Mirror Routine

Lucy and Harpo take their time to reflect off each other.

Clay: [Le Mime]'s doin' everything I do!
Dojo: The mirror gag. Why did it have to be a mime?!

— Xiaolin Showdown

When someone attempts to be a mirror image of another person by standing behind a glass pane, sometimes only an empty frame or a gap in a row of mirrors, copying their movements exactly.

Sometimes this is to hide the fact that they have broken the mirror, and they don't want the other character to find out.

In cartoons, this is usually played for laughs with two characters that look nothing alike, with the mark trying to catch the "mirror image" out and the foil managing to pull off a perfectly synchronised act. If the act is convincing enough to work, expect the mark to attribute glaring differences to simple illness, drinking, or staying up too late. It can also be used very effectively to hide from a pursuer, especially if you happen to be an Evil Twin.

Another variant is when two Identical Strangers meet each other for the first time. This is also sometimes done when someone is flawlessly disguised as the person he is impersonating or vice-versa, or even if the impersonator is only wearing a convincing rubber mask but leaving the rest of the body exposed.

A similar setup is used when the character seen by the audience isn't the character seen by the other characters (e.g., a "Freaky Friday" Flip situation, or a person using a glamour to hide his true form). If Bob is hiding in Alice's body, sometimes the show will continue to show us Bob, but have everyone react like they've seen Alice, and the Mirror Routine is a decent way to clarify what's going on.

Unfortunately, since mirrors have traditionally been a way to see through a glamour (e.g., how Dracula doesn't reflect), there are two variants here, one the inverse of the other: Either Bob is the true person (or at least the soul) and Alice-in-the-Mirror is what others see, or Bob is what others see and Alice-in-the-Mirror is his true form. Whichever you use, establish it well.

In Real Life, this is almost impossible to do convincingly. If you've ever done basic drama in school then you've probably done this exercise and know just how hard it is to synchronise your actions with those of another actor, even with proper forward planning.

See also Stand-In Portrait and Wallpaper Camouflage. Compare with The Mirror Shows Your True Self. Not to be confused with Mirror Match.

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Examples:

Advertising

• A recent McDonald's commercial plays with this trope with a young teenage girl who apparently approaches a mirror and performs a dance routine before "reaching through" to pick up the "reflected" drink, at which point it becomes apparent that this trope was being performed with twin sisters.
• A 2016 commercial for the Seattle Mariners baseball had 2016 Mariner Robinson Cano, and former Mariner Edgar Martinez perform such a routine. Robinson adjusts his hat, and Edgar adjusts his hat. Robinson touches his ear, and Edgar touches his ear. Robinson holds up a lamp, and Edgar holds up the light bat, a baseball bat-shaped lamp that he made in a commercial 15 years earlier. Immediately afterwards, two coaches decide that Robinson Cano's swing is a mirror image of Ken Griffey Jr.

Animation

• BoBoiBoy: When BoBoiBoy's counterparts are split up for too long, their memory deteriorates. Adu Du exploits this weakness by kidnapping one of the three so they can't reunite. As they all undergo identity loss, BoBoiBoy Earth and BoBoiBoy Wind (who weren't kidnapped) are puzzled over which of them is the "real" BoBoiBoy, and start mirroring each other's actions at some point.

