Clark Kenting / Live-Action TV

Clark Kenting in live-action TV. Examples from Superman TV shows can be found here.

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• Regularly parodied in 'Allo 'Allo! with LeClerc. Whenever he arrives in one of his pathetic disguises, he pulls Rene aside and says "It is I- LeClerc!". He confirms this by raising his glasses, which is a bit absurd since he normally wears glasses anyway. On occasion, he has revealed himself by removing a false mustache...exposing the nearly identical real mustache he always has. Naturally, this exasperates Rene no end.
  "I know it's you, you old fool! Just give me the <MacGuffin>!"
• The Iraqi live-action comedy series "Akbar Chathab اكبر جذاب (Biggest Liar)" is about an old man named Hooby who tells his friends a made up story about how when he was young he had an adventure that parodies famous stories, one episode parodies Superman (Super Hooby) and as such has Hooby Clark Kenting, but it wasn't intentional. He saves the Lois Lane expy, expecting her to be impressed and fall for him but she doesn't recognize him and says "You're nothing like that stupid dumb Hooby who's always with me in the office". This confuses him for a second but he plays along with it.
• Mocked in Arrested Development with the character of Gene Parmesan, a private eye. In one scene, Gene appears wearing a fake nose that looks just like his real nose; in another, wearing a fake mustache over his more or less identical real mustache. It actually works shockingly well, mostly because he hides in the background until he decides to reveal himself.
• Arrowverse:
  • Arrow:
    • Oliver's disguise as the Hood is paper-thin. It literally consists of covering his hair with a hood, a little dark makeup around his eyes (and later, a mask made for him by Barry Allen), and a voice modulator. Given that he is a very distinctive, handsome man (with carefully maintained facial hair that's a toned-down version of his comic counterpart's) who is very famous in his city, even seeing two-thirds of his face should be enough to guess who he is.
    • Granted, even though Oliver initially doesn't bother wearing a mask, the disguise is not as paper-thin as it appears. He initiates conversations or combat by taking out the lights first. Also, the hood he inherited from Yao Fei, which he wore in his early days, was quite large and covered a fair amount of the top half of his head. Dim lighting and grease paint made it hard to see much more than his mouth and chin, especially if he tilted his head forward. Later seasons have Oliver wearing a hood which barely extends past his forehead, making it easy to pick out the entire shape of his face, domino mask or not.
    • Witnesses who talk to Detective Lance often say they only remember 'a guy with a bow' - similar to a real effect called 'Weapon Focus Phenomenon', where witnesses to crimes remember seeing weapons but not faces.
    • Not to mention Sara Lance, A.K.A. The Canary (this universe's version of Black Canary), who only hides her identity behind a domino mask and blonde wig (not as effective as you'd think as Sara is already a blonde!). In fact, Sara might even be worse about this than Oliver. Her actress, Caity Lotz, has a very distinct way of speaking and chin, and in one particularly Face Palm-worthy scene, she's talking, less than two feet away, to her own sister, who doesn't notice a thing. Yes, she's facing away. Yes, it's a Hollywood Darkness scene. Yes, her costume is designed to draw attention to her boobs. It's still pretty ridiculous.
    • Subverted and lampshaded in one of the flashbacks, when Oliver returns to Starling City and wears a hoodie to hide his face, much like his original Hood disguise. He's instantly recognized by the first person to get a good look at him.
      Maseo: That disguise would not work even if you covered your face in grease paint.
    • The Atom (whose alter-ego is a well-known billionaire), who appears in both series, wears a clear visor in his helmet, with an open chin. The helmet is even lit on the inside...with lights that drastically change the contours of his face, at least when viewed at night, and leave his eyes heavily shadowed.
  • The Flash (2014):
    • Quite cleverly averted. Whenever he's talking to someone who'd recognize him and doesn't already know his secret, Barry vibrates both his face and vocal cords to make himself unrecognizable. Barry does wear a mask, but it doesn't leave his face completely unrecognizable-numerous people who see both Barry and an unblurred Flash up close make the connection without much trouble.
