History Main / SherlockScan

-->'''Liz''': Your class ring is from this year. It’s pewter, not gold, so no nickel. And on the mantle is your middle school diploma, which is from three years ago so you skipped a year. And there on the fridge is this cute little picture of you and Mr. Wonderful. Elven cause ribbons. Enough said. Now, onto the brown, a color clearly chosen by a man who had absolutely no input from his wife. And since I can’t see a single picture of a mom anywhere, I’m guessing she left a long time ago and you guys are not happy about it.

---> '''Holmes:''' Come, come, your profession isn't hard to perceive.\\

That hankerchief tucked in your sleeve,\\

* The 1965 Broadway musical ''Baker Street'' makes this the subject of its first song, "It's So Simple," sung after Holmes meets a visitor in civilian clothes and immediately identifies his profession and military rank.

* The 1965 Broadway musical ''Baker Street'' renders it as a PatterSong with "It's So Simple," sung after Holmes meets a visitor in civilian clothes and immediately identifies his profession and military rank.

And you're too young for a major, and so I should gauge you're** Rendered as a PatterSong, "It's So Simple," in the 1965 Broadway musical ''Baker Street''.
---> '''Holmes:''' Come, come, your profession isn't hard to perceive.\\
Your manner, your bearing, the very clothes you're wearing,\\
That hankerchief tucked in your sleeve,\\
A military custom, I believe.\\
Of course you're an officer, Sandhurst, am I right?\\

A captain.

** Rendered as a PatterSong, "It's So Simple," in the musical ''Baker Street''.

* The 1965 Broadway musical ''Baker Street'' makes this the whole subject of its first song, "It's So Simple," where Holmes meets a visitor in civilian clothes and immediately identifies his profession and military rank, and then deduces that he's there to ask for help with a woman who is blackmailing him.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': Nick performs a [[DownplayedTrope minor one]] on Judy when they first meet. From observing that she's a bunny cop in a meter monitoring outfit, he correctly deduces that she came to Zootopia with big dreams, but got shunted to a low position due to her status as a bunny and that she originally comes from a carrot farm. He also accurately predicts that [[spoiler:she will give up her dreams and go home]], though it's only temporary and not exactly for the reasons he anticipated. And although he doesn't reveal it until later, he also noticed that [[spoiler:she was carrying a fox repellent]].

* ''Radio/JohnFinnemoresSouvenirProgramme:'' Spoofed when a visitor is more impressed with Dr. Watson than Sherlock (who she has apparently never heard of), and refuses to be impressed by his cold reading of her. She then turns it around by performing one on him that drives him to screaming fury, and he insists that she must have been sent by an enemy to do so, since she can't ''possibly'' have deduced his supposed deficiencies on the violin from his clothes and appearance. She retorts that she deduced it from his manner, which was also how she deduced that his housekeeper is increasingly upset by him.

* ''Radio/JohnFinnemoresSouvenirProgramme:'' Spoofed when a visitor is more impressed with Dr. Watson than Sherlock, and refuses to be impressed by his cold reading of her. She then turns it around by performing one on him that drives him to screaming fury, which clues Sherlock in that she was actually sent by an enemy to annoy him. She was, but the bit about being more interested in Watson's still genuine.

** "[[Recap/SherlockS01E01AStudyInPink A Study in Pink]]" contains 3 different types of scans to [[EstablishingCharacterMoment establish]] just how crazy the titular detective is. Though in a bit of a departure from the usual trope, he's not always ''quite'' right -- when [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EbhfRBAWwo he first meets Watson]], he deduces that Watson has an estranged alcoholic brother named Harry who has recently left his wife. He's right about the troubled sibling relationship, the alcohol, and the break-up... but Harry [[spoiler:is short for ''[[TomboyishName Harriet]]''.]]

** In "The Fast and the Furriest", MauveShirt [=NYPD=] video and audio tech Tory Ellis gets an EstablishingCharacterMoment looking at a video the murder victim shot and quickly narrowing down the victims approximate location and the direction she was moving based on the trees in the background, the sound of a river, and the position of the moon and various shadows.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Richard Castle regularly uses this on suspects, sometimes to gloat, sometimes to lure a confession, and sometimes to BreakThemByTalking since he doesn't carry a weapon. Against serial killer 3XK, this is almost, but not quite, a HannibalLecture; while Castle ''is'' tied up and at the killer's mercy, he is not being interrogated. Averted several times when Castle's theories turn out to be plausible but wrong. He even pulls this on Beckett in the pilot, as a sort of attempted LetsGetDangerous moment to prove that he can actually help. It's played with in that Castle realizes as he's doing it that he's hurting her and digging up painful memories, and so apologetically stops, without taking any satisfaction in being correct.