Anime & Manga

• In Anpanman episode 322a "Shokupanman and Horrorman", Baikinman dresses Horrorman as Shokupanman due to the skeleton feeling depressed that Dokinchan loves Shokupanman instead of him. Baikinman takes advantage of this as he wanted Horrorman to cause trouble for the superhero. When Horrorman was at the Bakery, he tries to get way from Shokupanman by using the fallen mirror and tries to pretend that he is his reflection until the mirror falls.
• A variation of this is done in Cardcaptor Sakura. The Mirror card deliberately mirrors Sakura's actions in order to reveal its identity.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, after Josuke and Koichi manage to warn Jotaro about Hazamada's planned ambush, Josuke notices how he suddenly took Jotaro's pocket pen, and upon looking at his nearby reflection, he realizes that it's actually Hazamada's Surface controlling him from afar.
• MegaMan NT Warrior (2002) has Yuriko and Mariko doing this, mainly because Mariko thought Yuriko was her reflection due to their very similar appearance. Yuriki then hypnotises Mariko to forget she ever saw her and disappears.
• My Lovely Ghost Kana: Daikichi and Kana are cleaning opposite sides of a window and go through a short routine, then burst out laughing at each other.
• Naruto: Shikamaru and the rest of the Nara family pull this off by way of their Shadow Pin ninjutsu. To paraphrase an enemy, "You got ahold of my shadow, so now we marry each other's movements."
• On Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Chuck's Evil Counterpart Fastener stands in front of a mirror that Chuck is examing. Chuck starts goofing off with Fasterner mimicking his actions. Then Fastener smacks Chuck in the face and zips behind him before he can get reoriented. With Fasterner's reflection now in the mirror, Chuck tries to punch him...and rips his hand open on the glass.

Comic Books

• The Beano once utilized this in 'The Three Bears' strip. Pa used a mirror frame to distract Hank with this while Ma and Ted robbed the store. It worked a little too well, as Hank decided that the 'mirror' was so good, that he should use it to check out his new hat. After Hank sees his 'reflection' with the old hat, he catches on, and then proceeds to knock-out Pa off-panel, and then disguise as him to trick Ma and Ted into giving him the food back.
• Wonder Woman (1987): A (short lived) retcon to Donna's backstory plays with this. She was "born" when a magic mirror absorbed a piece of her sister Diana's soul as she gazed into it and her first steps outside of the mirror matched Diana's as though her reflection had left the mirror to continue on next to her. ^note  For Donna's most well known origin see Who Is Donna Troy?

Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles: Bolt's look-alike father mirrors his son's actions in "The Cameo" when they first meet. They even shout "Marx Brothers! Duck Soup!" to each other when they finish.

