Samus Is A Girl / Western Animation

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• Inverted in the American Dad! episode "Hot Scoomp", where Hayley, Francine, and Roger join a cult under the guise of a women's aerobics club. When Roger accidentally shoots at the cult leader, it turns out that she's just a hologram created by a gonkish overweight man.
• In the Archer episode "Coyote Lovely", Archer, Lana, and Cyril are sent to the Texas/Mexico border to apprehend notorious human trafficker Moreno. Everything is fine until Moreno is revealed to be an incredibly attractive woman, and Archer immediately decides that cozying up to her is more important than his mission.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Smellerbee who was dressed like a boy and, despite having a girl-like voice, made it hard to tell which gender she was. It wasn't until "The Serpent's Pass" episode when Jet's group meet Iroh and Zuko that her gender is confirmed after Iroh mistakenly classifies her as a boy and she angrily corrects him.
  • In the episode "Warriors of Kyoshi", Sokka is surprised (to say the least) to find out that it wasn't men who ambushed them but a pack of teen aged girls.
  • For the viewers, a good chunk of the Fire Nation army, if Zhao's speech in "The Blue Spirit" is anything to go by ("We are the sons and daughters of fire, the superior element!")
• Red Claw, a villain created exclusively for Batman: The Animated Series. A terrorist leader whose name was notorious internationally, almost no one knew that she was a woman at first. Even Batman was a little surprised when they first met:
  Batman: Red Claw is a woman?
  Red Claw: Is that a problem?
  Batman: Not at all. I'm an equal-opportunity crime-fighter.
• A variation of this occurs in the Batman Beyond episode "Payback", in which Batman (Terry) faces a dangerous Knight Templar vigilante named Payback who is willing to harm and kill people for perceived injustices. Because of Payback's deep voice and large, imposing physique, Terry initially suspects him of being either a doctor at a local community center or his bulky henchman. Payback later turns out to be the doctor's young son wearing an armored suit.
• In Ben 10: Omniverse, Kevin is the first person to notice that Khyber's pet, whom he adopts after Khyber abandoned it, is a female.
• The Berenstain Bears: In the 1982 half-hour special The Berenstain Bears Comic Valentine, the last section of the story involves an ice skating match between the Bear Country Cousins and the Beartown Bullies. After the Cousins win, the Bullies' goalie, a big, intimidating bear in a hockey mask, removes it to reveal a girl bear. And to top it off, she turns out to be Honey Bear, the girl who's been sending Brother Valentine's cards proclaiming herself his super-secret Valentine the entire special.
• Blue Eye Samurai: The main character, Mizu, is a Sweet Polly Oliver example, but her gender isn't revealed until the last scene of the first episode, the entirety of which led the audience (and the other characters) to believe she was male.
• Played with in Castlevania, the Elder Speaker tells Trevor to go rescue his “grandchild” from under the city and Trevor finds a finds a hooded statue of a mage◊. After he kills the Cyclops the stone spell wears off and Trevor discovers the mage is actually a woman called Sypha, Trevor is annoyed that Elder didn’t specify that it was his granddaughter. The Reveal can also be seen as a gentle mocking of Sypha’s Sweet Polly Oliver status in the original game since Trevor immediately knows Sypha is a girl the moment she isn’t Taken for Granite. This is justified in the series as the Speakers are a nomadic people, and their unisex robes are an attempt to keep the women from being targeted if they're attacked while traveling.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: In "Operation: C.A.R.A.M.E.L.", we learn that Heinrich Von Marizpan is actually a girl, originally Henrietta von Marizpan. A cursed set of caramels deprived her of her beauty, making her into a him.
• Danny Phantom:
  • Danny sicced a Silver Purple-Backed gorilla named Sampson on Skulker. Danny soon finds out Sampson's real gender when he got an accidental eyeful, and was renamed "Delilah" when he submitted his findings to a magazine.
  • One episode that involved a video game which Danny and Tucker are wrapped up in, but they can't defeat a gamer who constantly outwits them at every turn. Near the end of the episode they find out the gamer is Sam, which is humiliating—earlier in the episode, they mocked Sam thinking that because she's a girl, she wasn't good at gaming. So her smugness in the reveal is justified. It also didn't help that they flat out stated their strategies right in front of her which is why she could easily kick their butts every time.
• Quackor (The Foul), the Evil Counterpart of (Dial "M" For) Monkey in Dexter's Laboratory. It wasn't until she laid an egg. Monkey is shocked, but they are seen cuddling it at the end of the episode.
• In one episode of Doug, auditions are held for Bluffington's baseball team, and one kid who always wore a catcher's mask during the audition exhibits sheer excellence in hitting the ball, catching the ball, and throwing the ball. Coach Spitz recruits the star to the team and asks his name, and at that point the star player removes the mask and reveals herself as Patti Mayonnaise. After this revelation, Coach Spitz rejects her just because she's a girl.
• In Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, the criminal Ironface is revealed to be the Serpent Lady.
