T-800: What's the dog's name?
John: Max.
T-800: [impersonating John over the phone] Hey, Janelle, what's wrong with Wolfie? I can hear him barking. Is he okay?
"Janelle": Wolfie's fine, John, Wolfie's just fine. Where are you?
T-800: [hangs up, to John] Your foster parents are dead.
John: Max.
T-800: [impersonating John over the phone] Hey, Janelle, what's wrong with Wolfie? I can hear him barking. Is he okay?
"Janelle": Wolfie's fine, John, Wolfie's just fine. Where are you?
T-800: [hangs up, to John] Your foster parents are dead.
Your best friend/loved one/respected figure of authority is acting strangely and you suspect — with good reason — that they may in fact be an impostor. So what do you do? Assuming that the impostor didn't research his role perfectly, you bluff the impostor: ask a question, make a comment, say something that sounds natural to the potential impostor... but mine it with an erroneous fact or two, like a wrong name or a fictional event, and see if they repeat the mistake, or try to bluff.
A subtrope of Trust Password. In that trope, a character openly asks the potential impostor for a specific piece of information to confirm their identity. In this trope, instead of asking outright, the character "casually" mentions something that the person would know, and the potential impostor's reaction (or lack of reaction) is the proof they're looking for. A variation is to combine the two: ask the person for a piece of information, but regardless of their answer, something else in the question was the real test of their identity.
One way to Spot the Imposter. This is a classic way to expose a Legendary Impostor; if someone is posing as a famous figure, ask or make a statement about some little-known detail of the famous person's life, and see if the impostor reacts properly. May involve Spy Speak. See You Just Told Me, I Never Said It Was Poison, and Pull the Thread for other tropes about exposing a deception, which may or may not be about identity. Something Only They Would Say is when a person says or does something that exposes their true identity, whether intentionally or not. May involve Exasperated Perp. Compare Bluff the Eavesdropper.
Contrast with Impostor-Exposing Test, when characters have some kind of test that should expose any impostor of a specific type, not just one imitating a specific person. Cover Identity Anomaly is when a character pretending to be a member of some institution or group doesn't know or have some factor that anybody else in that group should have.
Examples:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Video Games
- Western Animation
open/close all folders
Audio Plays
- Big Finish Doctor Who:
- In "The Axis of Insanity", Jarra-To, the Reality Warper in charge of the titular location, pretends to be the Fifth Doctor while with his companion Erimem. Erimem soon suspects that something is wrong, proposing that they go home—to Chicago, not ancient Egypt, where she's from—after this adventure. When Jarra-To agrees, calling Chicago a "wonderful town", Erimem waits to be left alone, then attempts to flee.
- In "The Rosemariners", the Doctor's companion Zoe and new ally Biggs manage to convince the fake Colbert (a member of the station crew who was replaced by a plant-based duplicate) that Zoe is a member of the station crew by acting like Colbert should already know who she is.
- Sonic the Hedgehog Presents: The Chaotix Casefiles: While Tangle and Whisper help the Chaotix try and catch the thief in Episode 3, said thief transforms into Tangle to confuse them all. Whisper aims at them both with her Wispon in Cyan Laser mode. When one Tangle encourages her to take the shot, the other panics, exposing "herself" as the fake. Following the chaos, Whisper explains how the real Tangle trusts her enough to make the right call. Based on their past adventure against an enemy with a similar shapeshifting ability (a traitor in Whisper's old team), they have clearly formed a close enough bond since to take such a risk.
Gamebooks
- In the third book of the Lone Wolf series, The Caverns of Kalte, Lone Wolf meets a prisoner in the enemy's fortress, who pretends to be a merchant from Ragadorn, but is in fact a Helghast shapeshifter sent by the Darklords. The game allows asking him a few questions about the city of Ragadorn (visited by Lone Wolf in his earlier quest), and the monster gets the answers wrong. The text never points out whether he is right or not, however: it is up to the player to remember what are the correct answers from the previous book.