Films — Live-Action

• A surprisingly horrifying example in 1408. The protagonist tries to articulate his troubles by gestures to a stranger he sees in the window of the house across the road. He manages to attract attention to himself, but then the stranger suddenly begins repeating the protagonist's own moves. And when the hero finally realizes that he sees his own reflection in the opposite window, the reflection gets attacked from behind.
• Used in Airheads when Pip first leaves the radio station. He encounters a police officer, and they perform the basic routine. Pip tries to throw off the cop with some kind of dance move, but the officer reaches for his gun, causing the inept rocker to flee.
• In the unused script for Back to the Future Part II, old Doc Brown travels to the sixties and has to avoid being seen by young Doc Brown by hiding behind an empty mirror frame. "Great Scott! I look terrible!"
• Played with in the Bette Midler flick Big Business. She's playing identical twins who don't know about this and meet for the first time — walking along a mirrored surface. Neither wants to foil the other, they just happen to do the same movements at the same time — except, you know, mirrored.
• Also played for horror in Cube 2: Hypercube. One character opens a door and sees herself in an apparent mirror...until her other self grabs her hand, then is murdered seconds later by another character who's in the room with them.
• Done in the Vincent Price vehicle Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966), between Price's title villain and Ciccio Ingrassia's hero/comedy relief.
• The Marx Brothers do this in Duck Soup. The definitive version that everyone copies. The gag was old when the Marxes did it, dating from vaudeville and being used in several silent comedies in the '20s, though they subvert it niftily at one point when Groucho and Harpo walk around each other but continue imitating each other afterward.
• The Trope Maker might be 1916 Charlie Chaplin film The Floorwalker, in which the Tramp runs into his Identical Stranger, in the person of a department store floorwalker. The Tramp and the floorwalker mimic each other's movements for a while until Charlie is reassured that the floorwalker is real by reaching out and touching his valise.
• In the second Garfield movie, A Tale of Two Kitties, Garfield and Identical Stranger Prince do this when they finally meet, over a hedge arch. They desynchronize once Garfield tries some wicked dance moves, although it's Garfield's bad breath that's the last straw for Prince.
• Sarah Jessica Parker made a dance movie in the 1980s called Girls Just Want to Have Fun. During the final round of competition, twin dancers successfully pull off a quick intro that way and are called Mirror Image.
• In A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the vampiric Girl taunts Hossein like this as she stalks him on the opposite side of a street.
• Lampshaded in The Monkees' film Head. Peter thinks Davy's trying to do "the old mirror routine" in the studio restroom, but Davy's actually trying to warn Peter about a huge Magical Eye in the mirror.
• In Interview with the Vampire, the titular vampire, Louis, relates his encounter with the French vampire Santiago, who happens to be quite dressed similarly to himself. Upon being spotted by Louis, Santiago amuses himself by engaging in a bit of this before he actually properly introduces himself to Louis. He does at the end again, where Louis confronts him armed with scythe. This time, however, Louis proves too fast for him.
• Roberto Benigni does a quick mirror routine with an Identical Stranger in Johnny Stecchino.
• Lost in a Harem: Done by a disguised Peter Johnson and Nimativ, with Peter posing as the mirror to keep Nimativ fooled.
• The Identical Stranger version features in the Polish comedy Miś, in which the protagonist opens the door and takes his doppelganger for a mirror salesman. Then he shuts the door in his face.
  "We already have a mirror."
• This happens in the TV movie Model Behavior, except the lookalikes are unintentionally copying each other's movements.
• Done in The Nutt House, when two identical twins finally meet.
• Variation of sorts in The Pink Panther (1963) where Sir Charles and his nephew are cracking a two-sided safe, unaware of each other, wearing identical gorilla costumes.
• Also used in Repli-Kate: Kate and her clone both mistake each other for a reflection, unintentionally mirror each other's movements, and walk away without a clue what just happened.
• Max Linder, in the 1921 silent comedy Seven Years Bad Luck, in which Max's servant is trying to hide the fact that he's broken his master's mirror.
• A variation shows up in the Buster Keaton film Sherlock, Jr. — Buster stands in front of what appears to be a full-length mirror, then steps through, revealing that it's a door connecting two identical rooms.
• Another silent-era example: Charley Chase, in his 1924 short Sittin' Pretty. (which, incidentally, was directed by the same director who went on directing... Duck Soup.)
• Sleeper is an homage to silent film slapstick — at one point, Woody Allen does the routine shaving at a futuristic mirror, where he notices his reflection is just a bit off-sync.
• Like every other slapstick trope, this one was used on occasion by The Three Stooges — usually Curly.

Literature

• Inversion: In Ares Express by Ian McDonald, Sweetness searches through a mirror maze for one image that doesn't match her every move, because it's an independent virtual-reality copy of her.
• Played for dramatic effect near the end of The Big Over Easy (book kind-of spun off from Thursday Next).
• In Fawn and the Mysterious Trickster, Fawn pranks Beck by dressing up as her and pretending to be her reflection.
• In The Divine Comedy, Dante initially mistakes the misty, transparent visage of one of the Moon's saints for his own reflection.
• In Galaxy of Fear: The Nightmare Machine, Zak ends up in a hall of funhouse mirrors that, with holographic aid, distort reflections in improbable ways. After a while in there, he comes across Lando Calrissian, assumes he's a particularly cool-looking reflection and tries posing. Lando grabbing him is one of the book's Pseudo-Crisis chapter ends.
• In one Lord Peter Wimsey short story, a man who suffers from a chronic fear of doppelgängers meets his long-lost Evil Twin when he mistakes him for a reflection in a glass door, then has a panic attack.
• In Septimus Heap, Septimus finds a mirror he thinks is a Chronoscope, which shows a super-old man mimicking his movements. Then the old guy pulls him through and shoves him through a Portal to the Past of 500 years ago. It turns out the old guy was Marcellus Pye, who really was over 500 years old.
• Partially applies to a scene in Witches Abroad, where Lily rushes into her mirror-filled room and mistakes Granny for one of her own reflections, as she's standing in the frame of a broken one. Justified in that Granny was dressed similarly to Lily, they're sisters who look a lot alike, and Lily's ordinary reflections don't move perfectly in synch with her, due to her excessive use of mirror-magic.