** Subverted in "[[Recap/SherlockS01E03TheGreatGame The Great Game]]" when Sherlock, having pronounced Molly's new boyfriend Jim gay, follows up a long list of subtle, ambiguous clues about Jim's personal grooming habits with the fact that he has just given Sherlock his phone number. And after all that, he still misses the fact that [[spoiler:Jim's last name is Moriarty. [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Whether or not the gay part is true or Moriarity testing Sherlock]] [[HoYay has given the fans lots to argue about.]]]]

** Subverted/Inverted in another one of Creator/JeremyBrett's attempts to counteract the Flanderization of Watson. Watson is given the opportunity to perform a Sherlock Scan on Holmes himself, to explain Holmes's apparent bad mood and unexpected presence. Sherlock responds with a list of plausible alternate explanations for the clues that Watson picked up on, but finally he grudgingly admits that Watson was, in fact, [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments right all along]].

** Parodied mercilessly in the first series' ''Series/SilentWitness'' sketches, in which Sam Fisher is supposedly able to discern everything about a patient just by looking at them, only for her assistant to reveal to her and the audience that she's misdiagnosed a married man hit by a car as a woman stabbed to death, or she's looking at her lunch, or her birthday cake, at which point Sam stubbornly insists she's never wrong.

** Shows up in a ''Series/{{CSI}}'' parody, with Grissom examining a body in the middle of the road and deducing that the woman was hit by a bus. Cue RevealShot showing a school bus right behind him.

* Parodied mercilessly in the first series of ''Series/DeadRingers'', with a medical doctor supposedly able to discern everything about a patient just by looking at them, only for her assistant to reveal to her and the audience that she's misdiagnosed a married man hit by a car as a woman stabbed to death, or she's looking at her lunch, or her birthday cake, at which point the doctor stubbornly insists she's never wrong.

* In the novel ''Mr. Monk Gets Even'', based on the [[Series/{{Monk}} TV series]], one woman (an admirer and accomplice of Monk's nemesis Dale "the Whale" Biederbeck) tries to subvert the technique by answering the door naked and insisting on staying naked throughout the interview; she knows that not only can Monk not bear to look at nudity (male or feamle) but also that being naked greatly reduces the number of visual clues that could tell him where she's been or what she's been doing.

'''Arthur:''' Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin possessed by blowfish and octopi. ''[...]'\\

* PlayedWith during [[EstablishingCharacterMoment Akio Sehei's introduction]] in ''Fanfic/AndrogyninjasADoseOfVenom''. The tailor immediately denies Sakura service based off the state of her clothes, noting that while her dress was well-made, she hasn't been taking care of it, noting the presence of old bloodstains that show no sign of her even ''attempting'' to wash them out. He attributes this to her being "yet another shinobi brat" who doesn't appreciate how much time and hard work goes into crafting clothes... while ignoring the fact that their village was recently attacked and she's likely been busy dealing with the fallout of that. This establishes that Akio not only has an eye for such details, but is a {{Jerkass}} who's letting his own biases taint his assessment, showing NoSympathy for a girl who [[spoiler:recently lost her parents]].

--->'''Mrs. Munro''': What are you doing?
--->'''Roger''': Trying to see if I can tell where I've been.
--->'''Mrs. Munro''': Don't you know?

-->'''Vinny''': [[LampshadeHanging I find it hard to believe that this kind of information could be ascertained simply by looking at a picture!]]
-->'''Lisa''': Would you like me to explain it?
-->'''Vinny''': [[LargeHam I would]] '''[[LargeHam LOVE]]''' [[LargeHam to hear this!]]
-->'''Judge''': So would I.

* Attempted by Freebie in ''Film/FreebieAndTheBean'', with deductions like "They have blonde hair, bad teeth, and pale lips, so they don't drink beer" and "He has dirty hands, so he's a psycho." Bean grumbles, "Where do you get that shit?"