    • His arch-nemesis Reverse-Flash vibrates his entire body, makes his voice even less recognizable, and somehow gets his eyes to glow red.
    • Zoom wears a face-concealing mask, disguises his voice to sound like Tony Todd, and turns his eyes black. His civilian identity Hunter Zolomon is a straight example. He was an extremely infamous serial killer whose distinctive appearance had Wild Hair (including a huge beard). Once he escapes from jail, he shaves and cuts his hair and takes a new name. Given that this second persona is also a major celebrity figure (as "The Flash") just like his true serial killer self, you'd think someone would have made the connection.
    • Averted with Jay Garrick, who doesn't wear any disguise. Even in his own world, we don't see him doing anything to hide his identity (no, not even the vibrating thing or the voice distortion - not even in front of the police or the villain Trickster.)
    • In the future XS comes from, a friend of the heroine-to-be refers to him by name as one of the heroes who vanished during the Crisis along with Barry. It would seem that his identity is publicly known.
    • Cisco's Vibe costume doesn't hide much. It consists of glowing glasses and letting his long hair loose (he normally keeps it in a ponytail). Then again, he rarely leaves STAR Labs.
    • Averted with Savitar, who wears glowing Powered Armor that disguises his voice. The armor's primary use is to allow him to run extremely fast (even by speedster standards) without dying. It also hides his identity as Barry's time remnant from the future.
    • Played straight with Jesse, who uses a nickname her father gave her "Jesse Quick" as her superhero name. Her costume consists of a suit, a Domino Mask, and her hair being pulled back into a ponytail (she normally wears it loose). Oh, and she's the daughter of a world-famous scientist.
  • Supergirl:
    • Addressed early when Kara wonders how she'll conduct an interview (as Supergirl) with her boss Cat Grant without being recognized. Ironically, what causes Cat to eventually figure it out is the precise thing that James said would protect Kara: Cat could never see her mousey assistant as a hero. After Kara saved Cat's job following a computer hack, Cat could see Kara as a hero and was able to put the pieces together. The best part? Even though Kara is Supergirl, Kara looks nothing like Supergirl. When Cat demands Kara remove her glasses, she still looks far different than her superhero identity, so much so that the audience will think Cat is an idiot for thinking the two are the same even though they are. J'onn J'onnz shapeshifting as Supergirl convinces Cat they're two different people, and she mutters, "And by the way, you were right. You look nothing like Supergirl!" Subverted in the season 2 finale, where it's revealed that Cat is fully aware that Kara is Supergirl.
    • Cat also quickly realizes that Barry is the Flash in the crossover episode, although that has more to do with Barry's behavior than appearance.
    • Detective Maggie Sawyer figures out Supergirl's identity after seeing how worried Alex (her foster sister) gets for her sake.
      Maggie: Plus, the glasses don't help.
      Alex: I always said that, too. It's kinda ridiculous.
    • Justified in that Kara's glasses were not entirely a disguise, but were developed by her foster father, Jeremiah Danvers, to help Kara cope with her emerging super-senses when she was younger; the lenses were made of leaded crystal that could counter her X-ray vision.
    • Cat also immediately realizes that Guardian is James, even though he uses a voice modulator and has his face covered by a helmet, except for an eye slit.
    • No one recognizes Reign as Samantha Arias, not even her close friends Kara and Lena. Reign wears a half-mask that covers the upper half of her face, uses a different hairstyle, and alters her voice. It's a better disguise than it initially appears, helped by the fact that Reign and Sam act nothing alike. Sam isn't even aware she is Reign.
    • Lena is close friends with both Kara and Supergirl. Kara often flubs and says things like "I flew here on the bus," and Supergirl often references things Kara said to Lena (she covers by claiming they're friends). Lena remains completely oblivious, and at one point even complains to Kara about something Supergirl did. When Lex finally tells her (with some damning videos as evidence) he mocks her for being so in denial she missed lots of blatantly obvious signs.