Podcasts
- Dice Funk: Rinaldo does this to the fake lord's son by referring to a non-existent deceased aunt.
Radio
- In the Adventures in Odyssey episode "Sheep's Clothing", a suspicious pastor asks "Paula Jarvis" (who has already slipped a few times) about the annual blueberry festival from where she supposedly grew up. He doesn't mention that they actually grow strawberries there...
- Paul Temple and his wife Steve sometimes use this to subtly reveal impostors.
- In "Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case", concerned for the safety of his wife, they agree on an arbitrary question/answer which only they will know, and which she can use to challenge any telephone caller claiming to be him. When Steve first uses the question, the caller really is Paul (although there's a Cliffhanger before he answers, which initially makes it seem like he's an impostor); the second time is a subversion, but on a subsequent occasion, in "Paul Temple and the Conrad Case", it's successful in revealing an impostor.
- Also in "The Gilbert Case", Steve herself is bluffed by the owner of a nightclub who mentions a "lifelong friend" of the person whose membership has allowed Paul and Steve into the club (and who is actually an undercover detective). Steve says that she knows the friend well, but finds out soon after that he doesn't exist. Needless to say, she has a mild Oh, Crap! moment when she realises she's been had, although it turns out that the owner knows about the detective anyway.
- In a second example from "The Conrad Case", Temple speaks to Elliot France, another author, over the telephone, and congratulates him on the success of his book "Zero is Tomorrow" — "France" thanks him, but the title is actually that of Temple's next, as yet unpublished, novel.
Music
- The Isley Brothers: In the song "Busted", the singer's girlfriend makes excuses for why she came home late. He picks apart her flimsy lies, and when she says she went dancing with friends, the singer asks why she wouldn't just check in if she was shopping. When she makes an excuse about her cell phone, he points out that she didn't contradict him when he said shopping instead of dancing.
Myths & Religion
- A variant occurs in The Odyssey, making this one Older Than Feudalism: Penelope uses this to see whether the man claiming to be Odysseus after 20 years really is her husband. She orders their bed to be prepared and placed outside the bedroom; Odysseus protests that this couldn't be done, as he carved the bedpost himself out of a living olive tree still rooted in the ground, thus proving his identity.
- The Bible: Samson gives Delilah false information whenever she asks about his weakness. In a subversion of this trope, Samson doesn't seem to cotton on to her plot even when the Philistines try to kill him by exploiting the exact same false weakness he just told Delilah. Eventually, he tells Delilah his real weakness anyway, which gets him blinded and enslaved.
Tabletop Games
- The Pathfinder adventure path Shattered Star has a written-in example in book 2, Curse of the Lady’s Light. Thanks to an instant-death trap interacting weirdly with a clone spell, it is possible for a player character to end up inhabiting the body of a clone of Runelord Sorshen, and the main antagonist of this book is a demon who has shapeshifted into Sorshen and genuinely believes she is Sorshen. If a player uses this to their advantage and attempts to impersonate Sorshen to bluff the Gray Maidens working for the demonic Sorshen, but they fail a Bluff check and thus arouse the Gray Maidens’ suspicions, they ask “Sorshen” what happened to the magic shields she promised. If the player impersonating Sorshen indicates that they believe such a promise was made, or if they fail a second Bluff check, the Gray Maidens confirm their suspicion that the Sorshen they are addressing is an imposter and attack.
- Secret Hitler: Hitler doesn't know who the other fascists are. A liberal can therefore create a "Hitler Trap" by claiming the wrong number of liberal policies that were passed to the Chancellor; normal players would immediately contradict, while Hitler would instead agree (or at the very least, think the other player is a fellow fascist.)
Theatre
- In The Bat, Brooks claims to be a professional gardener, but when Cornelia questions him on his experience with hardy perennials ("they're the ones that keep their leaves during the winter—aren't they?", he says with obvious hesitation), he does not realize that rubeola
, alopecia and urticaria do not in fact belong to that category.