-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Why, he's seventy at least! And not what you'd call in prime condition! Why, his hyperthyroidism is apparent and his incipient arterioschlerosis masking cardiac decomposition was evident to me after one glance!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Good thing you didn't take a second glance; he'd be a goner!]]

-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Good morning, Good morning. This is Mr. Gibney. But I'm not going to tell him who you are. He wants to try a little experiment.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Experiment?
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Mr. Gibney contends that he can tell who you are and what you do just by looking at you.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Well, now. Isn't that nice. Go right ahead, sir.
-->'''Mr. Gibney''': Hmm. Let's see. I would say that this woman is a happily married housewife.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Why you dear man!
-->'''Mr. Gibney''': She is also the mother of a couple of young children.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': [[SarcasmMode An amazing revelation.]]
-->'''Mr. Gibney''': [[TheAllegedExpert Well, how am I doing so far?]]
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker So far, you owe me a husband and two children.]]
* Parodied in a sketch from ''Radio/ThatMitchellAndWebbSound'': Sherlock attempts to teach Watson to do this, giving him ludicrously easy deductions to make ("here is a man wearing a beret and a string of onions around his neck. He is reading Le Monde and riding a bicycle, and the tune he is whistling to himself would appear to be "La Marseillaise". Now, Watson, where do you think he is from?") which he fails at ("Shoreditch?").
* In ''The Last Laugh Murders'', an episode of the Literature/NeroWolfe radio series (not an adaptation of any of the books), Archie challenges Wolfe to perform this on a random person passing by their front door, and Wolf grudgingly obliges. Subverted in that the person immediately declares him wrong in every respect. Archie is very amused and Wolfe is furious. [[spoiler:Double-subverted in that Wolfe was actually completely correct, and the person in question was lying and pretending to be someone else. Wolfe immediately starts investigating just to soothe his bruised ego.]]
* On ''Radio/{{Loveline}}'', Dr. Drew (through years of experience) has become almost frighteningly good at detecting trauma in people who call into the show -- going off of nothing but their tone of voice. It's not at all uncommon to hear him ask a caller, "So who molested you between the age of 7 and 10 years old?" and have the caller describe how they were abused when they were eight years old.
* Also parodied in ''Radio/ImSorryIllReadThatAgain'' in their ''The Case of the Workington Shillelagh'' sketch, where the Holmes character gets it spectacularly wrong:
-->'''Cattermole Sharp:''' Good afternoon, Sir. I see that you are a fellow of the Royal Society recently returned from serving in the mercantile marine corps of New Zealand, with a keen interest in outdoor sports and at present employed as a waiter at the Waterloo station buffet.\\
'''Female Client:''' Well not exactly, Mr. Sharp.

* This is a favorite trick of the Kitsuki family of the Dragon Clan in ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings''. Founded by a GreatDetective (Agasha Kitsuki, given one day to prove himself innocent of murder, ''invented forensic science''), they specialize in investigation and analysis. Those members of the family who act as courtiers instead of investigators find this useful, as well - being able to pick out minor but crucial details [[MundaneUtility is great when you need to break someone's ego]].
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons:'' 5th Edition's Inquisitive Rogues are heavily inspired by the man himself, and thus can put such scans to work on people to both catch their deceptions and spot clues out of combat and get crippling blows on their enemies when the fighting starts, even one-on-one.

* The 1965 Broadway musical ''Baker Street'' makes this the whole subject of its first song, "It's So Simple," where Holmes meets a visitor in civilian clothes and immediately identifies his profession and military rank, and then deduces that he's there to ask for help with a woman who is blackmailing him.

* Occurs in an early radio conversation with The Boss in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater,'' where she is able to tell that Naked Snake has lost weight by his voice, after only hearing him speak for a single sentence. As one may expect, The Boss is an [[TheAce Ace]], intimately familiar with Naked Snake as his mentor, and absurdly badass.
* Karst, from ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge''. She claims that she can gauge a man's strength at a single glance -- then proceeds to say that Felix wouldn't be able to [[spoiler: kill Saturos and Mernardi]] even if he doubled his strength.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': While he's never given much chance to demonstrate it in-game, the prequel novel ''Literature/TheStolenThrone'' establishes Loghain's ability to do this in the first chapter when he correctly deduces Maric (who hasn't introduced himself yet) as having come from a well-off upbringing based on his clothes and how he carries himself, and when Maric introduces himself with a false name Loghain immediately spots it as a lie, but goes along with it anyway.