• Family Guy:
  • Chris is conflicted over kissing a friend named Sam... Until he finds out she's a girl. Then inverted when he gets too nervous to speak to her now that he knows she is a girl, until she states to him to keep thinking that she is a guy. Which he accepts.
    Sam: Do you want to go to the creek and make out?
    Chris: Yes sir! (walks off with her while holding hands)
  • Peter ends up on house arrest when he gets angry at someone who he assumes is a man, and punches "him" out. Not only was "he" a woman (a very masculine-looking woman) but she was pregnant.
  • An episode features a talk show where it's revealed that a girl's boyfriend... is a woman. Actually, a horse. Actually, a broom.
• Inverted in F is for Family where Sue goes to apply for a job at Plast-a-ware and expects her employer Tracy to be a woman, only for the latter to turn out to be a man.
• Futurama: Leela did this, but with a Paper-Thin Disguise, so only other characters were surprised.
• In the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero episode "In The Presence of Mine Enemies", Slipstream has a dogfight with a Cobra pilot, taunting each other over the radio. When they both crash, Slipstream is shocked to discover his opponent is a woman, which is strange because her voice over the radio was clearly that of a female.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Mandy does a classic by pretending to be a boy on Billy's baseball team, Billy believing girls can't play baseball even though Mindy has a team of her own (which she uses to beat them silly twice).
• In Infinity Train, the mysterious Conductor is initially assumed to be male—but even when Tulip (and the viewer) sees the Conductor's backstory, of a pair of young lovers, we are led to believe the man, Alrick, became the Conductor, as they share many traits. It was actually his wife Amelia, who modeled her Conductor persona on her late husband.
• A variation in Kim Possible, during "A Sitch in Time", Rufus 3000 warns Kim that one of her enemies would become The Supreme One and take over the world in the future. When Kim captures Dr. Drakken, Monkey Fist and Duff Killigan, she announces, "We captured the Supreme One!" Rufus 3000 answers, "But I don't see her!" Rufus 3000 then reveals the true Supreme One; Shego. Lampshaded of course:
  Rufus 3000: Wasn't it obvious that Shego was the only villain intelligent enough to conquer the world?
  Kim: I just thought that taking over the world was such a 'guy' thing.
  • There was also an episode where Kim and Ron had to protect a robotics expert who has a robot girlfriend. Turns out that the guy was a robot, and the girlfriend is human. She has been masquerading as a robot because no one would take her seriously because of her looks.
• An old Looney Tunes cartoon features Daffy forming a rivalry with a small duckling. He realizes he can't bring himself to hurt someone that small, so he uses Phlebotinum-powered growth pills to force the duckling to grow to his size... only he can't bring himself to hurt her after that, either. There are other things he can bring himself to do with her, though...
• In Mummies Alive!, Presley notices quickly that Nefer is actually a female named Nefertina. Her fellow mummies never figured it out.
• Yanit from The Mummy: The Animated Series turns out to be Sweet Polly Oliver. Ardeth finds out and decides to let her stay.
• Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu:
  • A mysterious samurai in a mech suit shows up to rescue/show up/help the ninja on multiple occasions. Everyone assumes the samurai to be a man, and the scary-sounding voice changer didn't help. Turns out, not only is the samurai a girl, but she's Kai's sister Nya. Needless to say, everyone was utterly shocked.
  • Happens with the second Samurai X as well, a mysterious someone who shows up repeatedly to save the ninjas, which includes Nya, who has to swear to the others that it's not her this time. It eventually turns out to be P.I.X.A.L..
  • Season 8 has the mysterious Quiet One, leader of the Sons of Garmadon. Halfway through the season, they turn out to be Harumi, the Princess of Ninjago Lloyd's been getting friendly with.
  • Season 9's First Realm side has a Dragon Hunter named Heavy Metal. Not long after catching up to the Ninja, Heavy Metal, sheds off their disguise to reveal they're a woman named Faith.
  • Season 15 shows a hooded figure with a kabuki mask recruiting old antagonists to form a council. While facing Lloyd, the figure sings a familiar nursery rhyme during a certain someone's childhood before revealing themself to be Harumi, the former Princess of Ninjago whom had been killed in Season 9, now working with the Ninja's enemy, the Overlord/Crystal King.
• On an episode of a Saturday morning cartoon based on Raggedy Ann and Andy, Ann and Andy get rescued by a helmeted, laser toting space warrior. Warrior turns out not only to be a girl but a princess.
• Parodied as is everything else in Robot Chicken in a skit called "The Truth Behind Catfish", where it turns out Inspector Gadget's enemy Dr. Claw is actually a very overweight woman and has been doing all this because she is in love with Gadget, then in Charlie's Angels that Charlie is actually a teenaged boy who gets off on hearing them recall their adventures in erotic detail (they seem to find it makes a lot of sense after this), and that God from Noah's Ark was just a guy with a loudspeaker that wanted Noah to build him a boat. And lastly, it is revealed that the host himself is actually a catfish.