- Inverted in Death And The Maiden. Housewife Paulina recognizes her houseguest's voice as that of her unseen captor when she was a political prisoner. Paulina's husband Gerardo doesn't believe she is correct; he gets her to tell him the detailed story of her captivity, torture, and rape, then feeds it to the other man, Roberto, so that Roberto can deliver the "confession" Paulina claims will satisfy her. However, Paulina suspected the men planned such a ruse, and she deliberately peppered her account with minor inaccuracies. After Roberto makes his statement, Paulina announces that he has corrected those details, and she is more convinced than ever of his guilt. The play never actually reveals whether or not Roberto was truly Paulina's captor, though the film adaptation makes it explicit that he was.
Visual Novels
- Late in Tsukihime, in a moment of uncharacteristic brilliance, Shiki inserts an incorrect detail into the story of how he received the ribbon he promised to return to its owner when he left the Tohno mansion. Hisui does not spot the detail, however, which lets Shiki figure out the Twin Switch, and that the twin who watched him from the window is actually the Stepford Smiler Kohaku. Since the reader already knows the truth from one of the previous routes, it's not a big surprise, but it does alter how the story unfolds after that point.
Web Comics
- Basic Instructions recommends this over Kill Us Both when dealing with an Evil Twin, as it has less of a chance of backfiring.
- Bob and George: A variant. To prove that time-travel induced determinism overrides free will, Far Future Alternate Bass proposes that he can guess which number Future Alternate Bass is thinking of. When FFA Bass says he guessed seven, FA Bass says he's wrong, but FFA Bass points out that he's bluffing, and that if FFA correctly picked seven, FFA Bass would have changed his answer to five.
- Casper uses this on "Komi" in Darken. It works, but Casper finds himself in a less-than-ideal situation as a result.
- Girl Genius:
- Agatha uses this tactic to sound out whether Othar is the real deal. (He is.)
- Later, the Heterodyne's seneschal Carson von Mekkhan uses a variant on the same trick to test whether Agatha really has a Heterodyne heritage or not. (She does, but her performance fails to entirely convince him.) Eventually Agatha got tired of the questions and started telling him things that only a real Heterodyne should know, which caused him to end the interview and move on to the next stage of confirming her heritage.
- In General Protection Fault, Nick uses this to confirm whether he's dealing with the real Ki or not shortly after he's been kidnapped into what turns out to be the Negaverse. Nega-Ki gets the name of a place in an unfinished novel of Ki's wrong, which proves to Nick she's not his Ki.
- Played with in a comic from Wondermark.
- Narbonic:
- Madblood uses this to prove that the disguised Dave isn't really him from the future.
Dave: Yes, Lupin of the past, I've long ago solved all your petty problems.
Madblood: Ah, good! You can tell me how to correct the degradation of 500th-generation molecular cascade patterns on my liguid-crystal microcircuitry!
(beat)
Dave: Should I save us some time and admit I'm not actually you?
Madblood: That'll do nicely. I have no idea what I just said anyway. - Later on, Helen immediately spots Madblood (disguised as Dave) as an impostor, and decides to mess with his head by pretending she and Dave had an affair, which Madblood is forced to play along with.
- Madblood uses this to prove that the disguised Dave isn't really him from the future.
- In Visseria, done by a nameless guard to Jack after he casually mentions a nearby residence that he's supposedly leading the guard to.
Guard: The Jaerock Boarding House?
Jack: That's the one! ... Is something wrong?
Guard: There's no such thing as Jaerock Boarding House.
(beat)
Web Original
- When The Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic do battle, the Critic finds himself hopelessly outgunned by all of the Nerd's NES accessories and, while cowering behind a box, tries to save himself by claiming he's the Nerd's brother. The Nerd immediately sees through it and challenges him to say their mother's name.
Critic: Of course I know the name of our mother! Uh, Eliza... be— (gun gets shoved in his face) OH BLAME A GUY FOR TRYING!