    • Later in Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019), we find out that Lex is really the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to taking secret identity blindness to absurd levels: when in the world of Smallville he confronts Clark, he is surprised that Superman is Clark Kent... in that dimension. "Where I come from, that would be ridiculous. He can't see past his glasses." Nope, he doesn't even consider for a second that his Superman might also be Clark.
  • All the Arrowverse series have, at one time or another, made use of facial recognition software that can scour security feeds to locate a specific person in a city of half a million. Why no one ever uses similar software to track down the heroes' real identities is never explained. In one episode of The Flash where Frost is on trial, the prosecutor does mention that facial recognition software has her as a near-match for Caitlin Snow, but at that point Frost and Caitlin have become a Literal Split Personality and Caitlin is in the same courtroom, so it's just used as proof that they're related.
• In the Austin & Ally episode "Austin & Alias", Ally takes up the identity of a Swedish rock star named "Roxy Rocket" wearing a pink wig and multi-colored punk clothes after her boss, Ronny Ramone, threatened to fire her from his label if she continues writing songs with Austin.
• Batman (1966):
  • This was where The Green Hornet guest stars in a crossover. The villain's Perky Female Minion comes very, very close to figuring out the identities of both heroes, but gets them mixed up (thinking Reid is Batman and Wayne is the Hornet). When Batman proves otherwise by phoning her while she's having dinner with Reid, her suspicion - as close as it was - falls apart.
  • In civilian form, Barbara Gordon is a mild-mannered librarian with glasses who has her brown hair cropped short. As Batgirl, she wears a long red wig. When she was added into the comics they made her disguised hairstyle into her actual hairstyle.
• Played straight in Battlestar Galactica with Gina Inviere, the Number Six model Cylon who assassinates Admiral Cain and later hides out on the Cloud Nine, hidden only by a hairstyle change and glasses. RDM admitted in the podcast that it wasn't one of their best moments. There are no critical plot points hinging on Gina not being recognized by someone who already knows a Six well, but we do see a picture of the Six known as Shelly Godfrey in Roslin's desk in the same episode, which may have been shown to the Fleet when Shelly was exposed last season (given that pictures of Two/Leoben and Five/Doral were shown to the public at a press conference earlier on).
  • There is also the movie The Plan where two Sixes, Shelly Godfrey and "Tough Six" appear side by side, yet don't seem to be noticed. Somewhat justified in that they do look and act differently. Godfrey wears a suit and glasses and has blonde, fluffy hair and an insecure demeanor. Tough Six was wearing leather with chains, had brown, straight hair with blonde streaks, and acted far more aggressively. Cavil/One lampshades it, noting the effort Sixes take to differentiate themselves. Also, this was before it became public knowledge that humanoid Cylons (a) existed and (b) had copies. A human observer would have thought they were normal twins at that point.
  • Far more noticeable was the Doral copy, after another Doral had been on the ship as public relations officer. He thought it would be enough that his suit was teal and the other's had been burgundy. This is why Cavil had him blow himself up.
• Deconstructed in Birds of Prey (2002). Barbara Gordon, formerly Batgirl and now Oracle, points out to her protégée Helena "Huntress" Kyle in a late episode that she ought to wear a mask. Because she doesn't, anybody who meets her as both Huntress and Helena easily realizes they're the same woman. This isn't so much a problem with her Love Interest Detective Jesse Reese. It's a huge problem with her psychiatrist Dr. Harleen Quinzel.
• Black Lightning (2018):
  • Subverted. At first, it may seem odd no one can see Black Lightning is Jefferson Pierce, given it's just a pair of goggles covering his eyes with his suit. That includes Pierce's own daughters when he rescues them. However, characters mention that something about Lightning's electrical aura makes it "hurt to look at him directly" and also affects camera footage so he can get away with a light disguise. He noticeably uses a very different speaking style as Black Lightning, in addition to modulating his voice, which probably helps.
  • Anissa as Thunder wears goggles and changes her extremely distinctive afro to a long ponytail. Funnily enough, when Henderson deduces that Pierce is Black Lightning, his first thought is that Thunder is Lynn, Jefferson's wife (Anissa was his second guess).