Live-Action TV

• Done on by Patty Duke on the opening titles of the The Patty Duke Show as Patty and Cathy.
• Happens a few times in The Benny Hill Show, usually with Benny in drag mirroring a woman. The "disguise" fails when they start to strip...
• One episode of Gilligan's Island involves a Soviet spy who has undergone plastic surgery to resemble Gilligan landing on the island. When the two Gilligans come face to face, the spy tries to convince the real Gilligan that he is looking into a mirror. Gilligan manages to trip the spy up by acting like he is going to sneeze and then stopping halfway through.
• The Goodies. In "The Baddies", our heroes are chasing evil robot doppelgangers of themselves. Graeme Garden comes across a mirror and cringes in fear until realising it's just a reflection. He decides to check his appearance in the mirror, only to suddenly reach through the frame and knock out his robot double. It's a variation on this trope in that it really is a reflection of the actor, which then becomes a visual gag.
• This is done as part of a rehearsal for a school play in Hannah Montana.
• Lucy and Harpo Marx, in an episode of I Love Lucy, echoing the famous scene from Duck Soup.
• Done in an episode of MADtv (1995) spoofing Heroes, where Nikki (the one with the split personality) believes the "her" in the mirror is someone different and performs a series of elaborate stunts in front of the mirror to prove it.
• This is a plot point in the episode "The Tailor's Dummy" of Jonathan Creek, inspired by Duck Soup, to bluff that one man was the murderer.
• A contender group in the Japanese talent show Kasou Taishou had done a mirror room dance involving one girl dancing with five other girls as mirror images mimicking the dancer. This got them first place.
• In an episode of Phil of the Future, Pim dresses up as Debby's grandmother to sneak out of a Slumber Party. She then poses as a mirror in front of Debby's real grandmother but gets caught when she accidentally sneezes.
• Scott Bakula did the same performance with dozens of other actors on Quantum Leap, for pretty much the same reason.
• Parodied in a Saturday Night Live sketch parodying The Swan in the episode hosted by the Olsen twins. One twin played the contestant looking at herself in the mirror; the other played the mirror image, deliberately off-sync with the other. The "image" even hands the other a tissue when she starts crying!
• In the first episode of Sister, Sister, Tia and Tamara simultaneously brush their hair a bit (like, out of one eye) while standing on either side of an empty frame. Neither knows about the existence of the other until later in the episode.
• Subverted in the The Suite Life of Zack & Cody episode "Midsummer Nightmare''. A heated argument breaks out during this routine.
• This sketch was done as a performance in The Vicar of Dibley: Rather slim prima ballerina Darcy Bussel in a famous cameo is reflected by not-at-all slim Geraldine.
• Parodied in the "Arrivederci, Arnold" episode of Welcome Back, Kotter, when Mr. Kotter dresses up as Horshack and puts on a skit to convince Woodman to return Arnold from mainstream classes to the Sweathogs, with Kotter looking face-to-face at Arnold and both of them doing such trademarks as Arnold's wheezy laugh and several "Ooh-ooh-ooh!"'s. Arnold takes a look at Mr. Kotter and says "Wait a minute; I don't got no mustache..."
• Played for Laughs in the Wizards of Waverly Place episode "All About You-Niverse". Alex performs this routine to avoid being spotted by her mother through a portal to a Mirror Universe but immediately drops the act when her mother falls for it.
  Alex: Mom we're not even dressed the same! I can't believe you bought this for one second!
• Done in an episode of The X-Files. In the Season 6 two-part episode "Dreamland", Mulder switches bodies with a man in black. When he later looks in the mirror, the two actors (David Duchovny and Micheal McKean) perform this trope.

