History Main / EmergencyImpersonation

* Inverted in an episode of ''Anime/SailorMoon'', where Usagi is kidnapped by Kaolinite [[spoiler: because she suspects Usagi has the Talisman in her Heart Crystal ''and'' has some leads that about Usagi being Sailor Moon]]. Since her TransformationTrinket has been taken away, Usagi can't transform... [[Funny/SailorMoon and then, Minako must pretend to be Sailor Moon.]] Everyone else is fooled, but Usagi is less than impressed.

* Utilized in the manga ''Princess Prince'', where HalfIdenticalTwins trade places after one gets pregnant. The twist is that not only is the "replacement Princess" a boy, but his "fiancee" is well aware of this.
* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', this is played with - all the relevant major characters know about the deception, and it's all in all a pretty twisted case of the trope.
** Specifically, Light takes on the guise of [[spoiler: L, after killing the real L. Near, however, knows L is dead and figures out who the new L is pretty easily. After the grand finale, Near himself takes up the mantle of L]].
* This is the entire plot of the manga ''Manga/MagicalXMiracle''.

* 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 ''Anime/LupinIIIVsDetectiveConan'', a {{Crossover}} MadeForTVMovie, Ran turns out to be a near ringer for the princess of a small European country. [[spoiler:She ends up involuntarily impersonating the girl for a while, to help draw out a murderer.]]. The princess, meanwhile, got a chance to enjoy the way the other half lives.

* In ''The First President of Japan'', the Communist BigBad has a Chinese diplomat killed. He finds a ''very'' suitable replacement in some average Joe off the street--in fact, it's pointed out how uncanny the resemblance is. The villain just about got away with it, but an analyst lined up a still from the impostor's conference with an older still, thereby [[SpotTheThread figuring out what had happened]].
* 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.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': On the very day Naruto was to take up the mantle as Hokage, he was knocked out cold by his daughter hitting him with a Gentle Fist (aimed at her brother for ripping apart her teddy bear). Konohamaru was forced to use the Transformation Jutsu to pose as him, since Naruto didn't wake up for the rest of the day.

* 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.

* 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.

* The cult favorite ''Film/BubbaHoTep'' relies on the premise that in the early '70s, Elvis Presley traded places with an Elvis impersonator; the impersonator died in 1977, and the real Elvis lived to a ripe old age in a retirement home. Either that or an Elvis impersonator started suffering from delusions in his dotage; even the character himself isn't quite sure.
* Premise of the 1988 movie ''Film/MoonOverParador.'' An actor who has just finished filming a movie on location in the fictional Latin American BananaRepublic of Parador gets coerced into pretending to be that country's dictator (whom he resembles and was already good at impersonating) when the latter unexpectedly dies.

* This is the premise of the Wayans Bros. movie ''Film/WhiteChicks''.
* The premise of the movie ''Film/BadCompany2002'', in which a dead CIA agent posing as a nuclear arms dealer has to be impersonated by his SeparatedAtBirth identical twin brother.

* In the ''UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}}'' movie ''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.]]
* Happens in ''Film/TheGreatRace'' (as part of ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda'' parody) with Fate being a dead ringer for the king of [[{{Ruritania}} Pottsdorf]].
* In ''The Passenger'' 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.

* Happens in ''Hair'' (the movie): George Berger impersonates Claude Hooper Bukowski to extract Claude from the base for a last meeting with Sheila, taking his place, but while Claude is away, [[spoiler:the unit flies out to Vietnam, taking Berger with them. [[TearJerker The film ends with the main cast singing at Berger's grave.]] Damn you, [[Creator/MilosForman Miloš Forman]]!]]
* This was a staple of several Creator/DannyKaye movies. In ''On the Double'' he impersonated a British army officer, while in ''On the Riviera'' he impersonated a womanizing French pilot.
* The Soviet classic ''Film/IvanVasilievichChangesProfession'' involves a minor Soviet official and a well-known thief ending up in UsefulNotes/IvanTheTerrible's court. By chance, the official (also named Ivan) looks exactly like the Tsar (who has been sent to 70s Moscow), so the thief forces him to wear the royal robes and pretend to be the Tsar, while the thief pretends to be a knyaz (minor noble) named Mikoslavsky (his name). Immediately, the problem with the knyaz arises, as the real Knyaz Miloslavsky was recently ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice by order of the Tsar. The thief, naturally, claims that it was the ''other'' Knyaz Miloslavsky. The official is reluctant to pretend to be someone else, especially since he has to deal with state business, such as receiving a foreign ambassador.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''[[Film/TheNakedGun Naked Gun 2½]]'' when Drebin's team sneaks into a concert hall disguised as a mariachi band set to play. Accidentally stumbling on stage and facing an audience, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjursdqfUhM they perfectly improvise "Bésame Mucho" to stay hidden.]]
* Thanks to her resemblance to late Princess Ananka, John's wife Isobel in ''Film/TheMummy1959'' stops the mummy Kharis (who loved Ananka in the past) from strangling her husband by making herself look even more like her.
* In ''Film/UpTheChastityBelt'', King Richard decides to stay behind in Germany with his latest piece of fluff, Lurkalot adopts Richard's identity and returns to England in an attempt to sort out the mess there. This does not go in any way according to plan.