• Samurai Jack:
  • In "Princess Mira and the Bounty Hunters", there is a masked bounty hunter who everyone assumes to be a man. They are all shocked when she takes the mask off, revealing her identity as Princess Mira.
  • In "Jack and Farting Dragon", the dragon seems male at first, talking to Jack in a masculine voice. When Jack decides to help it by crawling inside its stomach to find out what's making it sick, he eventually learns otherwise: the reason is a baby dragon that is partially hatched, lodged in the obviously female dragon's womb.
• Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo: In "I Left My Neck In San Fransisco", Lefty Callahan, who is mentioned offhand earlier in the episode, is revealed to be a woman. Other Scooby-Doo shows and movies have played this trope straight, while others have inverted it such as the first version of the titular antagonist in Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost and at least two villains in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
• In The Secret Show, a villain called Dr. Hypno was eventually revealed as a woman, which shocked even former rival and retired secret agent Zach Meadows. And then they got married.
• The Simpsons:
  • Parodied in "Homer Of Seville" when Homer was being chased down by a horde of rampaging Opera fans (It Makes Sense in Context) and was saved by a helmeted motorcyclist dressed in black leathers. When the errant saviour takes off the helmet she says "That's right I'm a woman" in an overdone way before Homer remarks in stilted speech "A lady motorcycle driver. What is this, The Twilight Zone?"
  • Kang and Kodos are two Octopoid Aliens who mostly appear in the "Treehouse of Horror" specials. Despite them both having very deep, masculine voices, in one Kang introduces Kodos as "my sister." After that, Negative Continuity makes the issue ambiguous, with Kodos often being referred to as male; "Simpsorama," however, implies that both are female. (After all, Kang never said "he" wasn't...despite an episode where (s)he was Maggie's biological father.)
• Discussed on South Park: Cartman is obsessed with finding out Mysterion's secret identity and begins grilling all the guys at school. Wendy passes by and casually wonders why he assumes Mysterion is a boy at all. Cartman immediately looks shocked and suspicious of Wendy. (Subverted, however, in that Mysterion ultimately turns out to be male.)
• SpongeBob SquarePants parodied this trope, when Sandy Cheeks took off her diving suit in one episode. Patrick exclaimed in shock "Sandy is a girl?!" even though everyone in Bikini Bottom was already aware (hell, Patrick himself already knew; it was the entire point of her debut episode).
• Star Trek: Prodigy: Dal is surprised when the massive Rohk-Tahk turns out to be a young girl, not a grown man.
• Star Wars Rebels:
  • In the first season, mysterious informant Fulcrum speaks through a gender-neutral voice filter, and Sabine actually assumes her to be male, using male pronouns. Hera, the only member of the Ghost crew who has met Fulcrum in person, is careful not to use any pronouns when talking about her. It's revealed in the season finale that not only is Fulcrum female, she's Ahsoka Tano from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • The show did it way back in the first episode with Sabine herself, when Ezra discovered that the Mandalorian fighter among the crew is indeed a girl.
• In Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters, Riya looks rather masculine when wearing her Blindstrike armor (designed by her late parents), to the extent that several of her enemies, including the Flex Fighters themselves, mistake Blindstrike for a man.
• The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! had a Zorro-themed episode, where the Zorro Expy turned out to be the waitress from the local cafe, who's exposed at the end of the episode when she forgets to take off the mask and fake mustache.
• In the Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! episode "The Hills Have Five", one of the members of the Wild Five is a hair monster. Much to the surprise of everyone (including the viewers), not only is the monster a girl, but is also the biker leader's main squeeze.
• In Tangled: The Series, Zhan Tiri's gender is initially ambiguous throughout the series before it's revealed she is a female shapeshifter, and was also once a human.
• In the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, the turtles meet a lithe blue mutant called Quarry, leader of a pack of formerly human test subjects of Shredder's weird genetics experiments. When the turtles are able to find a (range-limited, at first) cure, it is revealed to their surprise that Quarry is a woman (in a much later episode, she remembers that her name is "Sydney"). Helped along even more, is the fact that they watched a video where they see a man strapped to a table and turned into something that looked like Quarry.
• Sarasim in the Teen Titans episode "Cyborg The Barbarian", after Cyborg called her "dude." She was wearing armor that makes her look like a man, but when she unmasks herself, he backpedals when she asks him "What is this 'dude'."
• A Treasure In My Garden: The child in "Scuttlebutt, What A Nut" could easily be assumed to be a boy, because of the bowler hat upon said child's head. The child removes the hat, and is revealed to be a girl with Girlish Pigtails.
• In the second season of Wakfu, the Masked Gobbowler turns out to be this.
• Lord Dominator from Wander over Yonder disguises herself as a dead serious intimidating male, but beneath her armor she is a dorky, but still evil, woman.
• The X-Men: Evolution version of X-23 isn't revealed to be a girl or a young teenager initially, though she did look awfully small for a ninja/secret agent/whatever she was supposed to be disguised as.

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