Professional Wrestling

• Delirious does one in this promo from NWA Wildside, with Daizee Haze and referee Mike Posey as the second Delirious.

Puppet Shows

• In Barney & Friends, two characters perform the clown version of this.
• The Muppet Show:
  • In an episode, Kermit checks his appearance in an empty frame; on the other side is Scooter's wind-up TV show host that looks exactly like Kermit, except for the wind-up key in the back.
  • In a later episode, a sketch features Gonzo testing this when performing "Act Naturally" opposite his reflection, who refuses to mimic the "ludicrous things" he does.
• Done with Kermit and Evil Twin Constantine in Muppets Most Wanted.

Theater

• A musical incorporating the songs of George Gershwin, Crazy For You, has the unintentional version happen partway through. Both characters (one is disguised as the other) are drunk (due to lost love) and don't realize they're not seeing a reflection until one raises their glass in a toast and the other doesn't. They both shrug it off.
• In the Cirque du Soleil show ZED, the title character briefly encounters a double of himself, and their performances are mirrored until they seemingly merge into one being again.

Video Games

• A version of this appears in Batman: Arkham City, albeit so subtly that neither the player nor Batman notice until the end of the game: when Batman arrives for their second confrontation, Joker is seen adjusting his makeup in a large mirror; though he has his back to the door, it's clear from his reflection that he's still horribly diseased and likely within hours of dying. However, when the Joker turns around, he appears perfectly healthy. It's not until the end of the game that Batman discovers that Joker has actually hired Clayface to act as his Body Double; the "mirror" was just a pane of glass that the real Joker was hiding behind, Clayface being able to mirror his bosses mannerisms almost perfectly as he put the finishing touches on his disguise. If you look carefully at the mirror during this scene, you can even get a glimpse of the real Joker ducking out of sight.
• Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced: The fight against Fake Crash has him copying the player's movements. If you touch him you'll die, so to damage him you had to lead him into the traps in the stage without getting killed by them yourself.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The battle against Shadow Link starts off like this and goes on for about a minute or so before he starts attacking on his own. You can break the mirror act sooner by using something other than sword-and-shield.
• Pokémon Legends: Arceus: At the end of the first mission for the "Daybreak" update, Mai's Munchlax will end up doing this with an illusion-disguised Zorua.
• In the RuneScape quest "Broken Home", you encounter the ghostly Mysterious Waif in a room, with a pane of glass between you. She doesn't respond if you speak to her, but if you mimic her actions like a mirror, you can make her smile. Turns out, it was a very good thing that glass was separating you...
• Sonic Generations: Before fighting the Death Egg Robot, Classic and Modern Sonic both walk up to a glass window in the wall separating them and perform this gag. The perspective the player sees it from depends on which Sonic they used to enter the boss portal from the hub world. In Classic Sonic's perspective, he realizes the trick after Eggman speaks. In Modern Sonic's, he doesn't notice until Classic Sonic runs off.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario 64 did it to simplify the graphics processing. In-story, a room had a large mirror on the wall. The game actually used a mirrored room, a duplicate of Mario, and an invisible force field. Not a perfectly mirrored room, of course. The trick in that room is to find something that isn't a perfect mirror and use that as a level entrance. In the remake, Luigi can phase through the mirror into the copied room, where things get weird.
  • In Paper Mario 64, some shape-changing enemies try to pull this in the seventh dungeon, an ice palace, where every room looks like it has a mirror covering its wall, but is actually divided by a giant wall of glass. Eventually you find a hole in the "mirror" and bump into your "reflection".
  • In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Mario and Luigi do this when they meet The Starshade Bros.
• In the first Tomb Raider I game and its remake, there is an Atlantean creature who looks like a muscular structure of a human who copies Lara's movements exactly.