* Senator Troche believes that Ezio has done this when he mentions the Senator's whoring on their first meeting in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood''. The truth is much simpler -- Ezio owns the Senator's favorite brothel, which is run by his sister.
* Malachi Rector, the PlayerCharacter of ''[[VideoGame/{{Moebius}} Moebius: Empire Rising]]'', is capable of quickly identifying the materials any object is made of, which time period and country it is from, and finally what its estimated value is, leading him to have become one of the world's leading expert in antiquities. He shows off his skills by finding out in a matter of second that an supposedly antique chest to an asking price of 2 million euros, is actually a well-crafted forgery only worth about 5000 dollars. The seller angrily confronts him, saying that there is no possible way he could know all of that from just one look. In response, Rector smugly reveals that he has also been looking at the supposedly expensive gold-necklace adorned with emerald and diamonds that the seller's girlfriend wears, and reveals that it is made from cubic-zirconium, green glass and gilded aluminum and is with about 150 dollars. The seller's shocked reaction says everything he and the girlfriend needs to know, and Rector walks away very satisfied with himself, as the seller is being treated to a verbal trashing by his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines''. When chasing down a group of vampire hunters, Beckett comments that they must be in a monastery outside Santa Monica, because he found beach sand and smelled a very specific type of incense at the scene of their latest operation. When asked, he shrugs and admits that he didn't actually find any clues, he found a hunter waiting for a vampire representative to investigate and dangled him over the side of the roof by his leg until he talked.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', this is the EstablishingCharacterMoment for Sherlock {{Expy}} Consulting Inspector Briardien. [[PlayerCharacter The Warrior of Light]] first sees the inspector accusing a man of being a murderer. The man protests that he's just a humble merchant and the victim in question was killed by an Amalj'aa archer. Brierdien picks apart the argument by pointing out that the Amalj'aa are notorious slavers who would kidnap a helpless traveler rather than kill them. He also notes that the man he's accusing doesn't have the hand calluses of a merchant, but a skilled archer. Knowing a little of the man's history, he deduced that he murdered the victim with an Amalj'aa bow and arrow either for money or because the victim bedded the man's sister. When he confesses to the later motivation, Briardien shows irritation because he would have guessed the motivation to be money.
* In ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', where each of your skills is its own character, Visual Calculus starts off with casually differentiating the footsteps of eight different persons and distinguishing shoe sizes at a glance, and moves on to mentally reconstructing crime scenes and motor carriage accidents and isolating bullet trajectories. To a lesser extent, other skills like Perception, Reaction Speed, and Composure deal in catching small details as they happen, but Visual Calculus features the associated slowing-down of time and [[NoticeThis highlighting of significant points]], filling your vision with glowing diagrams.
-->'''Visual Calculus:''' It's as if the whole world darkens, everything else has a thin film of unimportance on it -- and the tracks burn in the middle of it, in a strange, beautiful way.
* The ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'' has a special version of Detective Mode in crime scenes for Batman to search for evidence. Some of discoveries are then used to create a trail to follow (for instance, ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'' has Batman finding the tobacco dropped by Commissioner Gordon to follow, and traces of alcohol from a corrupt guard's breath).
* [[TheParanoiac Paranoid]] survivors in ''VideoGame/DeathRoadToCanada'' can tell all aspects of a survivor that you can recruit. ''All'' of them -- personality, physical condition and even skills.

* In ''VisualNovel/DoubleHomework'', Dennis can tell that the story that Johanna’s been telling everyone about the protagonist’s whereabouts is a lie. He knows what the protagonist has really been doing during the spring, because he has access to his weekly gaming hours.
* Weaponised in ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' by [[SmugSnake Furudo]] [[DefectiveDetective Erika]]'s (ab)use of the concept of The Detective [of a mystery story] and Knox's Laws. Knox's 9th (All evidence must be presented to the reader [by the detective]) combined with her 'role' in the story allows her the ability to look over any crime scene and instantly note all important details. And then use these details to turn everyone on the island against a completely innocent woman [[ForTheEvulz just for her and her master's enjoyment]].

-->"Detectives don't have superpowers. We can't just look at a crime and divine the truth right then and there. On the contrary, the best detectives consider numerous possibilities in the beginning... Not ensnaring their thought process with common sense, prejudices, or preconceived notions. They then explore each and every one of those possibilities over the course of their investigation."

* ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo''

** Also, in a later [[http://egscomics.com/?date=2008-08-08 strip,]] Susan uses one to come to a slightly unusual, but completely correct conclusion. Her explanation is finished [[http://egscomics.com/?date=2008-08-21 here]]
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': Vaarsuvius [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0596.html assumes]] that Kubota is a major villain because otherwise Elan would not have him tied up. Elan's reaction lampshades the shakiness of the Sherlock Scan.
* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'':
** The eponymous ComedicSociopath amorph demonstrates his keen observational ability [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2009-06-04 here]] with a scan of the circus manager he was talking to, using his ''really'' good sense of smell -- earlier stated by Kevyn to be superior to a Bloodhound's -- and combined this with some basic reasoning and experience dealing with humans. Later on, he determines the person he's speaking with has recording ocular implants based on the fact she came out of a room (where they were secretly implanted by nanomachinery) smelling like surgery, crying and corneas.
** Karl Tagon while exchanging tales with Kathryn held his "big" story [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-05-02 here.]] After she ''told'' him she was an analyst in military intelligence. So it ends [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-09-30 here]] with "General, I got tired of waiting for your story, so I cheated..."
* ''Webcomic/DailyGrind'': Howlett Creager deduces that a cup that a random customer ordered appraised is actually a test on how good Howlett's appraisal skill is, based on how the owner put it in a shoddy box but handled the cup with extensive care around the brittle white glazes. He then proceeds to deduce that a supposedly legendary $250,000 antique 11th-century cup is actually worth less than $80,000 based on the pattern of the white glaze -- nobody in the supposed age the cup came from used noncontinuous swirly strokes, but the fact that it's still so old (the noncontinuous pattern was popular in the 12th century and 13th century) means that the cup is [[http://pandora.xepher.net/daily/20051005.html worth a pretty penny]]. The owner is impressed and gives the cup to Daily Grind as a down payment for an even bigger job.

* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', the character of Tattletale, whose superpower is basically enhanced intuition, is ''very'' good at using this along with the HannibalLecture to blackmail her enemies by revealing all their secrets and weaknesses. It goes a bit farther than normal since her power lets her make impossible deductions such as determining someone's PIN from the way they dress. It isn't perfect though: she is still capable of drawing wrong conclusions, and the chances of doing so increase the further the leaps in logic her power makes. Furthermore, if she starts from false information, she will of course draw false conclusions based on it.

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[[quoteright:299:[[Webcomic/BatmanWayneFamilyAdventures https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sherlockscan_8.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:299:''"...everything."'']]

* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'': When the Holy Iron Chain Knights catch up to Guts' trail of corpses in the Lost Children chapter, Sir Azan says the bodies look like they were blasted apart by cannon fire and supposes the Black Swordsman must have been leading a group of soldiers. Serpico corrects him by stating he thinks it was done by one man, noticing that the wounds appear on closer inspection to have been caused by some kind of massive blade swung at incredible speed. Seeing that the bodies are all in the same state he guesses they were killed with the same kind of blade, and that it would seem unnatural to propose that more than one man exists who could handle such a freakish weapon. This is one of many clues that Serpico is [[ObfuscatingStupidity far more competent than he pretends to be]].
* Occasionally done in ''Manga/CaseClosed'', such as the first episode, where Conan comes up with a different justification.
* Sherlock Holmes of ''Meitantei Holmes'' (released in the US as ''Anime/SherlockHound'') is able to ascertain where a client came from because he recognizes the mud on her shoes and where it comes from.
* ''Manga/VinlandSaga'': Askeladd can read a man, can tell if a man is brave, cunning or a coward at a single glance, after living forty years of a wicked life.
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' has this with the protagonist and starring [=JoJo=] of [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Part 2]], Joseph Joestar. He utilises this on and off by hiding it behind his [[ObfuscatingStupidity goofy personality]]. But when it comes to fighting, he becomes a tactical genius and can gain an advantage just from just scanning his surroundings and his enemies. He occasionally takes it a step further by predicting what his enemies will say with complete accuracy, throwing them off even further than before, usually just before a critical attack is executed; {{Fanon}}, and even [[https://jojowiki.com/JoJonium/Special_Interviews#Volume_9_.28Joseph_Joestar.29 a slight nod]] by mangaka Araki himself attributes this to a subconscious activation of his [[SemanticSuperpower Stand]] that he properly gained in [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Part 3]], chronologically taking place 5 decades later.
* Fuyuki of ''Manga/SgtFrog'', [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist expert on the occult and brilliant detective]], can somehow factor in ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX87GwRhT9U an unidentified woman standing in the rain somewhere]]'' when investigating ''[[MundaneMadeAwesome misplaced concert tickets]].''
* Victorique, one of the protagonists of ''Literature/{{Gosick}}'', is about as close to actually being Sherlock Holmes as a teenaged girl in a frilly dress can be, and as such is naturally prone to Sherlock Scanning. Perhaps more impressively, she's also capable of making these kinds of deductions based on details reported to her secondhand by her [[TheWatson Watson]], Kujo (since she rarely leaves the library in which she lives). And she's ''right'', despite all the potential for error in such a setup.
* Houtarou Oreki from ''Literature/{{Hyouka}}'' has a knack for the Sherlock Scan. For example, in Ep. 3, he deduced that an upperclassman was illegally smoking in a club room, and used that information to blackmail him into giving them the materials they needed.
* L from ''Manga/DeathNote'' is a master of this. He managed to deduce Kira's identity and nationality by just studying the psychology of the crime and the order of victims.
* Detective Ryo [=Mac=]Lean from ''Manga/{{FAKE}}'' has demonstrated this a few times. He just looks around a crime scene and can tell what happened by just a few clues lying around.
* Reiji in the ''VisualNovel/KaraNoShoujo'' adaptation immediately deduces much about Touko's character on first meeting. Probably for the sake of [[CompressedAdaptation compression]], as the trope was averted in the VN.