* This trope is central to the story of ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda'', where Rudolph Rassendyl has to impersonate his royal cousin who has been kidnapped the day before his coronation.
** The story is parodied in ''[[Literature/{{Flashman}} Royal Flash]]''.
** And reused in the Creator/RobertAHeinlein novel ''Literature/DoubleStar'', also known as Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda...''InSpace!''
* The Literature/{{Discworld}} novel ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'' does this, with [[AC:Death]] impersonating the Hogfather (the local equivalent of SantaClaus). It's also the plot of ''Literature/{{Mort}}'', with Mort impersonating [[AC:Death]].

* In ''[[Literature/{{Deryni}} Saint Camber]]'', Alister Cullen dies in arcane combat with Ariella. Camber finds his body and takes his identity because King Cinhil trusts Alister above any other Deryni. With the aid of his son Joram, Camber alters the appearance of the corpse and himself to make the world think he is dead and Alister lives; his later efforts to make sense of the scraps of memory left in the corpse endanger the deception and fuel the demands for his sainthood.

* There's a rather strange, but sad, example on ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo'' -- while in hospital, main character Yossarian is roped in to play a dying soldier visited by his family, because the real soldier is already dead and the doctor doesn't want to disappoint them. Made especially weird by the fact that Yossarian insists they call him by his real name, rather than the dead soldier's name, and manages to convince the family (except the mother) that the soldier's name was Yossarian all along.

* In Creator/KeithLaumer's ''Worlds of the Imperium'', the protagonist is dragooned by agents from the Imperium's AlternateHistory to replace a dictator (the version of himself from a third AlternateHistory). [[spoiler: The dictator lost both legs to war wounds, a fact kept secret from the public. The impersonation thus fails immediately when the protagonist is seen by someone who has actually met the dictator.]]

* In the second ''Literature/CodexAlera'' novel Max winds up having to impersonate the First Lord using [[VoluntaryShapeshifting watercrafting]] after he collapses from exhaustion so the First Lord's enemies won't realize he's incapacitated. [[spoiler: Which becomes absolutely ''hilarious'' when Max has to ''seduce the First Lady'' to keep the masquerade up.]]
* In Elise Title's ''The Face in the Mirror'' a model who greatly resembled a missing research scientist was pressed into impersonating her. It was eventually revealed that they were twins separated at birth.
* 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.]]

* The premise of the movie ''Film/BadCompany'', in which a dead CIA agent posing as a nuclear arms dealer has to be impersonated by his SeparatedAtBirth identical twin brother.

* 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/MaiHime'' 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.

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

* 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.

* The Literature/{{Discworld}} novel ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' does this, with [[AC:Death]] impersonating the Hogfather (the local equivalent of SantaClaus). It's also the plot of ''Discworld/{{Mort}}'', with Mort impersonating [[AC:Death]].

* In ''Anime/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.

* The plot of the Barbie movie The Princess and the Pauper is actually this more than it is ThePrinceAndThePauper. 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.

A secondary character of some importance in the world at large has disappeared or been rendered incapable of performing his usual duties: they've been kidnapped, or have run away, or they might have even died. Alternatively, they might need to be [[TwoTimerDate in two places at once to satisfy conflicting commitments]]. Someone else (usually one of the program's leads) finds themself dragooned into service; they must impersonate the missing person during some critical event or meeting... or for much longer.

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

* Happens in ''Film/TheGreatRace'' (as part of ''ThePrisonerOfZenda'' parody) with Fate being a dead ringer for the king of [[{{Ruritania}} Pottsdorf]].

* This trope is central to the story of ''ThePrisonerOfZenda'', where Rudolph Rassendyl has to impersonate his royal cousin who has been kidnapped the day before his coronation.

** And reused in the Creator/RobertAHeinlein novel ''Literature/DoubleStar'', also known as ThePrisonerOfZenda...''InSpace!''

Usually -- but not always -- involves an IdenticalStranger. See also TheBeard, BodyDouble and MockMillionaire.

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'': In "Blue Collar Scrooge", Fenton Crackshell impersonates Scrooge Mcduck so his deal with [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Mr. Trumpcard]] won't fall through.

* Happens in ''TheGreatRace'' (as part of ''ThePrisonerOfZenda'' parody) with Fate being a dead ringer for the king of [[{{Ruritania}} Pottsdorf]].

* The cult favorite ''Film/BubbaHoTep'' relies on the premise that in the early '70s, Elvis Presley traded places with an Elvis impersonator; the impersonator died in 1977, and the real Elvis lived to a ripe old age in a retirement home.

* In an episode ''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 in the Battle of Little Big Horn, and certainly not act like a 20 year old bachelor and goof off.

* NorseMythology: A frost giant steals Thor's hammer, and will only return it if the gods hand over their LoveGoddess Freya in marriage. After Freya [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen voiced her objections]], the giants got Thor in drag. An unshaved, very much unhappy Thor in drag (with Loki as bridesmaid)... and yet the giants didn't notice anything until they brought the hammer out to bless the wedding. Cue KickingAssInAllHerFinery.

* In the ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'' story "Caffeine Headache," most of the people in the city begin acting weird due to something in the coffee. The superheroes struggle to maintain order, but Michael (the Black Torrent) is out of town. (He's actually in South America investigating the farms where the coffee originated.) His father dons the superhero costume and goes out in his place.
** Since his father was the original Black Torrent, this is a combination of this trope plus MandatoryUnretirement.

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

* In the {{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.