Web Comics

• Stick figures can do it too, as seen in anti-HEROES with ghost illusionist Kaalinor stumbling upon the very mook he took the appearance of.
  Kaalinor: Wow! That was totally awesome! I can't believe I stayed in sync with you for so long!
• The protagonist of Chopping Block once did this with Jason (both wear hockey masks).
• Jekyll and Hyde speak to each other this way in MK's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

Web Original

• Cracked's The 6 Most Mind-Blowing Ways Your Brain Can Malfunction mentions a mental disorder called mirrored-self misidentification, in which someone looking into a mirror believes that the monster in the mirror is an intruder performing a Mirror Routine, not oneself.
• When the title character of Ruby Quest leaves a room and returns, what was a window into another room seems to have changed into a mirror, as she discovers when the players see a shadow behind it. When she shatters the mirror, however, there is someone on the other side- whose body distorts horribly in order to squeeze into the room. The other person was later discovered to be a horribly mutated Daisy.
• On ScrewAttack, a Clip of the Week video has the staff opening a portal to an alternate dimension and meet with their doppelgangers. Stuttering Craig and his double (played by Craig's brother) silently size each other up. Then they whack each other in the crotch.
• Wileyk209zback: One video involved him doing a full-blown remake of this gag from the classic Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode "Never Ape an Ape Man", utilizing Chroma Key technology, a gorilla suit and a Scooby mask and costume. The result looks pretty impressive.
  • In this video demonstrating the video effects from the pre-2007 versions of Apple's iMovie Non-Linear Edit software, when Zak Wolf gets to the "Mirror" effect he acts this out with the mirrored image of himself. He even mentions he should've brought his Scooby-Doo mask or a Groucho Marx costume.