* ''Manga/GamblingEmperorLegendZero'': In The Anchor gamble, Koutaro shows Zero a handful of coins he dumped out of his wallet, and then turns the camera away from the pile. Koutaro then grabs one of the coins, and asks Zero which of the coins is in his fist. Zero uses a myriad of clues to deduce that it wasn’t a Japanese coin at all, but in fact an American coin, either a penny or dollar coin, that was hidden under the pile Koutaro showed him. [[spoiler:Zero then incorrectly guesses that it was a penny, when it was a dollar coin. Koutaro was still daunted nontheless.]]

* ''Anime/{{Aggretsuko}}'': Fenneko pulls off one in figuring out where Retsuko has gone that she's thrice turned down Haida's invitations to dinner, to the latter's bewilderment. Haida guesses that perhaps Retsuko had found a guy to date, but even though Fenneko says Retsuko doesn't discuss her love life with her Fenneko doesn't think it's a guy, then needs all of five seconds to prove it by showing Haida a social media selfie of some unrelated flamingo lady at a yoga session with Retsuko in the background. Fenneko then goes into a spiel (complete with [[ShoutOut deerstalker cap and pipe]]) about how she figured it out: Retsuko walking in the opposite direction of the train station twice a week after work when she normally goes straight home (so too close for a train ride), complaints about sore muscles (so something physical), not a kickboxing type so Fenneko guessed pilates or yoga, combined with limiting social media posts to nearby locations meant the search was brief enough to find Retsuko quick.
-->'''Haida:''' OK, you're freaking me out. I hope I never piss you off.\\
'''Fenneko:''' If you do, just stay away from social media. ''[nonchalantly sips wine]''
* In ''Literature/TheCaseFilesOfJewelerRichard'', Richard does this to a client in episode 4/volume two, guessing her job and hobbies, as well as her reason for being there. In fairness, she asks him to do it, and he admits he's just guessing.

* Speaking of Franchise/{{Batman}}, when a detective in one storyline hired to (and long since defeated by) the task of finding the killer of the Waynes told Batman that after enough years on the force he can just look at a guy's face and immediately know that he's guilty, Batman said he can identify.
** Years of experience, Commissioner Gordon is an expert of this trope. And so is his hard-as-nails lieutenant Harvey Bullock.
** In ''ComicBook/BatmanGordonOfGotham,'' Soong realizes a suspect is lying about never having had children when he sees that the home is installed with child proof outlets.
* A minor enemy/[[WildCard sometimes ally]] of ComicBook/MoonKnight called The Profile specializes in this, literally to the point of it being a superpower. He is eventually defeated due to Moon Knight being an agent of a god. While the Knight himself could be analyzed, the god could not due to not being present. That and Moon Knight himself is both terribly mentally ill and has an utterly fractured personality, which combined to make the reading [[PokeInTheThirdEye very much unpleasant for Profile]].

