Brief Accent Imitation

This and other accent-related jokes don't make it into the reprint of this story.

Wilson: [Imitating the Australian Dr. Chase] I'm so sorry! If only Dr. House had paid attention! He'd never even met her! He never does!
House: Chase loves me. [Beat] And isn't Turkish.

— House

Not the same as Fake Nationality at all, this is when someone briefly imitates another character's accent (and possibly their catchphrase), usually for comedic effect.

See also Just a Stupid Accent and Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping. If done unintentionally, the person being imitated will invoke Got Me Doing It. Might be a Shifting Voice of Madness for certain kinds of insane characters.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl: In "Dawn of a Royal Day", Dawn is in a Princess for a Day situation and very briefly copies Princess Salvia's pseudo-Brit accent. She doesn't keep it up, though, and Salvia doesn't try to imitate her. Oddly enough, people who aren't in on the swap (like Jessie and Salvia's butler) don't notice anything odd about this.
• In the English dub of Read or Die, Nenene (played by an American) does a brief impression of her currently missing friend Yomiko (played by a Brit).
• Scanty and Kneesocks from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt are so fond of Trrrilling Rrrs when talking about the RRRRUUURRRUUUS ("RULES" spoken à la Large Ham) that the Anarchy sisters eventually mock them for it.

Comic Books

• The first arc in The Punisher MAX has a New York mobster greet three New England Elite Mooks by trying to pull off a Boston accent.
  Pittsy: What are you, some kind of fuck?
• In Asterix and the Chieftain's Daughter, Vercingetorix's daughter lacks the Funetik Aksent of the Averni who raised her. One scene near the end has her sarcastically muttering "That'sh right, that'sh right."

Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles: Mittens teasingly adopts an obviously fake Southern twang while paraphrasing a line from A Streetcar Named Desire in "The Paris Trip".
• Jia Chong somehow manages to do this to Sima Zhao in Farce of the Three Kingdoms.
  Sima Zhao: N̉ͤ̈͆a͇͉͛ͮ͐͑͗̌̋̂̄̍͋h͇̬̲̼̀ ̨̙͉̣̘̤͕̂̾̎.
  Jia Chong: What do you mean, N̉ͤ̈͆a͇͉͛ͮ͐͑͗̌̋̂̄̍͋h͇̬̲̼̀ ̨̙͉̣̘̤͕̂̾̎?
• Ultra Fast Pony: Applejack normally has an Irish accent. The episode "Winning" has a joke about how rarely UFP follows the plot points from the original show, so Applejack sarcastically switches to the southern US accent that her counterpart from the original show uses:
  Twilight: Wow, I can't believe we're using plot points from the actual show this time!
  Applejack: Aw, shucks, Twilight. We always try to be as accurate as we can!
• In A Boy, a Girl and a Dog: The Leithian Script, Finrod's Captain tries to paraphrase the deceased leader of the Men of Brethil, but he admits he cannot imitate their slang correctly.
  Captain: [rueful] "I'm betting that's not much use for firewood, and it's mighty unhandy for a dinner knife" — [Haleth]'s opinion of swords.
  Teler Maid: [curious] Did she really say it like that?
  Captain: [shaking his head] No. I can't manage a Brethil accent properly at all.

Films — Animation

• Robots:
  • Fender (voiced by Robin Williams) briefly switches to a Braveheart-like Scottish accent when confronting Gasket. He does this while wearing a Viking outfit (complete with horns... and a skirt (which is, most definitely, not a kilt). Of course, Robin Williams loves imitating accents and does it every chance he gets.
  • He also fakes a strange mix of French and German accents when pretending to be the servant of a European nobleman to crash a party.
• Jay Baruchel gives Gerard Butler's Scottish accent a go in How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and How to Train Your Dragon 2.
• In Despicable Me, Margo briefly imitates Gru's accent after he insists they skip dance class in order to deliver cookies (as part of his master plan).
  Margo: Actually, we can't "skeep the dance class today". We have a recital coming up.
  • In the short film "Home Makeover", Margo does it again when Gru's not home.
• Kevin Kline does this a lot. Towards the end of The Road to El Dorado, Tulio (whose accent is Kevin Kline's natural American one) briefly mockingly imitates Miguel (who is voiced by Kenneth Branagh).
• Very brief example: In Chicken Run, Ginger takes a stab at Rocky's accent when sarcastically saying "lone free-ranger." At least, it's less like her usual accent.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie gives Mario and Luigi, who are Italian in the games, New York accents to reflect their residence being in Brooklyn rather than the Mushroom Kingdom. However, the brothers' plumbing commercial has them imitating the goofy Italian accents they have in the games.