- In Defenders of Stan, Butt-Monkey Stan has a death ray pointed at his Jerkass brother, Ted, and said brother's evil robot clone. Stan says, "I love you, Ted." The robot clone says that he loves him too while his brother laughs and calls him gay.
- Not Always Romantic features a story where one woman and her sister use this to catch her husband's ex in a lie. Not Always Right's main archive has this lovely story, where a scammer tries to claim they weren't delivered any of the items they ordered. The cashier follows along until calling them out at the end.
Real Life
- In 1994, a woman named Shellie Kepley became concerned because she could not reach her father, Paul Gruber, despite the fact that he continued to send her greeting cards for various holidays and events. However, she had noticed that his signature was different. The next time she called him and left a message, she reminded him of her son's upcoming birthday, as well as the money he had promised. Sure enough, she promptly received a card with a check for $25. However, this only confirmed her suspicions that something was wrong, as it was NOT her son's birthday, nor had she asked him for any money, both of which her father would have known. Police eventually found that a local handyman, Darryl Kuehl, had befriended Gruber before murdering him to gain access to his bank account and was keeping up the illusion of him being alive by continuing to pay his bills and send letters and cards to his family.
Subversions
Anime & Manga
- Death Note: L does this to Light quite a bit to see if he slips up by saying something only Kira would know. For example, showing him three suicide notes Light had some criminals write and seeing if he can find the secret message Kira inserted into them to taunt L, who has intentionally given Light the notes in the wrong order. However, Light is also a supergenius, and quickly figures out what L is up to, and hence doesn't expose himself (by putting the notes into the right order or being surprised when L introduces a fake note to the mix). It takes a bit for Light to realize that the fake note makes sense, and L ends up being slightly more suspicious of Light than he was before the test.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang are hunting down the shapeshifting Envy and get separated; when they meet up again, they exchange a few words, then start off looking for Envy... until Hawkeye puts her gun to Mustang's head. It looks like Hawkeye might actually be Envy, until...
Mustang: What are you doing, Lieutenant? Don't you know who your gun's pointed at?
Riza: Who? Don't make me laugh. When we're alone the Colonel always calls me by my first name, Riza.
Envy: Grk! (dives away, transforming back into Envy) So you two are that close, are you?
Riza: I Lied. *BANG* But thanks for falling for it. Now you can do me the favor of dying. - In YuYu Hakusho the heroes are told that one of them was replaced by an impostor who knows everything about the replaced person making this trope unusable. Though Yusuke still tries asking Botan her three sizes. Because, of course, she'd never told him.
- In Cat-Eyed Boy, the title character shapeshifts himself into the form of a young boy to tease him. When the mother discovers this, she demands to see a birthmark she claims the boy has, and Cat-Eyed Boy assumes it's an example of this... so is the one of the pair not to have the very real identifying birthmark. Oops.
- Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders. Suspicious of Jake's sudden escape from Kazarina, Shun tests him by mentioning the operation Jake participated in an earlier episode. He correctly replies that he didn't take the major role (Dan and Shun did). However, Jake was in fact brainwashed by Kazarina; she kept his memory intact.
Comic Books
- Power Pack: Katie Power once attempted this with her future self.
Past Katie: Who was my first boyfriend?
Future Katie: Franklin Richards.
Past Katie: Wrong! It was a trick question. Boys are gross!
Future Katie: Give it a few years, honey. You'll change your mind.
Past Katie: Ewww. - In Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), Mimic—a Voluntary Shapeshifter octopus—disguises himself as Cream the Rabbit. Whisper suspects something is wrong, so she asks Cream about her mother, Tapioca... and Cream correctly replies that her mummy's name is Vanilla, not Tapioca. What actually gives the game away is that the real Cream doesn't use the word "mummy". Mimic didn't get any particular details wrong, but the overall personality was just slightly off.