• The Boys (2019): Zigzagged. On the one hand, Starlight is recognized quickly when a video of her beating up some would-be rapists is released. Mostly however none of the superheroes are, despite not wearing masks (aside from Black Noir), including her.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Humorously referenced by the Initiative guys in season four, though their full body and face mask suits are far more convincing than Superman's disguise.
    Forrest: This is the burden we bear, brother. We have a gig that would inevitably cause any girl living to think we are cool upon cool, yet we must Clark Kent our way through the dating scene, never to use our unfair advantage. Thank God we're pretty.
  • But Played Straight in "Goodbye Iowa" when Buffy infiltrates the Initiative disguised as a scientist in Nerd Glasses and a Labcoat of Science and Medicine. As an attractive female teenager working with an all-male military unit, Buffy must have gotten a lot of covert checking out when she was there undisguised before — it's surprising none of the guards recognize her.
• In Burn Notice, this is often a component of Michael's undercover-persona-of-the-week. A notable example is when he poses as a dweeby chemist. He slouches, slackens his face, puts on a whiny, nasal voice, and fakes asthma, as well as dressing badly (doesn't hide Jeffery Donovan's obviously-muscled arms, though) and plastering his hair to his forehead. Pays off in the climax of the episode, when the Villain of the Week gets to see him throw off the act. In a slow-motion shot, he straightens up, hardens his expression, and strides with confidence, transforming back into a badass super-spy in one fluid motion. His newfound confidence with a gun doesn't hurt either.
• The Cape at least has a mask, but somehow no one recognizes him from seeing the lower half of his face and hearing his voice. This includes his archenemy, his old partner, and his wife and son.
  • Slightly justified in that he's supposed to be dead, and no one expects a dead guy to be a masked hero.
• Charmed (1998):
  • Parodied in an episode where the sisters are transformed into superheroes. The mask is said to protect their identities — but what it really does is remove their caution and logic. For what it's worth, Cole recognizes Phoebe instantly.
  • Also subverted in an episode where Paige gets turned into a wood nymph. She dances on stage at Piper's club and Piper tells her to get down before someone recognizes her. The only thing that's different is that her hair is now waist-length. Sure enough, someone is heard saying "Paige, you rock!" to her. Though technically an in-universe example when Phoebe's boyfriend runs an article about the nymphs but doesn't mention Paige's name, referring to the nymphs as "identities unknown". The resemblance one of them has to his girlfriend's sister probably came up once or twice.
• Stephen Colbert has been known to drop hints. Mild-mannered reporter, hmm? The hair does look familiar...
• Dark Justice: Judge Marshall goes unrecognized when he lets his hair down and takes off his glasses, allowing him to become a Vigilante.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Dæmons": The Master dons a pair of Clark Kent-like glasses as Rev. Magister (though admittedly, he wasn't really trying to hide his identity). Indeed, the Doctor discovers who he is before he even sees him, since "Magister" is Latin for "Master".
  • "The Return of Doctor Mysterio": Grant Gordon assumes a civilian disguise, complete with glasses, when he's not being the superhero known as the Ghost. Lampshaded in the first sequence when the Doctor giddily discovers that Clark and Superman are the same person (he draws glasses on Superman's face to prove it). When Grant scoffs that everyone knows that already, the Doctor defensively points out that Lois Lane, an investigative reporter, hasn't caught on yet (foreshadowing Lucy Fletcher's cluelessness later on). To be fair, though, the Ghost also wears a face-covering mask, styles his hair, and speaks in a deeper, more confident voice than Grant's normal persona.
• 1970s Saturday morning series Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. These female versions of Batman and Robin wore no masks, but merely wore their hair differently as superheroes.
• An interesting example in the BBC series Good Cop. John-Paul realizes that Someone saw him walk out of the house where he murdered a criminal, when the witness is placed in a cell (For a different reason) John-Paul asks him if he saw a man last night and keeps telling the witness "Keep looking at me." so the witness in question doesn't think that he really saw John-Paul at all and that he's just gotten his face stuck in his head.