Films — Live-Action

• Are You Being Served?:
  • Mr. Humphries copies the nasal voice of the speaking clock to try and fool Captain Peacock into thinking Mr. Lucas has arrived at work on time.
  • Mr. Humphries also puts on a docker's deep voice when telling Mr. Lucas a story about a fancy-dress party he was trying to get to.
  • Mr. Lucas copies Mr. Humphries' voice to try and trick Conchita into sleeping with him.
• In Assault on a Queen, Linc coaches Victor in speaking with a British accent to allow him to impersonate a British naval officer. Victor nearly gives himself away when he pronounces 'lieutenant' as 'lou-tenant' rather than 'left-tenant'. Fortunately for him, the captain assumes he is Canadian.
• Subverted in Batman Forever. While he wasn't imitating anyone in particular, while joyriding in the Batmobile, Robin for some reason says to the women on the Gotham strip "How about a ride in my love machine, eh?" in a vaguely Hispanic accent.
• Early in Black Caesar, Tommy Gibbs meets with a Mafia don named Cardoza at an Italian restaurant in order to collect the bounty on a rival mobster which Tommy took out. When the waiter arrives, Tommy scores serious points with Cardoza by ordering a traditional Sicilian dish... in perfectly-accented Sicilian. (His last cellmate was an immigrant, and Tommy passed the time behind bars learning the language.)
• In the 1986 film based on The Canterville Ghost, when Harry explains to Lucy how someone intends to drive the ghost away, he mimics their accent.
• In Carefree, the Scottish golf pro comments that Tony is getting terrific length with his drives. Tony imitates his accent as he replies, "Thank you, Mr. MacPherson. You're verra, verra encouragin'." Then he switches back to his normal voice and adds with a chuckle, "It's about time, Mac."
• Used very briefly in The Dark Knight, with The Joker mocking the Chechen crime boss' pronunciation of 'freak'.
• In Death Line, the working class Inspector Calhoun briefly adopts a plummy upper-class accent when he calls John Manfred's secretary to inquire as to his whereabouts.
• In Die Hard, the German Hans Gruber briefly sports an American accent while pretending to be an American.
• In Die Hard 2, as Colonel Stuart is contacting the Windsor Airlines plane he plans to crash, he uses a Southern drawl while pretending to be the approach controller, then switches to his normal accent while pretending to be the tower controller.
• In Die Hard with a Vengeance the German Simon Gruber puts on a Texas drawl while approaching cops overseeing the cleanup of his bomb in the subway, claiming to be a city representative, so he can "explain" the arrival of his fleet of dump trucks (which his men are going to use to haul the Federal Reserve's gold out). Simon at one point even briefly slips into Jeremy Irons' normal English accent while feigning incredulity at the damage.
• Doctor... Series:
  • Doctor in the House (1954): Grimsdyke puts on a high-pitched voice to pass himself off as a nurse after the riot.
  • Doctor at Sea: Easter picks up a Chinese accent when telling Dr. Sparrow of the time he worked as Pin Yung, his Chinese magician character.
  • Doctor in Love:
    • Dr. Burke uses a falsetto voice to sneak up on Wildewinde and frighten him.
    • He also uses a Scottish accent when putting Sir Lancelot to sleep for his appendix surgery as to not let him work out who is doing it.
  • Doctor in Clover:
    • Nurse Holiday copies Miss Rubikov's accent when asking Miles to kiss her.
    • Dr. Grimsdyke picks up a French accent when flirting with Jeannine.
• Don Juan De Marco provides a rare instance of the trope being used with serious intent. The title character, though American born-and-raised, speaks with a Spanish accent in imitation of the original Don Juan. When he threatens to jump from a rooftop, the doctor sent to 'talk him down' affects the same accent, hoping to sound more persuasive (it works.)
• Tom Cruise briefly imitates Jack Nicholson's distinctive voice when quoting his character in A Few Good Men.
• Towards the end of A Fish Called Wanda antagonists Archie (British) and Otto (American) exchange brief versions of the other's "national" accent.
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall: "Oh! I'm Aldous Snow! Boo-shit boo-shit boo-shit boo-shit!"
  • Also done by Jonah Hill's character.
    Aldous Snow: That stupid English voice, was that, me?
    Matthew: (devastated) Unfortunately, yes.
• Jean Reno doing an Elvis impression in Godzilla to pass an American.
• In Hands Across the Table, Ted uses a very of its time (read: racist) joke when Ted pretends to be Regi’s Japanese servant.
• In The Hunger Games, Katniss imitates Effie Trinket's "May the odds be ever in your favor" in the beginning.
• The Hunt for Red October:
  • Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan graces us briefly with his Sean Connery impersonation. An actual Sean Connery impersonation, which is supposedly a Captain Ramius impersonation.
  • Earlier in the film, he also mockingly impersonates Fred Thompson's Southern accent and deliberate way of speaking - "The average Russki, son, don't take a dump without a plan."
• Brendan Gleeson in In Bruges mocks a Belgian's accent:
  "The alcoves of Koningin Astrid Park."
• In The Italian Job (2003) remake, while watching Handsome Rob (Jason Statham) flirt with a cute girl to get her truck, Lyle (Seth Green) imitates his Cockney accent as he makes up a fake conversation between them.
• Rob Schneider does a brief imitation of Sly Stallone's accented phrase of "I am the law!" in Judge Dredd.
• In The Killer That Stalked New York, Dr. Wood and his nurse briefly imitate Officer Houlihan's accent when discussing the patient he brought them. It's clear from their tone of voice that they don't agree with Houlihan's assessment that the patient needed immediate medical attention.
  Dr. Wood: Another emergency?
  Nurse: She fainted.
• In The Knight Before Christmas, Sir Cole who is a 14th Century Knight from Norwich, England puts on an American accent a few times when trying out some slang he's picked up from binge watching television on his first day in 2019.
• Sean Connery was particularly sensitive to any impressions of him, and the one attempted by Peta Wilson as Mina Harker in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen just made it below the radar. When Wilson asked him what he thought about it later, he said "it's terrible! It's the worst impersonation I have ever heard, and it's perfect."
• In the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, Bond mimics Sheriff JR Pepper's accent just before the bridge jump.
  Pepper: You're not thinkin'...
  Bond: I sure am, boy!
• Matilda is an American adaptation of a British novel, and most of the characters are retooled as Americans. The one exception is the villain, Ms. Trunchbull, who plays up the discrepancy by occasionally putting on an overly cutesy American accent in moments of sarcasm.
• Used pretty creatively in the Mr. Moto films, where Moto takes his own accent from vaguely Japanese to "Herro, officel-san!"-level to make the bad guys think he's much less capable than he really is.
• National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets has Nicolas Cage affect a truly horrendous amalgamation of various British accents in order to cause a ruckus at Buckingham Palace allowing his friends to sneak into the Queen's private office. After a while, he runs out of comments and just starts spouting words like crumpet and haggis.
• Night of the Living Dead (1968): When Johnny tells the story of how he scared Barbara in the graveyard as kids, he briefly imitates their grandfather's voice with a thick Yiddish accent accent. Given that the pair place a cross on their father's grave and talk about going to church, this raises some questions.
• A Running Gag in the On the Buses films was for Stan to use a camp voice to make fun of Blakey:
  • In On the Buses, Stan puts on a camp voice when mocking Blakey for getting mistaken for a knicker-snatcher.
  • Mutiny on the Buses:
    • Stan uses a camp voice to mock Blakey after Blakey says he wishes he could kiss him goodbye.
    • Jack also uses one when accusing Blakey of being gay.
  • In Holiday on the Buses, Stan uses a camp voice to mock Blakey while he practices waltzing with Wally.
• In Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler mocks Hermann Gottlieb with one of these during their barely intelligible shouting match. It sounds something along the lines of "OH TEN YEARS EXPERIENCE MAN I'M VERY SORRY!"
• In The Prince of Thieves, Baron Tristan briefly impersonates Robin Hood's voice to lure Friar Tuck and the ladies into an ambush when the two groups encounter each other on the trail in the dark.
• In The Producers (2005 version), when Max Bialystock has a run-in with a stereotypically Irish police officer (Sergeant O'Toole), he pretends to be Irish in an attempt to get the Sergeant's sympathy and pass off as an innocent bystander. He introduces himself as "Ooo'... 'Bialystock", and proceeds to talk in an absolutely ridiculous accent, before he finally has to excuse himself "before my voice gets anee hiiiigher!"
• In Raising the Wind, Sir Benjamin adopts a German accent when saying the name of the tune Mervyn unknowingly copied, the "Alexandra Valtz".
• In Scream 2 when Randy Meeks reunites with Sidney Prescott in college they discuss the latest murder, during the conversation when after Sidney says it looked like a publicity stunt Randy says "And it would've been a good one too, people get robbed, shot, maimed, murdered. Multiplexes are very dangerous places to be these days.", he speaks in a British accent for some reason.
• In Shanghai Knights, Lord Rathbone briefly fakes an American accent when he mocks Roy and his secretly self-published books.
• Hannibal Lecter does a quick imitation of Jodie Foster's West Virginia accent in The Silence of the Lambs, most definitely not for comic effect, as part of his famous cold read of her backstory.
• In Some Like It Hot Jerry briefly makes fun of the upper crust accent Joe is putting on as millionaire "Shell Oil Jr" in order to woo Sugar Kowalczyk.
• Used totally out of nowhere in Les Spécialistes: when thugs grab Carrela and pull them into their car, he very loudly says with a Belgian accent: "You must be mistaken, I'm from Budges!"
• In the original Star Wars, some scenes have Princess Leia inexplicably speaking with a British accent, which considering the people holding her captive all speak like that, fits as this (one novel even confirms it, saying Leia is copying Tarkin's accent to mock him).
• In the 2007 version of St Trinians, Russell Brand's character Flash Harry briefly disguises himself as a German art collector...with a hilariously awful accent.
• Super Troopers:
  • Captain O'Hagan's catchphrase is "I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet" in a fake Irish accent whenever one of his troopers tries to bullshit him. Later on, Farva does an awful imitation of O'Hagan with this phrase and an accent. When O'Hagan drunkenly asks if it sounds like that when he says it, the others reluctantly nod.
  • When debating about 'shenanigans', Mac briefly adopts an Irish accent when he said "Evil shenanigans!"
• Terminator: Dark Fate: The Rev-9 notably changes his accent in subtle and not-so-subtle ways over the film with inhuman precision, seemingly in ways that are meant to garner more sympathy from the humans he is fooling. He takes on a Deep South accent when conferring with two officers, an accent befitting a war vet when posing as an ICE officer, and a local Mexican accent at the start of the film.
• Jon Hamm tries out Ben Affleck's working-class Boston accent during the interrogation scene in The Town.
• Twice Round the Daffodils: When Nurse Catty arrives in Ward V with a tray of nourishment, John puts on an American accent, calling her "Cowgirl Catty dishing up the grub stage".
• Up Pompeii films:
  • In Up Pompeii, Lurcio uses a deep voice to trick Prosperus Maximus into thinking he ran off further into the steam baths.
  • Up the Front:
    • Lurk copies Lord Twithampton's voice to stop Groping from having his way with Fanny.
    • Lurk copies Mata Hari's voice to escape Colonel von Gutz, Donner, and Blitzen.
• Mel Gibson in What Women Want has some fun with Connery's accent while his character watches The Hunt for Red October on TV.
• In When Darkness Falls, Nina calls her family pretending to be her sister's teacher with a south Swedish accent, to be able to talk to her secretly.
• In Youth in Revolt, Vijay, Nick's friend with a (possibly Indo) British accent, pretends to have an Indian accent in order to pretend to be a refugee.