Western Animation

• Parodied in the Adventure Time episode "Marceline's Closet", when Finn spots Jake in Marceline's house, and Jake tries to pose as Finn's reflection in the window (only he mirrors Finn's movements the wrong way around).
  Finn: Jake, get outta there! Marceline's gonna kill you! Jake! I know this isn't a mirror! What the— You're doing it WRONG, even!
• The Beast Wars episode "Double Dinobot" has a bit where Dinobot and his organic clone face one another and copy each other's movements.
• Disney's Bonkers also had an example similar to the Scooby-Doo/Ape Man example in the episode "When the Spirit Moves You," where a ghost a haunted house disguises himself in a rubber Bonkers mask and suit and does the mirror routine with the real Bonkers at an opening in a room.
• Classic Disney Shorts:
  • In the Mickey Mouse cartoon "Lonesome Ghosts", a ghost does this to Goofy, who mentions at the beginning, "For a moment I thought it wasn't me." After a while of doing this, Goofy finally catches on and says, "I know you, you're a ghost!"
  • In the Chip 'n Dale cartoon Two Chips and a Miss, both Chip and Dale do this thinking they both saw a reflection of themselves to straighten their tuxedos when they were both secretly invited to a club.
  • Pluto does this in the cartoon "Canine Casanova" with a dachshund named Dinah.
• Count Duckula: In the episode "One Stormy Night", a statue of Duckula come to life does this with the real Duckula. Duckula begins to believe the statue really is his reflection, until the statue points out that vampires have no reflection.
• The Crumpets episode "Pity The Prize" has the Weather Girl's encounter with Cassandra, who is being disguised as her in an attempt to divert her own crush's attention. This scene is an intentional homage to the Big Business movie example, including blowing raspberries and nose pinching.
• Donkey Kong Country: "Ape-Nesia" features Captain Skurvy and his pirates doing this in song to convince an amnesiac Donkey Kong he's one of them.
• The Emperor's New School has Kuzco shape-shift into Kronk with one of Yzma's potions and then pose as a reflection in the mirror to the real Kronk to steal the potion that will turn him back.^note Kronk is holding the potion while venting his guilt in the "mirror".
  Kronk: Where is the reflection of the potion?
• Family Guy does this with Hitler vs. Stewie disguised as Hitler, a shot-by-shot remake of the infamous Marx Brothers skit in the episode "Road to Germany".
  • A variation features in "Switch the Flip" when Stewie accidentally swaps bodies with Peter; to stop Peter realising what has happened to him, Brian-in-Chris tells Peter-in-Stewie to look in a "mirror" that is just a door with Stewie-in-Peter on the other side.
• Seen in the Paramount/Trans-Lux version of Felix the Cat entitled "Felix the Cat Suit", when as another scheme to steal the magic bag, the Professor disguises himself in a strange inflatable Felix the Cat costume, removes the glass from Felix's mirror and readies himself; once the real Felix arrives and begins combing his hair in the mirror, he is shocked to see a larger, fatter and permanently-grinning version of himself as his "reflection." Felix figures that he is either getting the mumps, is getting fatter, or the mirror is out-of-focus. But then a bee comes along and pokes the "reflection" with its stinger, causing the Felix suit to blow up and give the game away.
• Futurama: One of the animals on Vergon-6 is the Four-Legged Mimic. When seen, it's turned into a horse version of Leela, and is doing this. Fry comes along and is confused as to which is which. He throws a net over Leela.
• The Garbage Pail Kids Cartoon episode "The House That Dripped Crud" had a short scene where Elliot Mess encounters a skeleton that pretends to be his reflection, even going to the trouble of scrambling his head and limb positions like Elliot's.
• Fred Flintstone does this on Billy's dad in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy once. Apparently, Billy's dad catches on eventually and keeps going after Fred has left.
• Jackie Chan Adventures:
  • In "Enter The Viper", when Jackie first met Viper, they were dressed identically when they passed, causing Jackie to think he was looking in a broken mirror.
  • In "The Tiger And The Pussycat", after Jackie gets split into two thanks to accidentally using the tiger talisman, the two Jackies initially thinks they're looking into a mirror.
• Legion of Super-Heroes has a shapeshifter escaping from the heroes this way. He has the advantage of being on the other side of the glass.
• In The Little Rascals animated short "Rascals' Revenge", Butch does this to Alfalfa in the abandoned house.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Bugs Bunny does this to Elmer in the cartoon Hare Tonic to convince Elmer that he is turning into a rabbit.
  • Daffy Duck does this in The Impatient Patient and Draftee Daffy.
  • On the short Bell Hoppy, Sylvester has to put a bell on Hippety Hopper, and after various failed attempts, he tricks Hopper into putting the bell on himself with a mirror routine.
  • Daffy does it again in "Attack of the Drones" with one of his drones.