• Hannah Montana. All the girl does is put on a wig and sparkly clothing and she is instantly unrecognizable.
  • Miley Stewart does tend to act a bit more "small-town country girl" when she isn't Hannah. Maybe not Christopher Reeve level, but still a possible example of personality making a difference.
  • Her best friend and sidekick disguises herself by wearing multi-colored wigs and dressing up in punk(ish) clothes. Her father disguises himself by wearing a fake mustache. When Miley's male friend was let on the secret, he adopted his own on-stage disguise, wearing a fake goatee and dressing in sports/stereotypical rap clothes. Amazingly enough, no one is the wiser.
  • Her father's disguise is the weakest of all of them. He doesn't even wear the mustache all the time. Does he even care if anyone figures out that Hannah and Miley are the same person?
  • The show did lampshade this in one episode where Jackson calls out the Trope Namer himself while Miley and Robbie are getting in costume.
  • When Miley reveals herself as Hannah to the world, genius neighbor Rico nearly has a breakdown trying to figure out how he couldn't see through this, even grabbing Lily by the face to ask how a simple wig could make him ignore her being Lola. On the other hand, he actually provides an explanation on how it worked, as he had seen through Miley's act after she sung in his presence...and promptly dismissed the idea as ridiculous.
• Used to great effect in Healer (and heavily lampshaded) when the titular character goes undercover as wimpy, cowardly, nerdy reporter Park Bong Soo. His doing so in the first place is justified in that no one has ever seen the Healer, the mission is supposed to take only a few days, and as far as he knows, this particular mission is completely and utterly separate from any other mission he's taken recently and no one has reason to suspect him. The Two-Person Love Triangle that results is just icing on the cake.
• Jack Styles from Jack of All Trades wears a hat and mask to obscure his identity as the Daring Dragoon, but doesn't do anything to hide the fact that he's the only one on the island with an American accent, that he has the same style of ridicule toward the captain, and showed up the same day Jack did.
• In Jekyll, even with the terrific acting on the part of James Nesbitt and some very subtle makeup, the only difference in appearance between Jackman and Hyde are that Hyde is "a little bit taller, a little bit thinner, a little bit younger" and that his eyes are a bit darker, with a different hairline and slightly different jawline. Despite the minor differences, nobody can tell that they are technically the same person, and children literally see Hyde as a separate person from Jackman. Hyde even lampshades it by calling Jackman's wife, who has seen them both, "Stupid Lois Lane" for not noticing. Even after seeing the transformation she still can't believe that they are the same person.
• Jessie: Emma runs a fashion website under the alias "Kitty Katouer" wearing large sunglasses and a floppy hat to conceal her identity.
• Parodied on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in a "deleted scene" for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice where Kimmel's character immediately recognizes Clark Kent as Superman (and, when seeing the top of his face covered, Bruce Wayne as Batman). He then points this out to Lex Luthor, who doesn't see it at first but then feels like an idiot when Jimmy's character pulls Clark's glasses off. He gets hurled to Mars for his trouble (and for being a dick about it) and has to spend his remaining minutes avoiding Matt Damon.
• Kamen Rider:
  • The franchise in general usually doesn't have this problem, as their suits are full-body covering, complete with large helmet (they are Masked Riders, after all), but an issue comes up for quite a few of them: their cool, Toyetic vehicles, which most of them drive in both identities. No one seems to connect Kamen Rider Double to the fairly well-known Private Detective going around on the half-green-half-black bike covered in W motifs, or notice that police officer Shinnosuke Tomari's one-of-a-kind Cool Car looks exactly like Kamen Rider Drive's Tridoron with the police's logo pasted on it. The worst is probably Kamen Rider Kuuga, who on one hand has the good idea to use his powers to change the paint job of his Cool Bike when transforming... but on the other, random Nice Guy Yuusuke Godai now drives around a unique prototype bike Kuuga stole from the police. And in fact regularly makes visits to the police station, still on said bike. Drive and Kuuga do eventually lose their Secret Identity, but on their own accord rather than getting found out.