Literature

• In Johannes Cabal the first carnival worker Cabal conjures up is a painfully thin black man (because Cabal forgot to use lard in his creation) named Bones. Cabal quickly orders him about and Bones (who normally has an accent described as American with slight French) quickly lapses into a stereotypical servile accent ("ain't dat de trufe") as a way of sarcastically obeying-which Cabal completely ignores.
• In Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity, when Rob gets reintroduced to an ex he had been obsessed with for years, Charlie, he finds she now has all manner of massively irritating habits, including frequently attempting to lapse into foreign accents.
• Near the beginning of Spider Robinson's Mindkiller, the hero's sister returns to the United States after several years in Switzerland. Since Americans are not popular in Europe, she has taken to speaking English with "a Swiss French accent" and he has to remind her to speak like an American.
• Daniel does this in The Leonard Regime to discuss fish and chips in Sam's British accent.
• In Hogfather, Ernie the cart driver, complaining about the wizards, puts on "a strangled, nasal voice which was his idea of how you talked when you got an education".
• In the first chapter of The Hunger Games, Gale briefly imitates the affected accent used by most of the Capitol's inhabitants, inciting one of about five times where Katniss actually laughs.
• Masks of Aygrima: When Chell is recovering from his shipwreck he starts mumbling things and Hayram starts making run of his accent.
• In the Modesty Blaise novel A Taste for Death, there's a scene where Dinah briefly mimics Willie's cockney accent because she finds it charming. Her imitation is rendered with a thicker Funetik Aksent than his real accent is.
• Words of Radiance (second book of The Stormlight Archive): When Shallan and her conwoman mentor Tyn meet some guards, Tyn insists that Shallan work on her Horneater accent by introducing her as a Horneater princess. Shallan ends up pretending to be offended by something the captain said and demanding his boots as payment. It's only later that she discovers that this is Kaladin Stormblessed, her soon-to-be father in law's chief guard. It causes problems for them for much of the rest of the book.
• Played for Laughs in the Star Trek novel Starfleet Academy in which Chekov spends a full scene talking like Scotty, which means overlaying a Scottish burr over his natural Slavic accent. The result can only be generously described as "intelligible". Adding to this are Sulu imitating Spock and Kirk doing a line in McCoy's voice. It Makes Sense in Context...sorta.
• Kate from Sisterland is greatly annoyed by the terrible British accent Vi uses when imitating people she considers to be narrow-minded, especially since most of them are American.
• In On the Spectrum, an unpopular girl with a slight lisp shows up uninvited at Alpha Bitch Avril's party. She says, "We just heard there was a party." Avril mimics, "We jutht heard there wath a party. Did you altho hear you need thomething called an invitation?"
• Anita de Monte Laughs Last: At a retrospective for Jack Martin's work, Anita gets fed up with him acting like she's not a serious artist like him and like he personally rescued her from a life of poverty in Cuba. So she stands up on her chair and gives a speech in broken English (she's completely fluent) with an exaggerated Cuban accent:
  "Jooo all know Yack is a briyiant arteest, but no many peeple know Yack es un oomanitarian muy grande."