Film
- Knight Rider: In the 2008 movie, Sarah Graiman is accosted by a security guard during her escape from a pursuer. KITT warns her that the guard may in fact be a fake, and Sarah tells the guard about where she was going — except all of the locations she lists don't exist. The guard — who is a fake — catches on, however.
- In Catch Me If You Can, Frank (posing as a lawyer) claims to have been taught by a professor who also taught his girlfriend's father, and her father asks what the professor's dog's name was. Frank, smelling a trap, replies simply that the dog had since died. The father remains suspicious.
- In Kingdom of Heaven, when Balian meets his father's knights, one of them tries to discern if he really is his son. After mentioning the height, the knight goes on about the eye color of his liege, which is promptly corrected by Balian, thereby proving that he did the research, at least.
- In Die Hard 1, John encounters Hans alone on one of the upper floors. Hans quickly pretends to be an escaped hostage, speaking in a convincing American accent instead of his usual British (well, German-ish). John introduces himself, glances at a nearby office directory and asks Hans for his name. In this case, Crazy-Prepared Hans gave a name from the directory, Bill Clay. John still somehow sees through it — a deleted scene shows he recognized the watch Hans was wearing, because it matched some of the other terrorists'.
- A variation in My Cousin Vinny. During the climax, Vinny puts his girlfriend Mona on the stand as an expert witness. The prosecutor demands to test her claim as an automotive expert. He asks her a question about a specific feature on a very specific model of car, and she protests that it's a "bullshit" question. He assumes it means she's faking her expertise and tries to call her out on it. She responds that it's bullshit because the model of car he was asking about didn't have the feature he asked about at all, then names the closest model that actually would have the feature, and answers it correctly.
Literature
- Discworld
- Interesting Times: Rincewind, trying to hide his foreign origins on the highly-xenophobic Counterweight Continent, is asked by a suspicious restaurateur about a specific man on a specific road. He quickly declares he's never heard of the man or the road... only to find out the man is a high-ranking government official that everyone would need to deal with and the road is the main street through the capital. It works out, however, as the restaurateur is the local equivalent to CMOT Dibbler and is quite pleased to meet a foreigner.
- In Night Watch, Vimes has to impersonate his (deceased) mentor John Keel in the past. His knowledge of Keel, combined with his knowledge of the events at the time and some information from the Monks of History, lets him answer the interrogating officer's questions better than the officer himself could. The interrogator assumed that the impostor is a criminal, so he starts off with questions meant to trip up a civilian and not someone who actually served as a policeman during that time. Before he can try more personal questions, Vimes has him so browbeat that he does not notice when Vimes gives the wrong amount for his promised wages. Vimes uses this to get more pay and a higher rank.
- In Jean M Auel's Earth's Children books, Ayla is asked about the leader of the Mamutoi tribe which she tells them she has been adopted into, but she knows the fake name (Lutie) for what it is and gives the correct information ("Tulie").
- In The Long Goodbye, when a woman is giving a confession that Marlowe doubts, she talks of dumping a suitcase full of incriminating evidence in a reservoir and Marlowe asks her how she got it over the fence. She blusters about adrenaline and then Marlowe reveals that there is no fence. After she breaks down, he admits that he's never been there and really doesn't know about fence or no fence. He just thought she was lying.
- In Stephen Fry's Making History, the agents try to crack Michael's story by asking him if the man he claimed to see on a train had a white or gray beard. He says that the man was clean-shaven, which turns out to be the correct answer.
- In Trainspotting, at a job interview Renton claims to have gone to a posh secondary school, which the interviewer also went to. The interviewer then asks him if a particular teacher is still teaching there. Renton, sensing a trap, simply laughs and says "God, you're taking me back now!"
Live-Action TV
- In Arrow, during a flashback to his time on the island Oliver, impersonating one of Fyers' soldiers, is subjected to this with Fyers asking what boat he came in on, knowing that every soldier who comes to the island does so by airplane. Subverted in that Oliver manages to beat the bluff, but Fyers is actually already aware of who he is anyway.