  • Kamen Rider Fourze:
    • Nobody at Amanogawa High School ever seems to connect Kamen Rider Fourze to Gentaro Kisaragi. This might not look like an example since Kamen Riders wear full-body costumes and helmets, but Fourze and Gentaro are both boisterous goofballs and Gentaro's friends can be seen at every one of Fourze's battles giving him advice (and calling him by name). And it's not a visibility issue, since Gentaro is actively trying to befriend every single person at AGHS and is therefore known all over the place. It might help that civilians rarely hang around Fourze's battles and he doesn't get any press. He doesn't even try to hide his identity, so it may not be an issue (the Power Rangers and Super Sentai teams who don't hide their identities don't seem to get mobbed in the streets for autographs and such either); in fact, The Movie contains a Continuity Cavalcade scene where the Kamen Rider Club runs around the school asking for help from the teachers and students Gentaro has saved over the course of the series, showing that each and every one of them is fully aware of his identity.
    • The same series has Kamen Rider Meteor, who even Gentaro and friends don't recognize as their friend Ryusei Sakuta. In this case, Ryusei does have to hide his identity, as a condition of being able to continue being Meteor. He actually does try to act completely different, being quiet, friendly, and cowardly normally while being brash, arrogant, and a competent fighter as Meteor. Interestingly, in his debut episode, Gentaro sees right through the Clark Kent act, saying that he won't befriend someone who's lying about who he is. Later in the episode when a frustrated Ryusei punches Gentaro in the face, Gentaro says that they're cool now because he got a glimpse of the real Ryusei in that punch.
    • Just to compound things, "ryusei" is the Japanese word for meteor, but none of the cast seems to know/remember this. Occasionally when Meteor appears, Yuki announces it by shouting "The meteor's here!", but every single time she does this she uses the synonym "inseki".
  • Kamen Rider has some examples that lean closer to the traditional version of this trope; for one example, in Drive, nobody ever seems to connect Kamen Rider Mach (who's brash, boisterous, and wears a white suit with twin red stripes) to Gou Shijima (who's brash, boisterous, and wears a white jacket with twin red stripes).
• LazyTown villain Robbie Rotten wears at least one Paper-Thin Disguise in all but a few episodes, yet is never recognized even by the adult characters until he is 'unmasked', usually due to his hat falling off. In one episode, he removes all but the headpiece of his costume, yet is not recognized until the headpiece comes off, and in another episode (The Laziest Town) serves free ice cream to the town's children unquestioned while wearing just a false mustache and a food service hat.
  • Subverted later in the same episode, when Robbie walks into Mayor Meanswell's office still wearing the mustache. The Mayor had this to say:
    Mayor: Hi, Mr. Rotten. Did you grow a mustache?
• M*A*S*H: In "The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan", Col. Flagg arrives incognito as an Italian officer. Radar and Col. Potter both know it's Flagg.
  Flagg: (to Radar) Okay, pipsqueak. What tipped you off?
  Radar: (tentatively) Well... you don't look anything like yourself, and since you're a master of disguise, you're the only one who couldn't look anything like you that much.
  (moments later when Flagg enters Potter's office)
  Potter: Be with you in a minute, Flagg. Nice outfit. Your clown suit at the cleaners?
• Practically inverted in Merlin. Merlin's Older Alter Ego looks, sounds, and acts nothing like him and yet everyone says his "eyes are familiar". And it's not like he has an unusual eye color or anything, they're standard blue eyes in a cast of blue eyes that everyone picks up on. Even when he disguised himself as an old woman (very convincingly at that), Arthur kept wondering if he'd met "her" before. Although, given that Arthur is sometimes extremely oblivious, whatever guess he had had to be miles off.
• In Orphan Black, Sarah and Allison sometimes pass for each other just by covering their hair and adopting each others' accents. Of course, it helps that they're clones.