Live-Action TV

• Our Miss Brooks: In "The Miserable Cabelleros", Miss Brooks briefly imitates her eleven-year-old friend Benny Romero's accent. Once as a light joke, and the second time to test Mr. Conklin's resolve in sending the boy home to his uncle.
• In the 2point4 Children episode "Curiosity Killed the Cat", Bill, reading a note from her neighbour Dora Grimes, mimics Dora's upper-class inflections.
• In the Agent Carter episode "The Lady in the Lake", Peggy briefly uses an American accent when passing herself off as a woman intending to vote for Chadwick.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • In "T.R.A.C.K.S.", Fitz and Skye posed as a couple during a mission:
    Fitz: So are we British or American? When we're traveling together we should at least be from the same country. How's your Scottish accent?
    Skye: [in a very bad Scottish accent] I don't know. You tell me how great it is, laddie.
    [Beat]
    Fitz: [in a flawless American accent] American then. That's a better idea.
    Skye: Oh. That was really good.
    Fitz: I used to watch a lot of American TV growing up. Some of it's quite good. Lots of nice teeth.
  • In "The Patriot", Simmons does a surprisingly decent Southern drawl when playing a lobbyist demanding to speak to Senator Nadeer.
• Other characters on Babylon 5 occasionally ape Londo Mollari's Hungarian-ish accent.
  Sheridan: As Londo would say, [puts on fake accent] The Narn are Barbarians...
• Beakman imitated the accent of the Famous Dead Guys he was disguised as...at least, the most stereotypical of them. For example, he did Alfred Nobel in a Swedish Chef-style lilt...and he even got his assistant doing it...
• In The Big Bang Theory, imitating Raj's Indian accent is attempted by a good deal of the cast, memorably by Howard once when pretending to BE Raj and coming across sounding "like a Simpsons character." Penny also imitated his accent when trying to wonder what made him think rooming with Sheldon would be a good idea "Krishna, I got to get me some of that!" Raj himself has been shown practicing an American accent, once making fun of Leonard and another time not wanting to sound like he is making fun of tech support when calling them.
• Buffyverse:
  • Played with to hilarious effect on Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Spike (a British character played by an American actor) at one point put on a terrible American accent and claimed to be Xander's cousin.
  • In season two, Buffy briefly imitates Kendra's Jamaican accent.
  • Happens a lot on Angel whenever someone (usually Gunn) imitates Wesley, or when Wes imitates one of the others, such as when he affects a deep, gravelly-sounding American accent while he and Cordy are acting out a hilariously overdramatized rendition of Buffy and Angel's love story.
  • In an earlier episode of Angel, Wesley uses a nasally, slightly higher-pitched American accent when he mimics Cordelia. It's especially funny because Alexis Denisof used his real accent for that bit.
• Michael Westen of Burn Notice will quickly jump into an accent necessary to perform his spy game. Sometimes to imitate a foreigner like South African, but usually to maintain a sort of Obfuscating Stupidity by imitating Texan or deep Californian.
  • And once ended up subverting the assumptions used in Obfuscating Stupidity by playing "Homer" as very clever Deep South white trash.
  • He also uses an Irish accent briefly when Fiona's brother (and various other IRA folk) show up; they all know him by another, more Irish name. When he says "I'm in Miami now, I need to talk American" and drops the accent, the brother says something to the effect of "That accent is terrible." (This might be the show poking fun at itself, since actor Jeffrey Donovan uses his native Massachusetts accent as Michael's normal voice, despite the fact that Michael is a native of Miami, Florida, which is about 1,300 miles or 2,100 km to the south.)
• In the midst of an already hilarious Comic Relief sketch, Catherine Tate, while harassing David Tennant as an annoying student, briefly takes on his Scottish accent (which she had teased him about earlier).
• In Dark Matter (2015), when the Android is jealous of an Aussie-accented entertainment robot, she proceeds to demonstrate a whole string of comedy accents, including Jamaican (which the actress had used in her audition and the writers wanted to put it in the show somehow).
• Dexter had this to hilarious effect with Deb snarking her brother's girlfriend. "No, 'someone' didn't drink all the coffee. See, I made coffee, then I had a cup, and then Dex had a cup, and then I had another cup, and we kept having coffee like that (begin overexaggerated British accent)until the po'... was emp-tay." Textual descriptions scarcely do the scene justice - Jennifer Carpenter's wonderful sarcasm really has to be seen to be appreciated.
• In season 2 of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Todd is trying to support Dirk and gives a Meaningful Echo of Dirk's own inspiring words to him in season 1. Dirk's response is an incredulous "Is that your British accent?"
• Doctor Who:
  • There's several points in the black-and-white era in which characters impersonate Dalek accents:
    • In "The Daleks", when Ian has stolen a Dalek shell, Susan even specifically says he has to speak like a Dalek or it won't work.
    • Barbara imitates a Dalek voice over a Dalek radio in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth".
    • The Doctor imitates a Dalek voice to amuse himself after evading capture in "The Space Museum" by hiding in a Dalek shell.
    • Ian imitates a Dalek again at the end of "The Chase" to freak Barbara out.
    • The Second Doctor does it to convince the Daleks he's been Dalekised in "The Evil of the Daleks".
  • In "The Celestial Toymaker", the Doctor is forced to imitate the Toymaker's accent in order to command his universe to self-destruct — it doesn't recognize his orders otherwise.
  • In "The Gunfighters", Steven and Dodo adopt absolutely horrible ^note pity the actual American characters' accents aren't much better American accents while trying to be cowboys in 1880s Tombstone. The natives of Tombstone just assume Steven and Dodo are insane. The Doctor sticks to his usual English accent and blends in a lot better.
  • In "The Highlanders", the Second Doctor is cornered by a British redcoat and a Jacobite Highlander. He at first starts trying to defuse the situation in his English accent, realizes this means the Highlander will kill him, switches seamlessly to a Scottish accent, realizes this means the Redcoat will kill him, and then decides upon a German accent and the fake name "Doktor von Wer", which he keeps for most of the rest of the story. Both his onlookers are convinced, even though they'd heard him babbling in both other accents earlier in the scene.
  • "The Enemy of the World" involves Patrick Troughton Acting for Two as both the Doctor and his Criminal Doppelgänger Salamander, a Mexican, and showing off how good an actor he is by playing them both impersonating the other's accent (with varying degrees of success depending on position in the story). The voice Troughton used for the Doctor wasn't even the same as his natural voice to begin with.
  • Fairly common during the Pertwee era due to the era's interest in social class (and with a bit of The Cast Showoff, as Jon Pertwee was excellent at accents):
    • Upper-class Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart puts on a Cockney accent while trying to sneak into the prison in "The Mind of Evil"
    • In "Carnival of Monsters and "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", the Doctor puts on a Cockney accent to imitate a carnie and a criminal respectively.
    • Upper-middle-class Jo starts speaking in the upper-class variant of RP in "The Curse of Peladon" when the Doctor gets her to impersonate a queen.
    • In "The Time Monster" where the Master is able to perfectly impersonate the Brigadier's voice while trying to summon Benton, but Benton sees straight through him because the Master doesn't get the military terms of address correct.
    • In "The Green Death", the classless but aesthetically posh Third Doctor puts on a working-class Welsh accent while trying to sneak into the Global Chemicals building disguised as a milkman.
  • In "Terror of the Zygons", Sarah answers a phone call in a Scottish inn in a silly Scottish accent to amuse herself — which turns out to be Mood Whiplash as the call was to tell her Harry has been shot. The Doctor also imitates a Scottish accent when mocking Forgill (not a very good one).
  • The 1996 TV movie (an American co-production) has the Master, played by Eric Roberts, make fun of the Doctor's English accent. It makes no sense when you consider that the Master himself has an English accent in every other one of his incarnations.
  • In "The Doctor Dances", the Ninth Doctor says the word "danced" in a posh Southern English accent instead of his usual Northern accent when replying to Rose's question on whether he "dances":
    Doctor: You just assume that I don't dance.
    Rose: What, are you telling me you do dance?
    Doctor: Nine hundred years old, me. I've been around a bit. I think you can assume at some point I've dahnced.
  • In "Tooth and Claw", David Tennant's Tenth Doctor adopted a fake Scottish accent in order to fool Queen Victoria. Tennant's natural accent is Scottish, though not quite the same as the one he uses in the episode. Rose also attempts a Scottish accent, but hers is so bad the Doctor tells her "don't do that" after only three or four excruciating words.
  • "The Age of Steel": While rescuing his friends from an exploding factory via zeppelin, Mickey seems to decide airship captain = American accent. "Welcome to Mickey Smith Airlines; please enjoy your flight."
  • In "The Eleventh Hour", the first time Amy meets the Doctor again as an adult, she puts on an English accent, so he doesn't work out she's the Scottish little girl he met (for her, 12 years ago, for him, less than a minute).
  • Amy Pond imitates the Doctor's accent while reading his post-it notes in footage from the online "History Hunt".
  • In "Let's Kill Hitler", Rory imitates Amy's Scottish accent. "Clues? What sort of clues?" (Complete with head bobble.)
  • In "A Town Called Mercy", when walking into a pub in southwestern USA, the Eleventh Doctor does a passable American accent for one line ("Tea. But the strong stuff. Leave the bag in.") before switching back to his natural English accent.
  • Clara in "The Snowmen" is forced to adopt an RP accent as part of her duties as a nanny, but when on her own uses her natural "special voice", which is Cockney.
  • The Cyber-Planner in "Nightmare in Silver" does the Ninth Doctor's northern accent (as well as his catchphrase of "fantastic!") while mocking some of the previous Doctors.
  • In "Mummy on the Orient Express", the Twelfth Doctor has a conversation with himself in which the "voice" of the other participant is an impression of the distinctive voice and accent of the Fourth Doctor. It's not clear if this was simply the Twelfth Doctor talking himself through an idea as his younger self, or if it was some remnant of the Fourth Doctor speaking through him independently.
  • Missy continually switches her accent as the mood takes her. She is introduced in "Deep Breath" speaking in a received English accent, with a comment that she likes the Doctor's new accent and "might keep it". She switches to broad, flamboyant Scots^note actress Michelle Gomez's natural accent as her default in "Dark Water". However, she continually adjusts her accent thereafter, often to mock who she's talking to, usually with some funny voices to go with it. At one point, she even adopts a southern American accent for a few minutes just for the fun of it.
• Dollhouse:
  • When Victor is given the Lubov imprint, he uses a Russian accent. Not that he's aware of it.
  • Same when Echo is given the imprint of a young Russian woman. And yes, she's horrible at it.
• Robert McCall (The Equalizer) once puts on a NooYawk accent for comedic effect when repeating to a colleague what a very rude and unhelpful New Yorker he was interviewing for information said to him.
• In Fate: The Winx Saga, when quoting Silva, Sky takes the time to imitate his Manchester accent.
• River briefly takes on Badger's east-end accent in the Firefly episode "Shindig".
• In Forever (2014), at the end of "The Man In the Killer Suit" when a British noble is revealed to be a fake, the genuinely English Henry briefly puts on a (bad) American Midwestern accent and tells Jo he's really "Hank Morgan from Ohio."
• On one episode of Frasier, Martin mocks Daphne's indecision over whether or not to get a haircut with an over-the-top impression of her Manchester accent. Ironically, Martin's actor is actually from Manchester, while Daphne's is from Essex.
• In Friends, Ross quotes Emily, who is English, when talking to Monica. Monica quickly asks him to stop doing the accent.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Olenna tries out a Northern accent for the Stark motto "Winter is Coming" when pointing out how much more inherently badass it sounds than her own family's motto, "Growing Strong".
  • Ygritte teases Jon Snow several times with a guttural voice modeled on his own.
  Jun Snoo.
• In Happy Endings, Dave is at one point talking about he dated many women after his embarrassing public break-up with Alex to her family, both to show he bounced back and to hide that he was currently dating Alex again.
  Dave: Dating? Yes, lots. Yards and yards of ladies. In fact, meters even, cause of the Canadians. I'm all aboot that Canadian strange, eh?"
