't able to commit. So he signs his confession as "Tom Sawyer".
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of Barney Miller Inspector Luger admires Wojo's signed 1936 World Series baseball and wants Wojo to sell it to him for $20. Wojo doesn't want to; but conveniently, they've arrested a forger. Wojo gets him to forge the signatures on another baseball and gives that one to Luger. Where this trope comes into play is, the forger added a signature: John Hancock.
Luger: Was he with the Giants?
Wojo: No, um, he was one of the original Yankees. - Parodied in a Doctor Who episode where the Seventh Doctor signs a document with a question mark rather than reveal his name. And it works.
- Drake & Josh: In order to try and get out of doing homework, Drake writes a fake doctor's note claiming that he twisted his liver and is consequently unable to read, write, or bathe, and signs it as "the doctor". When Josh points out that the doctor should probably have a name, he hastily amends it to "Bob the doctor".
- In an episode of Hardcastle and McCormick, McCormick attempts to replace Hardcastle's Wilt Chamberlain autographed basketball which has been stolen. Not being familiar with basketball, he signs it "Will Chamberlain" instead of "Wilt Chamberlain".
- Law & Order: In one episode, a woman kills her husband after she learns he faked her signature to clean out an account she'd set up for her efforts to start a business. When the detectives see the signatures on the checks, they note that it doesn't come close to matching the wife's and that the bank should have known. Realizing she didn't empty the account herself, it's what tipped them to her motive.
- Roseanne; When DJ tries skipping school too many days in a row, he shows Darlene a note he forged with Roseanne's signature. Darlene is unimpressed:
Darlene Conner: Mom can usually sign her own name without having to erase a bunch of times.
- In Welcome Back, Kotter, the excuse notes signed "Epstein's mother" (or in one case "Epstein's mother's doctor") are a running gag.
Video Games
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: The quest "Catch a Spy" involves helping the Mages Guild root out a House Telvanni spy. The spy in question, the assistant to idiot Archmage Trebonius, got their job by presenting a letter of recommendation that was supposedly from Imperial Battlemage Ocato. The letter's signature reads "Acatto". The fact that this mistake both happened and worked is meant to reflect poorly on both the spy and the one who allowed them into the Mages Guild.
- Papers, Please: Your second encounter with Jorji Costava has him present his infamously bad fake passport. Even in the low-resolution style of the game, it looks like it was made with crayons. It's also for "Cobrastan", a country that doesn't existnote . Jorji tries to claim that the equally bad "pre-approved" stamp means that you don't have to bother examining it, even though no such "pre-approval" exists within Arstotskan border security.
Websites
- One of the most famous articles on Zug
is about a guy who noticed that nobody ever seemed to check signatures on receipts, so he decided to see how strange a signature he could create before it got rejected. He started doing pretty normal-looking signatures that obviously didn't match the signature on the back of his credit card, but quickly moved on to much more clearly fake things like signing with 'X', drawing pictures in the box, signing in hieroglyphs, signing as Zeus, and even writing 'I stole this card'. All were accepted. The only time it failed was in part two when he tried to buy three large-screen HDTVs with the signature 'not authorised'.
Western Animation
- Beavis and Butt-Head: One episode has the guys wanting to get their ears pierced, only to be told that they need parental permission first. What they come back with are two barely legible pieces of scrap paper in their own writing, with Butt-Head's stating "Just do it, huh-huh" and Beavis' stating "Yeah, yeah".
- Gravity Falls: In Mabel’s segment of “Bottomless Pit”, when Grunkle Stan is caught teaching a bear to drive, he manages to fool the sheriff with a forged note from “Dr. Medicine” about needing a “seeing-eye bear”. Bonus points for forging the letter as they’re watching.
- Sidekick: Eric has been signing his own permission slips for Maxum Man since he's disappeared. It works, even if Professor Pamplemousse is suspicious.
Pamplemousse: Funny how his signature is different every time.
Eric: Uh, that's so that no one can forge it! - The Simpsons
- "Bart the Genius": Principal Skinner has a meeting with Bart, Marge, and Homer, where he accuses Bart of forging Homer's signature on several admission slips because of how childish the writing is. Then he compares one of the admission slips he brought along as evidence to the check Homer just signed for him and is proven wrong; Homer's handwriting really is just that bad.
- "The Boy Who Knew Too Much": Lampshaded. Skinner reads an obviously forged letter Bart did of Marge, in part stating "Please excuse my bad handwriting; I recently busted whichever hand I write with."