• While the various spies and assassins in Nikita are not, in general, the sort of people the average person would recognize—this is very much by design—one exception is the series deuteragonist, Alex, who eventually publicly outs herself as the believed-dead daughter of a murdered Russian oligarch—a modern day Anastasia. While her newfound profile opens certain doors for her, allowing her to use herself as a cover story, it also turns instances when she's undercover as somebody else into examples of this trope.
• The Power Rangers. You'd think with face-concealing helmets they'd have it made, but their idea of keeping their identities secret is to always hang out together and wear clothes that, in some way, correspond to which Ranger color they are. There's color coding and then there's regularly wearing yellow pants and a yellow jacket over a yellow shirt and your order of choice being a banana milkshake (and out of a yellow glass!) And when the Green Ranger exits and the White Ranger debuts, Tommy goes from wearing nothing but green to wearing nothing but white! The original Rangers seemed to own nothing that wasn't their Ranger color (to some actors leaving the series with an "I don't wanna see anything pink again as long as I live!" attitude toward their colors.)
  • Somewhat justified by the full face helmets and the fact that the color clothes are a subtle clue.
  • Even more justified for young Justin in Power Rangers Turbo as Bulk and Skull point out he's too short to be a Power Ranger. His morph sequence actually shows him growing to adult size.
  • Though there's one semi-funny conversation in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers between Secret Secret-Keeper Ernie and most of the Power Rangers in the episode 'Happy Birthday, Zack', where Ernie suggests that the Rangers are human. Jason immediately comes up with a rumor he claims to have heard that the Rangers were space aliens. Ernie, depending on how canon you view the idea that Ernie is a Secret Secret-Keeper (Word of God says that he is and David Fielding is claimed to have said that he was told that he was going to play Zordon's secret human identity as well as Zordon, but that the producers claimed that having a fat guy running a gym and juice bar was funnier), either is pretending to believe them, having already figured it out or the convo confirms his suspicions.
  • There are also some episodes wherein people try to find out the Rangers' secret identities, but once the truth glares them in the face they ignore it. Then what was the point of trying!?
  • Many is the time the team members call one another by name in front of civilians with nary a consequence. Hilariously subverted in Power Rangers RPM, where the "Ranger (Color)" designation is often used in combat when they are one of the teams whose identities are NOT secret.
  • It gets worse in VR Troopers. They don't have designations, and the suits don't have a dominating color; until Ryan gets his upgrade, which is blue, they'd all equally qualify for "the red one." Their official morphed designations are VR [Real Name Here] according to The Merch. Nobody ever figures out who they are.
  • Wild Force is one several seasons where the Rangers simply don't have secret identities, or simply don't bother to maintain them (others being Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force, SPD, Operation Overdrive, and RPM). They seem to dish out the information on a need-to-know basis, but don't actively try to keep the secret.
  • In Power Rangers: Dino Thunder villainess Elsa manages to spend most of the season working as the principal of the Rangers' high school. Her disguise is limited to a business suit, glasses, and eventually, a haircut. It's even lampshaded practically by name when her identity is revealed.
    • This one is especially bizarre as with the way the reveal is played, it seems the producers seriously thought the audience wouldn't recognize her either.
    • Not really, when you think about it. We're told that Elsa and Principal Randall are the same person long before Tommy and most of the remainder of the team (along with the civilian students) find out. Even Trent knows that Elsa and Principal Randall are the same person long before he isn't an evil Ranger any longer. Why he doesn't tell his teammates that they're the same person? Simple: it would also reveal that Anton and Mesogog are the same person and Trent had promised to keep that a secret.
• Queen of Swords: Her "disguise" consists of a mask and cape, although her long, black hair flows freely. She's the only woman in the vicinity rich enough to own a magnificent horse and independent of a father or husband to monitor her activities. And nobody figures out she's the Queen?
• Ripley: Tom, using a wig, subtle fake beard, suit and his own mannerisms, tries to trick Inspector Ravini (who had previously seen him impersonating Dickie Greenleaf) into not recognising him. Combined with the Caravaggio-inspired dim and misleading lighting, Tom actually succeeds.