• The Loud House: In "Cover Girls", Luan (disguised as Leni) runs into the real Leni (who's in her normal getup). They end up doing this, complete with Macarena.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Rainbow Dash does this in "A Canterlot Wedding Part 2" with the first Changeling to take her appearance, complete with a subtle lag in the latter's movements.
  • In "The Times They Are a Changeling", Spike does this when he first encounters Thorax the Changeling (who's taken on Spike's form). Spike only figures it out when he turns to leave and Thorax accidentally slips in the snow copying him.
• The Oh Yeah! Cartoons short "Hubbykins vs. Sweetiepie" featured a variation on this trope where Hubbykins tried to avoid his irate wife Sweetiepie by covering himself in soot and pretending to be her shadow by copying her movements. His deception works until his wife's real shadow non-verbally points out he's an impostor.
• In The Perils of Penelope Pitstop episode "Big Top Trap", the Hooded Claw, disguised as Clyde ("One more clown Clyde won't be noticed"), does it by putting a mirror frame between himself and the real Clyde in the circus.
• A common gag on Scooby-Doo, usually with Shaggy as a participant. Sometimes it is the Fake Monster of the Week doing the copying, other times it's Shaggy trying to fake out his pursuers.
  • In "Never Ape an Ape Man", this happens with Scooby, with the villain wearing a very realistic latex Scooby-Doo mask but with his true hands exposed.
  • It happens again in "Scooby's Gold Medal Gambit" from The New Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show when the Chameleon disguised himself as Scooby, this time in full-body, even though the suit part was not as detailed.
  • A serious (and more realistic) variant was used in an episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo?, in which a photograph thought to show a boy looking into a mirror turned out to be an image of identical twins, posed as if doing a Mirror Routine.
• Timid Smurf (later known as Actor) does this to Brainy in The Smurfs (1981) episode "All the Smurf's a Stage".
• The TaleSpin episode "A Bad Reflection on You, Part 2" features a scene where Kit hides out in Don Karnage's dressing room. When Mad Dog enters the room, Kit dresses in Karnage's clothes and mimics Mad Dog's movements to avoid being noticed.
• Tangled: The Series: One of these occurs at the beginning of "Rapunzeltopia" when short-haired Rapunzel meets her long-haired alter ego:
  Short-haired Rapunzel: Who are you, and what do you want? Ugh, whoa! [She finds herself wrapped up in her alter ego's long hair]
  Short-haired Rapunzel: A frying pan? Who are you? Because that's kind of... my thing. [The other Rapunzel lowers her hood] Okay...
  Other Rapunzel: Try not to freak out.
  Short-haired Rapunzel: Try not to freak out? [giggles] Oh, why would I freak out? Meeting myself is perfectly normal, right? Trust me, I am not freaking out. Okay: I'm meeting myself, I'm meeting myself. I'm meeting myself!
  Other Rapunzel: Right?
  Both Rapunzels [simultaneously]: So neat! You said the same thing I said! Best day... Ha! You thought I was going to say "ever", but I stopped!
• Taz-Mania: A spy (who, naturally, looks nothing like Taz) does this to Taz in "Yet Another Road to Taz-Mania".
• The Teacher's Pet episode "Being Mrs. Leadready" has a scene where Leonard and Spot, both dressed as the mother of Spot's human persona Scott Leadyready II, copy each other's movements as if one of them was looking at their reflection.
• Tom and another cat did this while fighting over Jerry in the Chuck Jones Tom and Jerry short Cat and Dupli-Cat.
• In the Xiaolin Showdown episode "Like a Rock", Jack Spicer recruits Le Mime to help defeat the Xiaolin Monks. When Le Mime faces Clay, he does "the mirror gag" to stonewall Clay. Clay defeats Le Mime by punching himself in the face, which Le Mime copies. Clay can take a hit, Le Mime can't.

Real Life

• Done as a prank.
• Another prank, done by Improv Everywhere.
• This mirror routine between two similar-looking cats proves that this can happen in real life unintentionally.
• The "mirror test" for animal intelligence is whether or not animals can recognize their own reflection in a mirror as such, or think it's an intimidating, scent-less stranger whose every action matches their own.
• The Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation special effects team used this to film Benji's Imagine Spot about donning a Latex Perfection mask. In the movie, Benji has the mask fitted, then the camera seamlessly pans to a mirror showing his disguised reflection. In reality, Benji's actor, Simon Pegg, sat in front of a hole with a mirror frame around it, facing a flipped duplicate of the set. The man Benji wanted to disguise as sat on the opposite side of the hole and copied Pegg's motions as best as he could. Ilsa's actress, Rebecca Ferguson, also had a body double portray her reflection in the scene. Reversed in Ethan's case, as Tom Cruise played the reflection, and his body double filled the role of the "real" Ethan.

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