• Supervillain Sylar on Heroes seems to have a knack for using fake accents to convince people he's someone that he's not.
  • And, sometimes, just to make fun of other characters' accents: "Mohinder? How's he gonna help you? He's probably still working on [excessively posh accent] his father's research."
• In The Hollow Crown adaptation of Henry IV, Part 1, for the scene where Prince Hal puts Falstaff on mock-trial in imitation of his father the King, Tom Hiddleston does a brief but spot-on impression of his co-star Jeremy Irons.
• In an episode of House, Wilson puts on a (pretty good) English accent while pretending to be House's next-door neighbour as part of a Zany Scheme. Later, House phones Wilson and gives him a brief "Hellew, ewld chap!" Although Hugh Laurie's natural accent is very proper upper-class English, he delivers the line in a perfect imitation of the typical terrible attempt at an upper-class English accent often used by American actors.
• In How I Met Your Mother, Barney attempts to sound English to disguise the fact that he's interviewing himself on his video resume.
  • After Lily watched a marathon of James Bond movies, she spoke in an English accent for a month. She was aiming for an upper-crust accent, but came off sounding Cockney instead.
  • In another episode, Lily adopts a ghetto accent and dialect whenever she's with her high school friend Michelle. Lily is completely unaware that she's doing this; that's just how she spoke as a teenager, and seeing someone she knew as a teenager brings back old habits.
• Ash Morgan, as fixer for the long con team in Hustle can sometimes get through half a dozen of these an episode as he short-cons his way through getting the team the cars, rooms, identifications, excuses, and innumerable other things they need for their latest scam.
  • In later seasons, Emma also shows a talent for this, doing the female voices that Ash cannot.
• It's a Running Gag on I Love Lucy for Lucy (sometimes Fred) to parrot Ricky's mangled pronunciations, especially "thin" for "thing" and "splainin'" for "explaining".
• Murr from Impractical Jokers does this with a stereotypical Jamaican accent to a shoe-store customer.
• Just Shoot Me!: After realizing that his personality has been stolen from another person, Dennis decides to be himself from now on. He then subconsciously adopts the Irish brogue of the bartender serving him, who doesn't take too kindly to being imitated.
• Australia's The Late Show (1992) did one skit on guests at a dinner party, one of which was the recently returned traveller, who had somehow picked up an English accent after only two weeks in London.
  Host: Weren't you also in New York?
  Recently Returned Traveller: (New York Accent) Ohmygawd! How long was I there for?
  Rob: About two hours in the flight lounge.
• Legends of Tomorrow:
  • In an episode episode full of references to the The Untouchables (1987), Ray very briefly (and horribly) attempts a Sean Connery accent while referencing the famous "Bring a knife to a gunfight" scene from the film.
  • In "Tender is the Nate", the Legends try to pass off the English accented Charlie as Amaya, whose form she took in a previous episode. Constantine also tries his hand at it, but more successful.
    Charlie: (bad southern accent) My name is Amaya Jiwe of, uh, the Justice Society of... (normal accent) Complete and utter bloody rubbish, wasn't it?
    Zari: Yep, it sucks.
    Constantine: Now, just remember - the yanks - they don't say "rubbish", they'd say: (drawn-out American accent) "that was absolute garbage, I'm American, soccer, yardsticks, ranch dressing, weasel".
• In an episode of Leverage, "The Rashomon Job", the characters are telling stories that involve each other. Different characters' accents change based on who is narrating that scene, and eventually Sophie and Eliot devolve into mocking each others' accents (English and Southern, respectively).
  • Sophie's accent, in particular, gets butchered by every other character, except for Nate.
    Sophie: (to Hardison's impression of her) I sound like one of the dwarfs in Lord of the Rings.
  • Sophie in general tends to adopt various accents for their jobs. Hardison is also pretty good with it, including his British and Jamaican accents.
• Lovejoy when talking some ex-Soviets into a deal.
  Lovejoy: Because the customs man is, you know, one of us.
  Foreigner: Coorv-ed?
  Tinker: I think he means "Bent".
  Lovejoy: I prefer coor-ved.
• Mimpi Metropolitan:
  • In episode 5, frustrated at Bambang's emotional decision to leave, Prima mockingly quotes back Bambang's "I can't be treated like this" complete with Bambang's Javanese accent.
  • In episode 35, after finding out that Alan accidentally poisoned Juna when fogging the dorm, Topan imitates Alan's Medan accent in anger, something Alan notices.
• Modern Family:
  • After Jay points out too many of Gloria's mispronunciations, she starts speaking in a stilted American accent to spite him.
  • In another episode, Mitchel and Cameron try to get Lily into a prestigious preschool, and Cameron is so nervous about not being diverse enough to be accepted that he starts affecting a Native American accent, claiming that he's part Cherokee. (Which was really stupid, because most "part-Cherokees" have the Southwestern American accent, being from Oklahoma.)
• At the end of the Murder, She Wrote episode "Broadway Malady" when Jessica is confronting Barry Bristol about his mother's death, she asks "Barry, why are you lying to me?" in a reasonable imitation of Rita Bristol's inflection. She keeps this up until he snaps.
• Adam Savage in MythBusters, but all the others bar Jamie do it too. Just not to the extent he does.
  • Jamie's lack of doing this was a source of humor in "Fish in a Barrel". He declared "it's alive" on the "reanimated fish" in his normal accent. Adam chided him for not doing the Mad Scientist accent and promptly did it, with the post-production crew darkening the sky and adding a lightning effect.
  • Adam and the rest of the team also imitate Jamie's "accent" on occasion too, complete with using their fingers as "whiskers."
  • Adam spent the entire "Pirate Myths" special talking like a pirate and ended up sounding exactly like Ozzy Osbourne.
  • He also did a very bad Russian accent for the first James Bond special, but soon gave it up as it was wrecking his vocal cords.
  • He's also imitated David Attenborough narrating a documentary on the rare and elusive "Hyneman" enough that it's become a Running Gag and has prompted Jamie to ask "Is he doing his 'Attenborough' thing again?" on occasion.
  • Tory also does this occasionally, usually affecting a faux Italian accent (sometimes Al Pacino style, sometimes not).
• Parks and Recreation:
  • Leslie did this while drunk:
    Leslie: Let's go down to the pub, get a pint. We'll put our knickers in The Beatles records. This is an English accent.
  • Tom Haverford also once adopted a British accent in a panicked attempt to seem interesting to a girl. He later drops the accent, prompting her to later ask April: "Is any part of him British?"
• In one episode of Perry Mason involving a Cockney Identical Stranger of Mason hired to impersonate him, Paul Drake does his try at the end. Mason looks at him and shakes his head sadly.
• The Professionals
  • Bodie and Doyle whenever they quote their Scottish boss, Cowley.
  • In "Servant Of Two Masters", B&D are jogging through a cemetary and see a bowler-hatted man doing nothing in particular, so they joke he's a spy doing a Dead Drop. "Ze microfeelm is on ze first headstone on ze left!"
  • In "Not A Very Civil Civil Servant", Bodie isn't impressed by a dive bar and says in an American accent: "I always like a place where I can spit on the floor."
• QI: Happens on occasion, such as one where Lee Mack mocks the Scots then asks what they thought of his Scottish accent (David Tennant: "Oh, was that a Scottish accent?"), and another where Alan Davies puts on a heavy mock-Mexican accent when discussing the Aztecs, after which Stephen points out that the Aztec society in question was before the Spanish colonization.
• Red Dwarf:
  • In "Future Echoes", Rimmer puts on a Liverpudlian accent when throwing Lister's "death isn't the handicap it once was" speech back at him when they think Lister's about to die.
  • In "Balance of Power", Lister puts on a nasal voice when using Rimmer's "Black Card" system against him. He also draws an H on his forehead in whipped cream.
• In a Season 16 sketch from Saturday Night Live every Caucasian person in the sketch over-pronounces everyday words of Spanish origin, like "tornado" and "broncos", much to the annoyance of the one Latino in the room (played by Jimmy Smits).
• An episode of Scrubs has JD and Turk told about an unconscious man being brought by his brother from Ireland. Turns out that the "brother" is played by Colin Farrell. When they ask if he's really from Ireland, he tells them (in an American accent) that he's from Boston. A few seconds later, he breaks out the brogue and psychs them.
• Seinfeld: Jerry goes into a Cockney accent ("Nawt blooody LOIKE-ly!"). Kramer thinks it's lousy, but his own attempt is just as bad.
• In a Sesame Street segment in which the Count Von Count is an elevator attendant, Kermit casually mimics the Count's pronunciation of "elewator".
• The titular Sherlock does this, usually when putting on another persona to get something out of someone.
• In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", there is a moment where a Klingon mockingly imitates Scotty's accent:
  Scotty: Laddie, don't you think you should... rephrase that?
  Korax: [faint Scottish accent] You're right. I should. [No accent] I didn't mean to say that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage. I meant to say that it should be hauled away as garbage!
  • And in a Season 3 episode Nurse Chapel also makes a comment to Scotty while imitating his accent.
  • Kirk imitated Scotty's accent once during the flight over to the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
• In one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard does a Slavic accent when describing an unsuccessful lecture he just sat through: "He just kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic so that no-one had a chance to interrupt; it was really quite hypnotic."
• Malcolm Reed on Star Trek: Enterprise briefly imitates Trip Tucker's accent when anticipating his reply to supply problems: "Keep yer shirt on, Lieutenant."
• In Still Open All Hours, Granville occasionally impersonates his late Uncle Arkwright's accent and Porky Pig Pronunciation, for instance when Leroy doubts he can sell a load of anchovy paste, and he replies "You forget, I was t-t-trained by the m-m-m-master."
• In the early seasons of Survivor, this was almost a Once a Season thing. For example, in the first season, Kelly mocked Rudy's cantankerous growl.
• The Terror: Hickey mockingly imitates Crozier's Irish accent during his pre-execution speech in an attempt to undermine the captain in front of the crew.
• Top Gear: The three (British) presenters occasionally slip into Russian or German accents, usually when a car from that nation is up for review. The gefingerpoken flew especially thick and fast during a crossover with the hosts of German motoring show D Motor.
  • Jeremy commonly does an American one whenever the US comes up (which succeeds in sounding like a mid-western American trying to imitate a southerner.)
• In Veronica Mars, Veronica has a knack for accents and vocal impressions, which she uses both to impersonate specific people on the phone and to assume personae in the flesh.
• Victorious: Jade will often tease Tori by mockingly imitating her. Every time she does this, she gives Tori a Southern accent, something that annoys Tori.
• Done often in sketches of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Also often done very badly.
  Greg: Oh, you're from another land?
  Ryan: Good luck guessing which one.
• The Wire:
  • Jimmy McNulty tries to affect a British accent in a second-season episode... which is humorous, because while the character is from Baltimore, Dominic West is from Sheffield.
  • Proposition Joe calls the police to try to find out information on Herc, using three different accents (one for each operator he speaks to).
    Operator: Baltimore City Police Department.
    Proposition Joe: Uh yes, ma'am, this is Sydney Handjerker with Handjerker, Cohen & Bromberg. I'm trying to locate a Sergeant Thomas Hauk in regards to a client I'm representing?
    Operator: Hold, please. (the operator transfers him to another line)
    Lt. Hoskins: Mayor's office. Lieutenant Hoskins.
    Proposition Joe: (ghetto accent) Uh, ye-yes, hello. This is Ervin Pepper of Pepper, Pepper & Bayleaf. I'm calling in regards to a Sergeant Thomas Hauk in regards to a-
    Lt. Hoskins: He's no longer on this detail. Hold on for a minute. (he is transferred AGAIN)
    Lt Charles Marimow: Major Crimes. Marimow.
    Proposition Joe: (slow, measured voice) Uh, this is Dr. Jay, calling with test results for Thomas Hauk.
    Lt. Charles Marimow: He's on the street. You want to leave a message on it?
  • Carver prank-calls D'Angelo Barksdale posing as a Korean counterman. Herc finds it unconvincing.
    Herc: Sounded Chinese.
    Carver: Like you can fucking tell the difference.
  • Lester Freamon calls Marlo Stanfield in a ghetto accent to verify the validity of the phone number.
• In The X-Files episode "Fire", Scully briefly imitates the accent of a (female) British inspector she and Mulder are temporarily working with. (It later transpired that Gillian Anderson could be considered herself British, but YMMV on her accent.)