• Rupauls Drag Race: Invoked Once a Season in the season premiere. It's always something of an event when the queens de-drag and see each other as men for the first time, with reactions that range from attraction to surprise. Trixie Mattel in particular stands out for looking the most drastically different in and out of drag (Trixie is both the drag queen and the hairdresser in that photo). Her drag style is Uncanny Valley Makeup incarnate, but as a man, he's just an extremely average-looking gay guy, to the point that another contestant mistook him for a studio intern and asked him to get her a Red Bull.
• In a Super Hero Episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch when Harvey becomes "Mighty Teen" through magic he starts to wear thick glasses when he's in civilian mode.
• Played for Laughs in Scrubs, when Turk transfers to medical for two weeks he wears a pair of fake glasses. J.D., his long-term best friend, roommate and Heterosexual Life-Partner doesn't recognize him until Turk deliberately takes off his glasses and winks at him.
• Stargirl (2020): Tigress. Unlike the other Injustice Society of America members (including her husband Sportsmaster), she only has less than a half mask covering just her left eye. Still, Stargirl and her fellow teenage superheroes don't recognize her as being their gym teacher Paula Brooks (though it was also dark when they first met).
• Supernatural. Sam Winchester does this for a variety of reasons. First, as a hunter whose good deeds are often interpreted as crimes by law enforcement, he needs to stay off the radar. Hard to stay unnoticed when you're 6'5" and strikingly good-looking. Secondly, he often has to deal with traumatized victims, and towering over them with your equally imposing brother probably does not put them at ease. Lastly, Sam has always wanted to be "normal" which means generally desiring to fit in. Slouching makes him stand out a little less. Noticeably, when Sam has been possessed or soulless, he stood up straight using every inch of his height to look as powerful and imposing as possible.
• Hilariously referenced in the live-action Tick series, where a Superman-like hero dons a pair of glasses (still wearing his costume), and The Tick immediately mistakes him for someone else.
  • At the end of the episode, the hero was taking off and putting on his glasses every few seconds right in front of everyone, and The Tick forgot who he was each and every time.
• In Unhappily Ever After, Tiffany tests the theory that guys only like dumb girls by chatting up the same guy in the school library as though she were two different people, one smart and one stupid. The only visual difference between her two personae is a pair of glasses; she doesn't change her clothing or even her hair. It still fools the guy.
• In White Collar Neal Caffrey, a professional conman, frequently wears different kinds of outfits for false identities but rarely changes his actual physical appearance. When he does it's minimal stuff like changing his hairstyle and in one instance wearing Clark Kent-style glasses when posing as a crooked scientist. It helps that he's rarely trying to fool people who know him and despite being a legend among fraudsters and law enforcement he's not especially well known to the general public.
  • In the pilot episode, he escapes from prison by letting his beard and hair grow for several months, then when everyone's used to him looking like that he shaves, slicks his hair back, changes into a guard's uniform, and strolls out the front door.
• Mentioned in Whose Line Is It Anyway?. The scene from the hat is "The inner thoughts of superheroes."
  Colin (as Superman/Clark): Now they recognize me... (mimes taking off glasses) Now they don't... (removes glasses) And now they recognize me...
• Wonder Woman: While this trope was played straight in all the series, it was notably averted at "Mind Stealers from Outer Space (Part 1)" when the Skrills, an alien race who steals minds to sell them into slavery, discovers easily Diana Prince's secret with only a slide projector:
  "Unquestionably, the same human."
• Subverted, amazingly, in the Disney Zorro series. Despite Diego wearing a full costume and mask and pretending to be an unathletic coward in his own persona, Capitan Monestario still deduces his identity from noticing that Diego was always in the same vicinity whenever Zorro appears but the two were never seen together. Diego's servant Bernardo has to crash Diego's trial dressed as Zorro to ruin Monestario's plan to expose him. Also during the episode, it's shown that many people in the Pueblo can look like Zorro while wearing his costume, even one of Monestario's own men.

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