- In Blackadder's Christmas Carol, when Pigmot asks the future Blackadder if he vanquished the Nibble-Pibblies, the General replies "No, because you just made them up."
- In an early episode of Burn Notice, Michael Westen tries to get close to a Con Man named Quentin, and as part of his cover ID he claims that after Quentin got out of prison Michael wound up sharing a cell with Quentin's former cellmate, Paco, and it was Paco who recommended that Michael work with Quentin someday. When Quentin tests Michael's cover ID, he asks about Paco's prison wine, and Michael replies "Paco doesn't drink. What are you trying to pull on me?" He and Sam lampshade this and how Michael had a Gut Feeling that Quentin was testing him and just took a shot in the dark.
- In Charmed, when Piper is possessed by a demonic spirit, the possessing spirit cannot access any of Piper's memories but can communicate with the real Piper's consciousness when looking at a reflective surface such as a mirror. The real Piper takes advantage of this by repeatedly withholding key details or intentionally feeding the spirit false information in attempts to trick her into blowing her cover. It finally works when Piper tricks the spirit into addressing her boyfriend, Leo, by the wrong name, tipping him off that she isn't the real Piper. However, the spirit catches on quickly and knocks Leo unconscious before he can take any action against her or alert the other sisters.
- An episode of Fringe has Peter and Olivia infiltrating a black-market biological weapons deal, with an NSA agent who's been working the case feeding Olivia information through an earbud, to convince people that they are who they say they are. But Peter — who doesn't have an earbud — is eventually asked where he met a particular individual. Olivia, with the agent's help, chimes in that they would have met at Oxford, but when asked exactly where the two met, neither Olivia nor the agent can help. At which point Peter, being well-traveled and brilliant, completely improvises a description of the scenario using his knowledge of restaurants in the area.
- In House, Taub pretends to have started playing racketball regularly with Wilson, but House is almost certain he's lying and quizzes him on the sport. It's almost a double subversion in that House knows that Taub knows House is applying the trope (see the example below), but since Taub's answer was correct, he hasn't really caught him out.
Gregory House: Is a Z shot an offensive or defensive shot?
Chris Taub: Both.
Gregory House: You suspected that was a trick question.
Chris Taub: But I could have said neither.- There's a double subversion in another episode, when House suspects Cuddy is feigning interest in an artist.
Gregory House: Do you prefer the pop stuff or the Venezuelan stuff?
Lisa Cuddy: That's a trick question.
Gregory House: Yes, but you don't know how it's a trick question.
- There's a double subversion in another episode, when House suspects Cuddy is feigning interest in an artist.
- In a Key & Peele sketch, a Nazi officer "tests" our two leads to see if they are "Das Negros" hiding somewhere in the neighborhood with some truly bizarre and baseless "tests" that they show no real trouble with. However, as he is about to leave again, it seems like one of them, alias Baron Helmut Schnitzelnazi, might actually be in trouble when he asks about his fellow Schnizelnazi relatives from another part of the country, and about Aunt Frieda in particular.
Officer: How's your Aunt Frieda?
Baron Helmut Schnitzelnazi: Aunt Frieda? She... is... still... [guessing] ...fat?
Officer: I don't recall her being fat. [ominous beat] But who looks like they did in college anyway?- ...and he leaves for real shortly afterward. Apparently he just thought he'd ask.
- Leverage: Sophie is nearly outed when the mark asks her if she's familiar with a certain person. Nate smiles and tells her (on her earpiece) to reply that the man is dead, which satisfies the mark. This is a bluff on Nate's part, though, as Hardison only confirmed the information several seconds later, which would've been too late for Sophie. For her part, Sophie tries to be as vague about it as possible, invoking Never Say "Die":
Sophie: I'm so sorry. It was a beautiful ceremony.