Music

• When Todd in the Shadows reviewed Pitbull's "Give Me Everything", he asked why Ne-Yo speaks "Let's do it tonight" in an Australian accent. (Todd even speculated it would be "Let's do it to annoy...")
• Roger Miller sang about the fun of a trip to England in "England Swings" - "Try to mock/the way they talk/fun but all in vain"
• Eminem liked to put on silly accents and voices while talking to his friends and eventually transferred this over to his rapping style.
  • On "Square Dance", he raps the hook in a silly stereotypical cowboy accent, then goes into an equally silly Arabic accent in the middle of one of the verses. He also raps, "thug like I'm Pac on my enemi-ees!" in an imitation of 2Pac's cadence.
  • On "Stimulate", he raps briefly in a Mancunian accent, imitating Robbie Williams.
  • In Encore he spends the album rolling through a bunch of accents to give the impression of the oncoming mental breakdown Shady's having. Of particular note is how "Ass Like That" starts in a Hindi accent, shifts into the accent of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, and then into the accent of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  • Eminem was criticised for using bizarre accents throughout his Horrorcore Concept Album Relapse. In "Not Afraid", the lead single off his following album, he teases his fans by briefly reverting to his Relapse accent - "I ran those accents into the grou'und - relax! I ain't going back to that now."
  • In "Vegas", Em raps an especially nasty passage in an impression of the accent and cadence of Bizarre, a D12 member often criticised for having all of Eminem's megadisgusting content but without his technical ability and wit. He also raps a passage about raping famous female rappers in an impression of Nicki Minaj's aggressive "Monster" Roman Zolanski flow.

Podcasts

• The hosts of Fat, French and Fabulous spend large chunks of the episode on Ayn Rand speaking in mock Russian accents.
  "Hello grandchildren, fight for sustenance."

Radio

• Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me:
  • Peter Sagal and the panelists do this a lot, though they all got in the fun in the September 5, 2015 broadcast doing Canadian and German accents.
  • Maz Jobrani is very fond of quoting or imitating people with various accents. According to Peter, NPR has received a lot of less-than-appreciative mail from listeners about that.
  • Patrick Stewart did French!Captain Picard when he appeared on the show in 2014 and remarked that the undeniably goofy result was the real reason Picard didn't have an audible French accent on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  Stewart: Space... ze final frontier.

Theatre

• In Hamilton, during the number "What Comes Next?", after losing to the Americans at the Battle of Yorktown, King George III accepts his defeat while mocking the American accent.
  You're on your own. "Ahwesooome. Waaaoooow!"
  Do you have a clue what happens now?
• The first scene of the second act of One Touch of Venus has this as a throwaway gag: a maid walks onto the scene and gushes in a fake Irish brogue. Molly, annoyed, asks the maid where she's from. She answers, "Council Bluffs, Iowa, but the employment agency recommends a touch of dialect."
• In Of Thee I Sing, Wintergreen and Mary make preposterous attempts at imitating Diana Devereaux's Southern accent in their meeting scene.
  Wintergreen: Down Carolina way we're all a-crazy about good looking gals, but we-all don't like 'em talking that-a-way.
  Mary: How do you-all like 'em to talk, sure enough?
  Wintergreen (abandoning the accent): Say, that's terrible, isn't it? If she wins would I have to listen to that all the time?
• In The Man Who Came to Dinner, Beverly does an excellent imitation of the stuttering, "very British" speech of an Upper-Class Twit by the name of Lord Cedric Bottomley.
• In Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, Moses mocks his brother's voice at one moment in the first scene which is remarkable for being the only time in the opera Moses actually sings.

Video Games

• In Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, Chopper briefly imitates the Base Commander's gruff voice when complaining about the latter's paranoia.
  Chopper: Man, the Base Commander sure wasn't subtle about making accusations. ("Base Commander" imitation)"Was there anything suspicious about the Captain's behavior?"(Normal voice) He says... hell, I'm more suspicious about the screw in his damn head.
• In Batman: Arkham Knight, the Joker hallucination produced by Batman's infected blood briefly speaks in The Penguin's Cockney gangster accent, before cheerfully stating that he thinks the Penguin's just putting it on.
  The Joker: "Wotta wanker! Let's give 'im the works!" (laughs) Seriously! Can you believe that accent? I bet he fakes it to be tough!
• In Cyberpunk 2077, while paying tribute to Jackie Welles at his ofrenda, V drops their voice and affects Jackie's Spanish accent while quoting something he told them.
• In No More Heroes, Travis is about to battle Letz Shake when his rival Henry steals his kill, dropping down from the sky and destroying Shake and his machine in one fell swoop. Almost immediately after Henry introduces himself, Travis begins mocking his Irish accent.
• In BioShock, after Frank Fontaine reveals that he has been fooling you as Atlas all the while, he briefly goes back to speaking in Atlas' accent to mock you.
• In Final Fantasy X, Yuna may try to imitate Wakka's island accent while in battle at the Moonflow.
  Yuna: A lotta fiends here, ya?
  Lulu: Don't talk like that.
• Neverwinter Nights 2 has tiefling Neeshka (American accent) imitating Khelgar (Scottish accent): "Oohh me stomach! This boat rocks like a baby cradle!"
• A rather inexplicable example in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. In his Palutena's Guidance conversation concerning Shulk, Pit suddenly starts spouting off lines in a bad Cockney accent. "Inexplicable" because Pit himself admits to never having met Shulk before and the lines and particular accent (Shulk's accent being much tamer) in question are actually all taken from Shulk's best friend, Reyn, who isn't even in the game.
• Team Fortress 2: The Spy sometimes does this to mock his opponents while dominating them. Given that he's French, while his VA is not, this leads to the VA having to sound like a guy with a fake accent impersonating another accent that is also fake.
  Spy: May I borrow your earpiece? Thees is Scout, rainbows make me cry, over!
• Tales of Monkey Island:
  • In Chapter 1, Guybrush does this ridiculous French accent when dipping Pink Pajama Pierre into a vat of ink: "Sacré bleu! Eez zis ze end of Pink... Pajama... Pierre? Glug!"
  • In Chapter 4, Morgan does this when she tells Guybrush that the Marquis De Singe, with the ridiculous French accent, wants to study his "unique strain of Pox."
• In Brain Dead 13, when Lance tells Vivi, "I'll take a rain check on that... bite!", he mocks her Southern Belle accent for a bit when he puts the emphasis on the word "bite".
• Mass Effect 3 has an especially odd example in the Citadel DLC—Liara puts on a Southern Belle drawl to charm a security guard.
  • May also qualify as Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping, as the actress spent part of her childhood in the South, and has a more noticeable drawl in her natural speaking voice.
• inFAMOUS 2 has an example prior to the final battle with Betrand:
  Cole: Oh, do you really think that I'm the Demon?! (mimics Bertrand's Southern accent) The Demon of Empire City?!
• Wheatley spends the first part of Portal 2 hiding in the walls and crawl spaces of the facility, only appearing when GLaDOS is distracted. At one point, when he can't find a distraction and really needs to talk to Chell, he tries speaking in a bad American accent (specifically Texan), because he thinks she can't hear him that way.
  GLaDOS: Look, metal ball, I CAN hear you.
  Wheatley: Run, RUN, I DON'T NEED TO DO THE VOICE, RUN!
• Super Paper Mario: The Cragnons' You No Take Candle accent briefly rubs off on Tippi, who finds herself accidentally imitating it during a brief moment in a conversation.
• In the intro to I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, AM mocks Nimdok by briefly imitating a German accent.
  AM: How are things in ze pastry corps, Nimdok? Tell me again how you saw ze smoke from ze furnaces, and you thought zey might be roasting chickens?
• One of the DLC maps for Fire Emblem: Awakening is introduced by one of many Annas, who explains the map's Excuse Plot with an absurdly false French accent.
  Anna: Moi? But I am just zee poor defenseless woman who eez pretending to have zee redeekulous fake accent! I cannot actually do zee fighting.
• In Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, impersonation seem to be a favorite pasttime and practically a requirement of house leaders making some lighthearted fun towards their allies. These include but aren't limited to: Edelgard imitating Hubert, Ferdinand, and Jeritza; Dimitri imitating Catherine; Claude imitating Marianne and Hanneman; and Yuri imitating Bernadetta. These also extend to others, with Hanneman and Manuela mocking each other, and Balthus and Raphael having scarily accurate impersonations of Hubert and "Lysithea" respectively.
• Red Dead Redemption 2: In one camp interaction, Micah Bell makes a mock heavy Mexican accent when he tells Javier Escuella to "fuck off back to Me-HEE-co, eh?" Javier doesn't take this very well.
  Javier: [punches Micah in the face] Why don't you fuck off back to hell? [runs off]
• Mission 7 in Kid Icarus: Uprising has Pit heading to fight the God of Death Thanatos. Once Lady Palutena tells Pit he's nearing Thanatos, Pit mimics his Large Ham style of speech for a bit.
• Not for Broadcast: At the end of Act 1 of the National Nightly News in Day 232, Jenny imitates Ivan Vodovich's accent when she says to Jeremy Donaldson and Megan Wolfe, "You two are like couple who think you are king and queen of village when actually you are just puppets on a string of evil shitty hand puppet lady!"
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: In the Imperial mission series on Belsavis, after defeating Ellis Ruger, you can reply to Warden Graal's comm message to him. Female Sith Inquisitors, who normally have a rather high-pitched English accent, will reply with a terrible attempt at his Western drawl, "Roger, this is Ellis Ruger. Wish I could help but I'm busy dying for a hopeless cause."

Visual Novels

• In Double Homework, Lauren, when chided by the organizers of an Asian food festival, puts on a fake Asian accent for one sentence. It almost gets her banned.
• In a premium scene early in his first season of Queen of Thieves, Remy makes a bad imitation of the heroine's manner of speaking as a joke to help her loosen up while they practice her con artist skills. She retaliates with a very bad mimicry of Remy's accent, complete with an excess of Gratuitous French, and they both have a good laugh over it. Then Remy actually mimics her accent and cadence, so accurately that she finds it a little spooky.

Web Animation

• In Lackadaisy, during a nightly whiskey-smuggling expedition in a cemetery, rum runner Rocky trolls his Irish Catholic cousin Freckle and the owl who spooked him by bellowing in a gleefully exaggerated Irish brogue to scare it off:
  Freckle: (gasps) What was that? Did you hear something?
  Rocky: It's all these unresting spirits. We're trespassin' on their turf. (addressing the owl) BUT THERE'S NAUGHT YE C'N DO ABOUT IT, YE FEISTY DEVILS!
  • He does it again seconds later with an exclamation of "Begorra!" when they're all startled by a train.
• In the Pizza Tower fan animatic Peppino Vs. The Noise, The Noise mocks Peppino's Italian accent when he demands to know where the elevator key is.
• Red vs. Blue: In an early episode of Season 1, Simmons briefly adopts a gruff southern accent when repeating an order given to him by Sarge. Grif quickly deems it the worst impression he's ever heard.
• Zero Punctuation:
  • In the Tales of Monkey Island review, Yahtzee does part of the review in "A ridiculous oirish accent".
  • He later did his Far Cry 2 review in a South African accent.
  • And again in BioShock-related reviews, poking fun at Atlas's accent whenever he says "sploicers"
  • During his reviews of Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human, (almost) every time he says "David Cage", he does it in a drawn-out Cockney accent.
  • In his review of ZombiU, he mentions a character called The Prepper, "or, more accurately, 'T'Prepper 'ey up me ducks put 'kettle on down pub.'"

Webcomics

• In Girl Genius, when Gil is incognito in England, he talks in a ridiculous Dick Van Dyke-in-Mary Poppins accent that leaves the actually English Trelawney Thorpe (Spark of the Realm) facepalming.
  Gil: Roit! Strewth and hit's the culmination uv a loiflong dream, squire!
  ...
  Trelawney: Never, ever talk like that again.
  Gil: What? I'm just trying to fit in!
• Homestuck:
  • Karkat briefly imitates Kanaya's way of speaking:
    KARKAT: THAT SOUNDS SUPER! DOESN'T THAT SOUND SUPER KANAYA?
    KANAYA: No
    KARKAT: I THINK I SPEAK FOR KANAYA WHEN I SAY IT SOUNDS Really Fucking Super.
  • Earlier, Kanaya claims to have done this during an instant-message conversation with Eridan. She also does it in text, by imitating Eridan's typing quirk.
    GA: Has It Occurred To You She May Have Blocked You Because You Are Vvery Ovverbearing
    GA: I Just Said That Aloud Now In Your Silly Accent And Had A Private Moment Of Enjoyment
• In Moody Mark Crusaders, Silver Spoon fakes Applejack's accent (complete with "sugarcube") to piss off Apple Bloom.
• In The Order of the Stick, after the Order encounters Miko, Haley refuses to come with her. Durkon tries to convince her to come. At one point in the conversation, Haley mocks Durkon's accent:
  Durkon: What aboot tha treasure?
  Haley: What "aboot" it?

Web Original

• In Lovelace ½, Andi (who normally speaks with a Sloane Ranger London accent) briefly imitates the accents of her Alabaman roommate Jennie and New Englander best friend Bell in Part 5, when they're testing her memory by asking her questions about things they said to her.
• Whateley Universe, "Ayla and the Great Shoulder Angel Conspiracy", when Tennyo tries a bad Australian accent a la Steve Irwin:
  Tennyo: Crikey, she's a byoo-tee! Looka the choppers on 'er! Tonoit we're jes gonna watch Ol' Killer Goodkind as she stalks the wild Chaka in its native habitat. The shoe store. When...

Web Videos

• The Cry of Mann: One British caller is picked up on "Tanking Mann". As he attempts to call out Becca and Rebecca for their poorly made show, Rebecca just puts on a British accent when speaking, as one example of the show's disinterest in being serious about anything.
• Highcraft: "2b2stoned" features several instances of the gang doing bad German accents.
• Played for Laughs across the Rats SMP, where the creators imitate French accents in various scenes.
  • After completing a quest for the Maid's melon juice, Apo, Bek, and Scott notice a painting of French ships in a hallway and start imitating French accents, burning candles in the attic to "get rid of the accent".
  • The chef hat Scott later dons has been nicknamed "the French hat", and it's a server in-joke that anyone wearing the hat, allegedly magical, has to speak either in French or with a French accent. This eventually leads to several moments on Day 57 where Will drops his roleplay voice while in-character to speak in French using his normal creator voice… which is about an entire octave deeper than said roleplay voice.
• Vinesauce: Vinny has something of a library of strange celebrity impersonations that he'll occasionally make while streaming. There's also RP Guy's vaguely Slavic accent, and he's also been known to slip into a Scottish accent (often when frustrated at a game)
  You rrrright focking TWAT!!