* Spoofed in ''Recap/TintinTintinInAmerica''. Tintin hires a private detective after his beloved dog Snowy goes missing. The detective examines the scene and quickly produces a detailed scenario of the dog-napping. Tintin wonders if this man is a Sherlock or a charlatan -- it's unfortunately the latter as he repeatedly turns up with every kind of dog except Snowy.
* In the miniseries ''ComicBook/{{Madrox}}'', Jamie Madrox this to Rahne/Wolfsbane in the first issue, lampshading in the narration that this Holmes schtick should quiet her doubts about his detective skills. Subverted when it is revealed he didn't deduce anything, he just had duplicates of himself follow her all day.

* ComicBook/{{X 23}} possesses a very disturbing form of this. As in the ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009'' example below, whenever Laura walks into a room, her brain ''immediately'' begins to analyze the situation and everyone in it, performing threat analysis, formulating multiple attack plans, and calculating the best method with which to kill ''everyone in the room''. Her thoughts in ''ComicBook/AvengersArena'' reveal that ''she can't turn it off'', so she even does this to her friends!
* Befitting his nature as a dual Creator/HumphreyBogart and Literature/SherlockHolmes homage, Nightbeat does a cold Sherlock Scan in the fifth chapter of ''ComicBook/TheTransformersDarkCybertron''... to [[ReligiousBruiser Cyclonus]]. He accurately picks out a dozen fine details calling back to Cyclonus' own history, up to and including his own complicated relationship with Tailgate, such as accurately calling out that the only reason Cyclonus replaced his damaged horn was because Tailgate made the replacement, and that he had donated innermost Energon in a vigil for a dying Tailgate, then scratched his own face to hold back from telling Tailgate that he was concerned about the Minibot's impending death by cybercrosis, ''then'' patched up those same scratches once Tailgate managed to recover from the cybercrosis. This pisses Cyclonus right off, and he responds in his own special way.
-->'''Cyclonus:''' You're lucky I don't kill you! '''You're lucky I don't kill all of you!'''
* ComicBook/{{Batwoman}} is capable of a downplayed version of this. She can identify whether or not someone is military based on how they move and fight, and used this to determine that Batman was not. She also managed to piece together Batman's real identity this way, when Bruce invited her to lunch a few days after Kate shot him in the leg, and had a limp in the same leg (combined with how similar their own pasts and current lives were).

* ''ComicBook/BakerStreet'': As the setting's equivalent of Franchise/SherlockHolmes, Sharon Ford makes a habit of this. On her first meeting with Susan, she performs one very similar to the one Holmes performs on Watson on their first meeting in ''Literature/AStudyInScarlet''.
-->'''Susan:''' Uh. H-How did you know I was a med student at Wisteria?\\
'''Sharon:''' Really! It's a simple observation... Well, more than that actually. A simple deductive observation, if you will. Bit of a hobby of mine. Let's see, you carry ''Gray's Anatomy'', the 'handbook' of medical students. ''Belden's Anatomical Guide'' simply confirms that. That was a newspaper from the college... and it's common knowledge Wisteria has an exchange program with the States. \\
'''Susan:''' That told you I was an American...??\\
'''Sharon:''' [[SherlockCanRead Well, your accent did help.]] Along with your class ring. We prefer pins instead.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Zits}}'': Pierce can tell what someone had for breakfast just by smelling their breath.

-->'''Monster Patron''': Yeah. What makes you an expert?
-->'''Gary''': The blood on your cloak tells me the last thing you ate was a timid plumber from Newark.
-->'''Monster Patron''': You’re good.

* Played with in ''Fanfic/TheApprenticeTheStudentAndTheCharlatan''. At one point, Nova and Twilight are in a clearing in the West Orchard of Sweet Apple Acres, in which a target has been set up. Nova deduces that it must be where Applejack practices buckball, saying that he had figured it out from the smell, some of the impressions in the target itself, and [[spoiler:the buckball that Applejack accidentally left out behind one of the trees]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': Nick performs a [[DownplayedTrope minor one]] on Judy when they first meet. From observing that she's a bunny cop in a meter monitoring outfit, he correctly deduces that she came to Zootopia with big dreams, but got shunted to a low position due to her status as a bunny and that she originally comes from a carrot farm. He also accurately predicts that [[spoiler: she will give up her dreams and go home]], though it's only temporary and not exactly for the reasons he anticipated. And although he doesn't reveal it until later, he also noticed that [[spoiler: she was carrying a fox repellent]].

* Stan Smith from ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' shows this in one episode where he's told to interrogate a suspect about his employment. He's able to deduce from his ring and expression that he's going through marital problems, which proves correct when he consoles the suspect about this who then inadvertantly blurts out about his bomb-making occupation.
* ''WesternAnimation/SherlockHolmesInTheTwentySecondCentury'', of course.

* Mocked on ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', when Stan tries to explain how John Edwards ("The Biggest Douche in the Universe") uses ColdReading to fake the ability to talk to the dead. Stan explains how he's doing it ''as he's doing it'' but, being ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', the adults think he's psychic anyway.
* Done by the ComicBook/{{MODOK}} CaptainErsatz Think Tank in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'' when he deduces from the soot on Dean's shoe that Wide Wale drilled through his lobby and from the pollen on his sleeve and smell of antiseptic that he brought flowers to the hospital.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', Batman meets Sherlock Holmes thanks to TimeTravel, who manages to deduce just about everything important regarding Batman's status, personal history, and motivations, by a cursory glance at him. Amusingly, Batman manages to sort-of one-up Holmes, no doubt thanks to PopCulturalOsmosis being on his side.
-->'''Holmes''': He's a hero, it's obvious by [[PrimaryColorChampion the bright blue and yellow in his costume]]. The mask means [[SecretIdentity he must be well-known]], perhaps a wealthy entrepreneur with ample free time. [[LanternJawOfJustice Square jaw indicates strong lineage]], perhaps a doctor's son. And [[TheCowl the bat motif]], most surely inspired by some childhood trauma. "The Masked Bat" perhaps?\\
'''Batman''': Actually, it's "Batman". Sherlock Holmes, I presume?\\
'''Holmes''': ''(shocked)'' [[HypocriticalHumor How did you deduce my identity so quickly?]]\\
'''Batman''': [[IconicItem The hat.]]
* In ''Series/TheSuperMarioBrosSuperShow'' episode "The Adventures of Sherlock Mario", there's a parody of the famous detective named Herlock Solmes, with King Koopa playing the role of his nemesis, Kooparity. While Kooparity's scheme is underway, he asks for Solmes's reaction, with the result doubling as TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
--> '''Herlock Solmes:''' Elementary, my dear Kooparity. You're a cross between a lizard and an inferior species of toad. Your brain is smaller than a peanut. You got the lowest grades in your school and hold the world record for flunking kindergarten the most times. When you were little, the other Koopas nicknamed you "Lizard Lips" and never let you play with them. You were a naughty lily-livered bully boy and wet the bed until you were twelve.

* In the episode "The Parking" from ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'', [[ChildProdigy Anais]] uses the Sherlock Scan on three guys leaving the mall in order to guess which one would leave their parking spot first so the Wattersons [[MundaneUtility wouldn't lose the spot to another car]]. Her analysis was totally right, but by the time she stopped talking he had already left and another car parked there.
* In ''WesternAnimation/CentralPark'', Season 1 "[[Recap/CentralParkS1E5DogSprayAfternoon Dog Spray Afternoon]]", Molly is able to deduce the tagger, who was hired to vandalize Central Park with graffiti, was waiting for her and Owen to leave the stakeout location to finish the job because she remembers him earlier rubbing his hands on his pants due to being anxious, which is something her father also does, and she knows that he couldn't leave a job undone.

** Watson himself eventually gets in on it, though he only does it mentally by checking off the clues that allowed Holmes to proclaim their visitor's job, marital status and Freemasonry. He even does a medical version once by identifying a spinal problem with a young boy.

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in an episode of ''Radio/ThePennyDreadfulsPresent'': ''The Brothers Favershams''. Theseus Faversham (Victorian Britain's greatest detective) is apparently able to tell an amazing amount of detail from the point of impact of the pickaxe sticking out of a murder victims chest, including that the murderer was well-known to the victim, about 5'7'', had a slight limp, thinning red hair, and was missing the tip of his right ring finger, but:

'''Female Client:''' Well not exactly, Mr. Sharp.\\