- In Medium, when Ariel's body is possessed by the spirit of a murdered woman, Joe tries to pull this trope by suggesting an idea for her birthday party, and deliberately giving the wrong month. However, the woman in Ariel's body is prepared by now (not in the least because in a fit of desperation, Allison suggested, in front of "Ariel", that Joe ask her something only the real Ariel would know) and knows when Ariel's real birthday is (presumably from looking at her student ID). She calls him on his error, and he covers up by claiming that it's hard to keep track of everyone's birthday when you have three kids.
- "The Mind of Stefan Miklos" episode of Mission: Impossible had foreign spy Simpson try to determine if the man he was talking to was really Stefan Miklos. Rollin, impersonating Miklos, not only corrected Simpson's false statements but then feigned irritation that Simpson, who was being investigated, had the gall to test Miklos.
- In Prison Break, Charles' first conversation with Michael is along these lines when Michael claims to have known his wife, but fails to trip him up.
- Star Trek:
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Time's Arrow", this happens twice with Data pretending to be a Frenchman in 19th century San Francisco:
- A gambler in the saloon talks to Data in French. Presumably because of his Omniscient Database, Data can speak it fluently.
- Later, Samuel Clemens is suspicious of Data's origin and intentions. At one point Clemens asks Data, "Where in Switzerland did you say you were from?" but Data calmly reiterates that he is French. Clemens nonetheless remains skeptical despite the bluff having failed.
- In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Whispers", Bashir is performing a medical exam on Replicant O'Brien, who's quite irritated at the length of the exam. Bashir wraps up by asking if his parents are in good health. Bashir knows that the real man's mother died two years ago and is hoping to goad the imposter into a wrong answer. But the replicant, having all of O'Brien's memories, snaps that Bashir knows full well that his mother is dead.
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Time's Arrow", this happens twice with Data pretending to be a Frenchman in 19th century San Francisco:
Radio
- In one episode of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Patsy Straightwoman attempts to enter the special caff on ferries that's only for lorry drivers by pretending to be a lorry driver on her way to Portugal. The lorry drivers guarding the door are not convinced, but are particularly clueless about testing her ("What colour is your lorry?" "Blue." "Ooh, some lorries are blue."), culminating with:
Lorry driver: If you're going to Portugal, you must know my friend ... Pedro?
Patsy: Yes. I do.
Lorry driver: Well when you see him, tell him Steve says hi.
Patsy: Will do.
Lorry driver: Ha! You just gave yourself away, little lady. My name's not Steve!
Beat
Patsy: Okay, but how could I possibly have known that?
Lorry driver: Argh, I should have lied about Pedro's name! I keep doing this! Okay, in you go.
Video Games
- In Baldur's Gate, there is a quest that involves the player character doing investigations for Aldeth Sashenstar in his offices under the pretense of being his childhood friend. One of his business partners whose behaviour you are there to investigate (and who is himself in fact a doppleganger impostor) asks you whether, if you were Aldeth's childhood friend, you were friends with Dabron as well. Since Dabron is in truth Aldeth's real brother, it's showing ignorance that will give you away at this point, not that it makes a difference for the plot. It's not clear whether this is intended as a subversion, since the doppleganger could simply be straightforwardly trying to catch you not knowing what it's talking about...
Web Comics
- In Spinnerette, the real Heather fails one of these because she just can't remember what she had for breakfast on one particular day a while ago.
- TwoKinds: In Comic 1261, Keiren realizes something is off with Adira and mentions that they have her daughter, Mira. "Adira" immediately starts acting concerned, but didn't realize the real Adira's daughter is actually named Maeve.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender has a hilarious Double Subversion in "The Awakening":
Impostor: Actually, we're from the Eastern fleet. We have orders to deliver some cargo.
Commander: Ah, Eastern fleet. (sarcastically) Well, nice of Admiral Chan to let us know he was sending one of his ships our way.
Impostor: I'm sure Admiral Chan meant no disrespect, sir.
(the commander accepts this; but later...)
Commander's aide: Sir, Admiral Chan has been on leave for two months at Ember Island.
Commander: What?! Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything?