History Main / EmergencyImpersonation

* ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'': One arc has Matt Murdoch imprisoned. Fortunately ComicBook/IronFist puts on his costume and keeps fighting crime so "is Matt Murdoch really Daredevil" remains unanswered.
* ''ComicBook/JonSableFreelance'' #49 is an {{Homage}}[=/=]WholePlotReference to ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda'' with Jon standing in for a kidnapped European monarch.

* ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': Happens accidentally to Shakira in an issue. Shakira discovers she is a [[IdenticalStranger dead ringer for a kidnapped princess]]. She takes the princess's place, leading the kidnappers to believe the princess has escaped.

* In ''Film/ThePassenger'' Jack Nicholson's character assumes the identity of an acquaintance for reasons that remain difficult to fathom, even keeping meetings with men who turn out to be quite dangerous and who expect him to provide things he cannot.

* ''Series/TheGoodies''. After their ZanyScheme lands the Royal Family in hospital, the Goodies have to impersonate the Royal Family (Tim as the Queen, Bill as Prince Charles, Graeme as Princess Anne, and a store mannequin as the Duke of Edinburgh) for a remount of the Coronation put on for tourism reasons. The Royals are enjoying the chance to lie in bed watching it this time, [[OhCrap until they suddenly realise that Tim being crowned will make the Goodies the next Royal Family]].

* In the WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} ''A Knight For a Day'', {{Dogface}} squire Cedric accidentally knocks out his master Sir Loinsteak right before a jousting match and has to take his place.

* In ''{{Anime/Pokemon}},'' a Torchic, Treecko and Mudkip were being prepared as choices for the starter Pokémon of a new Hoenn Trainer. Ash and his friends were tasked with watching over them before the new Trainer came, but the Torchic accidentally evolved into Combusken, forcing them to use May's Torchic as a temporary replacement and try to convince the new Trainer to pick Mudkip or Treecko.
** Serena had to dress up and pose as Ash to keep a loud rocker from waking Ash (recuperating from a fever) up.

* In the ''Theater/SeraMyu'' musical ''Un Nouveau Voyage'', when Usagi is taken hostage, the Sailor Senshi come to her rescue - with Sailor Venus dressing up as Sailor Moon in an attempt to convince the villains that they’ve grabbed a random girl. (Sailor Chibi Moon took Venus’ place instead.) It was halfway convincing until one of Venus’ hair buns fell off and rolled across the stage.

* One ''{{ComicBook/Daredevil}}'' arc has Matt Murdoch imprisoned. Fortunately ComicBook/IronFist puts on his costume and keeps fighting crime so "is Matt Murdoch really Daredevil" remains unanswered.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Superior}}'', Simon Pooni is given the powers and film appearance of his favourite comic book character, Superman expy Superior. When his bully is given the powers of Superior's foe Abraxas and Simon is depowered, the bully begins to destroy the city to lure out Superior. With Superior no where to be seen the actor who played him, Tad Scott, appears and tries to pretend to be Superior to lure the bully away from the city.
* Happens accidentally to Shakira in an issue of ''ComicBook/TheWarlord''. Shakira discovers she is a [[IdenticalStranger dead ringer for a kidnapped princess]]. She takes the princess's place, leading the kidnappers to believe the princess has escaped.

* In the ''UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}}'' movie ''Film/{{Don}}'', the protagonist, Vijay, has to go undercover to impersonate the dead eponymous character, a leader of an underworld gang in Mumbai, in order to help the police arrest the rest of the gang. In TheRemake, [[spoiler:this trope is subverted as Don kills Vijay and ends up acting as Vijay acting as himself to fool both his gang and the police.]]

* The main plot of the first book of the ''Literature/AscendanceTrilogy'' by Jennifer A. Nielson. A young man taken from an orphanage is trained, along with two other candidates, to impersonate a missing prince (by a nobleman with dubious motives) and take the throne, which will otherwise be a source of civil war, after the king dies. [[spoiler: The young man actually is the prince, who was living in hiding.]]

* This was a staple of several Creator/DannyKaye movies. In ''Film/{{On the Double}}'' he impersonated a British army officer, while in ''Film/{{On the Riviera}}'' he impersonated a womanizing French pilot.

While sometimes the impostor receives sufficient briefing and/or real-time aid to bring off the deception seamlessly, it's more common for time or other constraints to prevent this seemingly necessary step. In a comedic setting, naturally, HilarityEnsues; in more dramatic locales, the results can be anything from painfully embarrassing to potentially fatal.

* In ''Roleplay/TheGamersAlliance'', when [[TheChosenOne King]] [[ThePaladin Marcus]] is kidnapped on the eve of the Grand Alliance's march to Maar Sul, the heroes who know about the king's disappearance quickly come up with a plan to make one person impersonate Marcus and thus keep the budding Alliance together until the real Marcus has been located. The candidate for "fake" Marcus ends up being [[CloudCuckooLander Ronove]] who quickly goes drunk on power as soon as he gets the crown on his head, and HilarityEnsues.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' had Fred fill in for a prominent billionaire who ran off to play hooky for a day. Not only did this guarantee that HilarityEnsues, but let's just say it didn't end well for either of them.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'', Otto and Larry impersonate the spirit of one of Sitting Bull's ancestors in order to convince him that his visions meant for him to fight and protect his people from General Custer's army in the Battle of Little Big Horn, and certainly not act like a 20 year old bachelor and goof off.

* Canadian Member of Parliament Rahim Jaffer [[http://www.robertfulford.com/RahimJaffer.html was impersonated on a radio phone-in show by an aide]] in March 2001. He was apparently double booked. And the aide sounds nothing like him.

* The plot of ''WesternAnimation/BarbieInThePrincessAndThePauper'' is actually this more than it is the PrinceAndPauper. The girls don't choose to switch places, but after Annaliese is kidnapped, Julian thinks that having Erika impersonate her would be a good way to throw his suspect off guard to solve the disappearance. However, it works too well—when Annaliese escapes and tries to go back to the castle, the guards think she is the imposter.

* The plot of ''WesternAnimation/BarbieInThePrincessAndThePauper'' is actually this more than it is the PrinceAndPauper. The girls don't choose to switch places, but after Annalise is kidnapped, Julian thinks that having Erica impersonate her would be a good way to throw his suspect off guard to solve the disappearance. However, it works too well—when Annalise escapes and tries to go back to the castle, the guards think she is the imposter.

Usually -- but not always -- involves an IdenticalStranger. Depending on whether the impersonated individual's identity is known, it may overlap with MasqueradingAsTheUnseen. See also TheBeard, BodyDouble and MockMillionaire.

* The ''Series/GetSmart'' episode "The King Lives?", in which Max poses as the King of Coronia, a person whom he strongly physically resembles, in order to uncover the party behind an assassination attempt made against the King shortly before his coronation.

* In ''Manga/DetectiveConan'', Conan frequently has to recruit others to play his 17-year-old self, Shinichi, to avoid suspicion by Ran. Likewise, he's had Ai Haibara pretend to be Conan a couple times, and once asked Kid to pretend to be Ai's own 17 year old self. Kid also likes to pretend to be Shinichi(or quite literally ANYONE ELSE) to avoid capture on multiple occasions.

* In episode 12 of ''Anime/MaiOtome'', Mashiro runs away rather than meet a foreign prince, and Arika is forced to impersonate her. However, in a double invocation of the trope, the prince is himself an impostor, Akira, the [[SweetPollyOliver female]] bodyguard of the true prince who himself is missing (which is a call back to the previous series ''AniMe/MyHime'' where that version of Akira was pulling a SweetPollyOliver at school). Naturally, the real Mashiro and Prince Takumi meet, neither knowing who the other is. Pleasantly enough, this is ''not'' played for laughs, despite the strong tendency of anime using this trope to do so. What ''is'' played for laughs is Nina claiming to be Arika just for the hell of it -- and to further perpetrate the joke, Mashiro introduces herself as Nina, completing the circle.

[[caption-width-right:350:Generally it works better is only ''one'' person is doing the impersonating.]]

* In Creator/SimonRGreen's ''Blood And Honor'', an actor and stage magician is secretly hired to impersonate Prince Victor of Redhart, who's been poisoned by one of his brothers and rivals for the throne. A transformation spell lets Jordan look just like Victor, and another grants him insight into the Prince's background, habits and motives. [[spoiler: Which, together with Victor's private ranting about how he's going to unleash a vindictive bloodbath once he's King, spurs Jordan to murder Victor and assume his identity permanently.]]

** ''The Enemy of the World'' is centered around the Doctor impersonating wannabe world dictator Salamander in order to uncover information that would discredit him.

** A subplot of ''The Crusade'' involved knight William des Préaux pretending to be [[UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart King Richard]] during an Arab ambush to save the real Richard from capture. TruthInTelevision, because this incident actually happened.

* ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'':
** In the story "Caffeine Headache," the Black Torrent is out of town. His father dons the superhero costume and goes out in his place. Since he was the original Black Torrent, this is a combination of this trope plus MandatoryUnretirement.
** Later, it gets cranked up even further when two of the heroes retire and two of the other heroes need to take their places. Then two ''new'' heroes need to be recruited to impersonate those two... It gets a bit confusing after that.
* In ''Literature/TheEmpressGame'', Kayla is supposed to impersonate Princess Isonde in combat during the Empress Games, but Isonde gets sent into a coma by means of a toxin; as such, Kayla has to take over full-time, including the political and social games which Isonde would normally handle.
* In Creator/SimonRGreen's ''Blood And Honor'', an actor and stage magician is secretly hired to impersonate Prince Victor of Redhart, who's been poisoned by one of his brothers and rivals for the throne. A transformation spell lets Jordan look just like Victor, and another grants him insight into the Prince's background, habits and motives. [[spoiler: Which, together with Victor's private ranting about how he's going to unleash a vindictive bloodbath once he's King, spurs Jordan to murder Victor and assume his identity permanently.]]
* In one book in the ''Magic Attic Club'' series, ''Heather Goes to Hollywood'', the eponymous protagonist is recruited out of an audition to stand in at an award ceremony for a child actress who's run away from home. She eventually reveals the ruse, feeling that the real actress deserves to be heard and that can't happen if no one knows anything's out of the ordinary.

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'':
** In "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass", Walter Denton is drafted to impersonate Stretch Snodgrass, while Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks impersonate his parents.
** In "Head of the State Board of Education", Miss Brooks asks a bum to impersonate the head of the state board (unaware that said bum is the head of the state board), Mr. Boynton impersonates Mr. Conklin, Mr. Conklin imitates Walter Denton, and Walter Denton claims to be Stretch Snodgrass. It all MakesSenseInContext.
* Probably one of the weirdest versions of this trope is in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Host", which is the introductory episode of the Trill. The Trill ambassador is killed in an attack, but his symbiote is still alive. However, no other Trill is able to make it before it dies, so Commander Riker has the symbiote implanted in him. Thus, Riker is forced to carry out the ambassador's mission, which is a slight problem when the factions that requested the ambassador see him.
** This counts as a variant of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, as the nature of Trill symbiotes being some kind of huge secret was quietly {{RetCon}}ned away for ''[[Series/StartrekDeepspaceNine DS9]]''.
* Played straight only with time travel in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s "[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture Past Tense]]", where Sisko's presence in the past causes the premature death of an important historical figure a few days before he was supposed to die heroically. Sisko then has to impersonate him.
** In a later season, Nog was studying Earth's history, and when he encountered an entry about the historical figure, passed comment about how closely Sisko resembled a picture of him (the picture, of course, being that of Sisko). Quark shrugs it off, saying [[DittoAliens "All hew-mons look alike"]].
** Sisko also, at one point, gets kidnapped by Miles 'Smiley' O'Brien from the Mirror Universe, because Mirror-Sisko was killed-in-action and they need someone to convince Sisko's Mirror-wife to join the rebel cause. Subverted when at the end of the episode Mirror Jennifer asks what happened to her real husband revealing she knew all along who he was.
* Done by Klinger over the phone in one episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}''. An officer he's trying to get information from insists on speaking to Colonel Potter, but Potter is in surgery, so Klinger pretends to hand the phone off and then does a voice impersonation of Potter. It's apparently good enough to fool his contact; he not only gets the information he needs, but manages to pull off a trade to the unit's benefit.
* ''Series/HogansHeroes'' does this ''three times''. The first is when Kinch impersonates an African prince, the second when Crittendon impersonates an English traitor, and the third in reverse where the heroes help a German defector, who looks exactly like Schultz, escape by dressing him up in Schultz' uniform.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In "Sightings", after Meg is captured, she is made to announce over a loudspeaker that Lt. Rabb should hand himself over or she will be killed. Since they don't know J.D. is there as well, and haven't seen Harm yet, J.D. and Harm change clothes, allowing J.D. to serve as a distraction while Harm sneaks in to do his hero thing.
* The ''Series/GetSmart'' episode "The King Lives?".
* The classic ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial ''The Enemy of the World'' is centered around the Doctor impersonating wannabe world dictator Salamander in order to uncover information that would discredit him.
** A subplot of an earlier serial, ''The Crusade'', involved knight William des Préaux pretending to be [[UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart King Richard]] during an Arab ambush to save the real Richard from capture. TruthInTelevision, because this incident actually happened.

* Happened occasionally on ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', when one or another character had to fill in for alternate-world versions of themselves.
* In ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', Ducky impersonates the deceased arms dealer to try to capture La Grenouille.
** Tony and Ziva impersonate two dead, married assassins to foil an assassination plot.

* In the ''Series/SimonAndSimon'' episode "Walk a Mile in My Hat", a potential client shows up looking for A.J. while he's out of town, and Rick decides to impersonate A.J.--clothing and behavior included--to get her business. A.J. comes back after the case has gotten complicated and winds up taking on ''Rick's'' persona just to shake up the opposition.
* Done a few times on ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'', where Xena has at least two {{Identical Stranger}}s who she either impersonates or impersonate her.

* In an ''Series/{{Airwolf}}'' episode, the pilot was recruited to fly a plane during an air show while the look-alike Soviet pilot was debriefed by the Firm to see if he actually wanted to defect. Unfortunately the Soviets got wind of it, brought his wife to threaten him, the pilot and the wife got kidnapped.

* Played for laughs in ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'', when a woman comes to see her condemned husband but Blackadder has already has him executed ahead of schedule, and so Blackadder himself has to impersonate him. With the aid of [[PaperThinDisguise a bag over his head]].

* In the Third Season Finale of ''Series/TheGoodPlace'', Michael creates a fake Good Place neighborhood as part of an experiment, but he suffers a nervous breakdown ''seconds'' before he's supposed to introduce people into it, so Eleanor has to pretend to be the architect instead.

* The play ''Lend Me a Tenor'' features a stage manager's assistant stepping in for a famous opera star who has supposedly committed suicide just before a performance.

* In ''Theatre/TheTamingOfTheShrew'', a servant, Tranio, switches clothes with and fills in for his master, Lucentio, as part of a classic ZanyScheme. Later, he pushes the scheme further by getting another character to impersonate Lucentio's father.

* In ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'', [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/000507c Dr. Light decides to force the Author to serve as Megaman.]]

* In the WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} ''A Knight For a Day'', {{Dogface}} squire Cedric accidentally knocks out his master Sir Loinsteak right before a jousting match and has to take his place.
* In a ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' episode, Tucker and Sam took turns dressing as Danny Fenton to ensure his parents of his whereabouts since the ''real'' Danny is currently stuck in ghost mode. They had to keep running away, declaring "a ghost took their face" since...well, his parents would probably notice that they're respectively a different race and gender than their actual son.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' had Fred fill in for a prominent billionaire who ran off to play hooky for a day. Not only did this guarantee that HilarityEnsues, but let's just say it didn't end well for either of them.
* In a ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode, their dad accidentally gets into Perry's secret base and has his memory wiped. [[AnimalSuperhero Perry]] has to stand in for him at Candace's Father/Daughter Competition in a robot version of him that [[TheIntern Carl]] had made "[[CrazyPrepared just for this type of situation]]."
* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' episode "Night of the Batmen," Green Arrow, Aquaman, Captain Marvel and Plastic Man all independently decide to fill in for an injured Batman. In this case, it's the impersonators that learn the Aesop, that Batman doesn't need anyone's help, because he's Batman. Even working together, they end up being captured, and Batman has to build a robotic suit and rescue them while he's still recovering.
* ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'': In "The Spy Who Stayed In With A Cold," Danger Mouse is captured by the motorbiking Mongols. Agent 57, whose head cold makes him randomly change identities when he sneezes, takes on DM's form and completely flummoxes the Mongols into retreating.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BarbieInThePrincessAndThePauper'', Barbie [[AnimatedActors "stars"]] as both Princess Anneliese and a poor girl named Erika. The Princess is [[ArrangedMarriage betrothed]] to King Dominick, but when she's kidnapped, Dominick thinks she's run away and threatens to call off the wedding. To buy time, the Princess's tutor, Julian (Ken), convinces Erika to fill-in for her until everything can be straightened out.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ActionLeagueNow'' episode, "Danger For a Dignitary", [[NakedPeopleAreFunny The Flesh]] accidentally injures an ambassador who is sent to sign a peace treaty, and looks nearly identical to him in appearance. When the surgery to save the ambassador does not meet the deadline to sign the peace treaty, The Flesh is forced to take The Ambassador's place, and is dressed in his clothes.