Western Animation

• Archer: While listening to his British WWI-veteran valet and a war buddy plan a defense of his apartment involving Lewis and Vickers machine guns, Sterling Archer shouts (in an English accent) "Mustard Gas! Zeppelins! [normal voice] No, we're not doing that."
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Zuko does this on a couple of occasions when imitating Iroh, whether wondering what Iroh would do or trying (and failing) to tell a joke. Especially odd because Iroh is one of the few characters on the show that does not have an American accent. It's also weird because, judging by the writing we see in-universe, no one's actually speaking English, and Iroh and Zuko speak the same language with likely the same accent.
• Beast Wars has its moments:
  • "Tangled Web": Tarantulas borrows Quickstrike's accent.
    Tarantulas: "Well then, pardner, let's head 'em up and move 'em out."
  • "Maximal No More": Rattrap also uses Quickstrike's accent to trick Waspinator into gassing himself with a grenade.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: In the second to last episode, to try to inspire Tohru, Jade quotes Uncle explaning that Tohru is a great apprentice and will make a fine Chi wizard one day. When Tohru asks if Uncle really said that, Jade admits she wasn't 100% sure on the wording, but was 100% sure on the accent.
• The Loud House: Luna sometimes speaks in a British accent while rocking out, just like her idol, Mick Swagger. In one episode, where she and her siblings tried to give up their annoying habits, she spoke in a Swedish accent instead.
• Centaurworld: In "The Key", Wammawink puts on a British accent when she meets Waterbaby again after many years. When they're alone, Waterbaby tells her to cut it out.
  Zulius: Why is Wammawink talking like she spent a semester abroad?
• Kaeloo:
  • "Let's Play Spies": Kaeloo does a terrible job of imitating a British accent.
  • "Let's Play Circuses": Mr. Cat, as a circus ringmaster, spends part of the episode speaking in a really bad Italian accent. When asked why, he tries to justify it but admits he has no idea why he's doing it.
• King of the Hill: In "It's Not Easy Being Green", after overhearing that Hank, Dale, and Bill only joined the environmental club so they could fish Boomhauer's car from the quarry, Bobby while mocking Hank briefly imitates his accent "but hwhy!".
• My Life Me: This is a habit of Mr. Towes. Often it doesn't even seem to have any relevance to whatever he's talking about. It seems like his voice actor's just having fun.
• Looney Tunes: Bugs would pretty much always do this when repeating anything Elmer Fudd said. Note in the example that Bugs is only speaking with Elmuh Fudd Syndwome when paraphrasing Elmer:
  Bugs: I'm not a stewing wabbit; I'm a fwicasseing wabbit!
  Elmer: A fwicasseeing wabbit?
  Bugs: Have you got a "fwicasseing wabbit" license?
  Elmer: Weww, no, I...
  Bugs: Do you happen to know what the penalty is for shooting a fwicasseing wabbit without a 'fwicasseing wabbit' license?!
• Loopy De Loop: In "Crow's Fete", when presenting Loopy with a stick of dynamite disguised as a cob of corn, the crow briefly imitates Loopy’s French accent.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone", Rainbow Dash does this while she's reading the guidebook Twilight Sparkle gave her and Pinkie Pie (while the upper part of her mane takes on Twilight's own look):
    Rainbow Dash: Always carry plenty of bits; the griffons are sure to help you as long as you share the wealth!
  • "What About Discord?": In Sugarcube Corner, while telling an anecdote about their weekend, Discord shortly impersonates Applejack. Of course, being a shapeshifter he doesn't just imitate her Southern drawl, bust also morph his head into a lookalike.
  • Both Sweetie Belle and Rainbow Dash have imitated Rarity's voice on separate occasions.
• The Penguins of Madagascar: Marlene imitates King Julien's accent while offering him a drinking cup of himself as a replacement crown.
• Ready Jet Go!: In "Castaway Carrot", while Carrot is stranded on the moon, he decides to go in his "talk-with-an-accent" crater, and briefly talks with a British accent.
  Carrot: 'Ello, guv'nor. Fancy a spot of tea or bangers and mash?
• Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling: When Rocko and Ed Bighead encounter the Winds Of Change, Rocko imitates the way he pronounces his Ws.
  Rocko: Hwhy are you here Mr. Hwinds of Change?
• Sam & Max: Freelance Police: Max's voice actor was a great impressionist and so did this a lot, dropping into hillbilly accents or doing impressions of famous people apropos of nothing. It worked with the character well enough that the creator, Steve Purcell, worked it back into Max's canonical character. The entire purpose of the ventriloquist dummy in The Devil's Playhouse, for instance, is to make him do this, although Sam complains that he makes Scottish Grandpa Stinky sound like "an Irish pirate".
• The Simpsons:
  • Parodied when Bart mentions that he's going to become a shoe polisher after being expelled from school: "Shine your boots, guv'nor?". Homer objects that "No son of mine is going to be a 19th-century cockney bootblack."
  • Bart adopts an old prospector accent when making fun of Homer's barbershop quartet. "That ain't been popular since aught-six, dagnabit!"
• South Park: Mockery of accents comes up occasionally.
  • The kids mocking guidance counselor Mr. Mackey's Appalachian accent.
  • Scott Malkinson's speech impediment being mocked.
  • Cartman pretending to be Steve Irwin, the (Australian) Crocodile Hunter.
  • Cartman providing the voice for his Jennifer Lopez hand puppet. Actually a double example, since the puppet's "true identity" is actually Mitch Connor, a man with an American accent disguising himself as Jennifer Lopez.
  • Cartman pretending to be Russian for a Professional Wrestling show.
  • Cartman briefly imitating the pilot of a Scottish airline, who announced that the estimated time of their flight will be "twelve 'arrs".
    Cartman: [angrily] TWELVE 'ARRS?!
  • Cartman pretending to be a Southern slaveowner. (See a pattern here?)
  • The Chinese dodgeball commentators pretending to be Americans, opening their eyes as wide as possible and saying in very flat accents stuff like "I'll use my credit card."
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: Spider-Man mocks the supervillain Shocker's accent in this way. He has good reason to because while Shocker's real name may be Montana (he's the Enforcer by that name, rather than Herman Schultz as in the comics), he sounds more like your stereotypical Texan.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "The Bad Batch", Wrecker, The Big Guy of the titular Super-Soldier squad, responds to a sarcastic quip from Captain Rex by saying that he thought this was supposed to be a "delicate operation", saying those words in a relatively poor impression of Rex's voice.
• Star Wars Rebels:
  • "Spark of Rebellion": Ezra impersonates Supply Master Lyste's space-English accent over Commandant Aresko's stolen comlink in order to lure Aresko, Grint, and their stormtroopers away from an innocent fruit vendor they were arresting.
  • "Through Imperial Eyes": Ezra does this twice. The first time, he does a gruff accent while posing as a bounty hunter. It's not very good. The second time, he's impersonating Lieutenant Lyste (again) to get into Thrawn's office, and does a surprisingly good impression of his accent. Although the Jedi Mind Trick helped.
• Wyrd Sisters: In the Animated Adaptation, Tomjon Vitoller does this a few times to establish him as a Man of a Thousand Voices. He impersonates Hwel's accent when saying "You can come too, 'to keep an eye on me'" (Hwel being the Disc's William Shakespeare, he is of course Brummie), his father when quoting what Olwyn Vitoller has to say on the subject of drinking, and more significantly the Fool at exactly the moment Hwel notices the two of them look startlingly similar.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Jellyfish Jam", SpongeBob briefly affects a French accent when eating jellyfish jelly on bread, which sounds not too dissimilar to Tom Kenny's French narrator voice.

Real Life

• The Marx Brothers grew up in a poor part of Manhattan, in and around 1900. Since the area was dominated by Irish and Italian immigrants (the Marxes were of European Jewish descent), Chico taught himself to fake an Italian or Irish accent so he'd be able to pass as a member of either group at need.
• John Barrowman adopted an American accent when his family moved to the United States when he was a child and uses that accent as his default. On occasion, he has been known to accidentally slip back into his original Scottish accent, such as in the Torchwood outtakes. He also uses his native Scottish accent with his family.
• There is a real-life phenomenon where a person will, upon talking to someone who speaks with an accent, unknowingly and reflexively begin mimicking that accent. When it is pointed out, the person will invariably begin speaking again in their own accent... but if they continue to speak to the person with the accent they will inevitably begin mimicking again. Psychologists and linguists still have no idea why this happens. Though some subscribe to Communication Accommodation Theory.
• Talk Like a Pirate Day.
• In the DVD commentary on an episode of the second season of Game of Thrones, Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy) and Gemma Whelan (Yara Greyjoy) briefly do convincing American accents as a joke.
• Bradley James and Colin Morgan do a similar thing in a Merlin blooper.

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