• Bleach: Uryuu and Orihime steal and wear some shihakusho to blend in during the Soul Society arc. Because it's Orihime and Uryuu, an awkward Lingerie Scene is mandatory.
• In Doraemon: Nobita and the Tin Labyrinth, Gian and Suneo infiltrates Mechatopia - a city populated entirely by robots who enslaved their human creators - by donning robotic suits, in an attempt to find out where the humans are imprisoned. Unfortunately they blew their cover when a hungry Gian, in a Too Dumb to Live moment, drags Suneo into a robot-owned diner and asks the chef if they serve katsu-don, leading to the robot chef enquiring why are they requesting for "human" food.
• Erza Scarlet in Fairy Tail strips her Edolas counterpart in order to pose as her. Funny how Erza has no problems with stripping her counterpart naked (well, at least partially naked).
• Done in HeartCatch Pretty Cure! with Erika, Itsuki, Coffret and Potpourri dressing up as Snackies to sneak into the Desert Apostles' base.
• Germany and Prussia from Hetalia: Axis Powers dress as American soldiers at one point in order to infiltrate their camp and spy on them.
• Lupin III: Lupin is a Master of Disguise, so he engages in this often. His favorite disguise is apparently Zenigata.
  • There was one episode of the second TV series where Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon ALL dressed up as Zenigata.
  • Anyone in the cast might be expected to appear as a disguised version of someone else. Zenigata has even disguised himself as Lupin!
• Mazinger Z: Several times Kouji and his friends disguised as Iron Masks to infiltrate the into one operation of the enemy or one of their bases and rescuing one of their friends -usually Sayaka- or blowing the whole place up. The uniforms they stole seldom fit them, though (specially not Boss).
• In Gundam 0080, Misha draws the Federation's attention with the Kämpfer while the rest of the Cyclops Team infiltrates the base to destroy the Gundam NT-1. Unlike many examples, the uniforms fit perfectly because they were obtained in advance; what gives them away is Bernie, who's lived in space his whole life, claiming to have played in the December snow in Australia.
  • Heero Yuy in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is seen infiltrating enemy facilities almost every other episode. He's incredibly brazen about simply knocking out guards and taking their uniforms (which somehow always fit him, even though he's a 15 year old boy who's visibly shorter than most guards) and then waltzes right into the enemy base without a second thought. Trowa also does this once. Rather justified since they are trained operatives and probably were taught to do this sort of thing for their missions. Presumably this includes being adept at picking out guards who roughly match their own body size to steal uniforms form.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Anavel Gato accomplishes the hijacking of the first episode by walking into the hanger while wearing a Federation uniform provided by a confederate. He complains that the uniform's rank pins are too low.
• Jugo and Suigetsu try this in Naruto using samurai uniforms. They are caught almost immediately.
  Suigetsu: My, my... I guess you've got us.
  Jugo: This wasn't a very good plan.
• One Piece:
  • During the G8 Filler Arc, the Straw Hats minus Zoro (who was captured first) are forced to do this. They are eventually picked out as fakes when the commander gets reports of suspicious unknown Marines, (Usopp and Robin), cooks (Sanji and Luffy), doctors (Chopper) and nurses (Nami) are making trouble around the base.
  • In Marineford arc Galdino aka Mr 3 disguises himself as one of Ace's executioners, and actually helps Luffy free Ace using his wax powers to make a key to his cuffs.
  • In Dressorsa arc, Usopp and Robin disguise themselves as Domflamingo Mooks to infiltrate Doffy's underground base and take down Sugar who has turned half the population into toys. They are almost successful but are sussed out by Trebol one of Domflamingo's Co-Dragons.
  • In One Piece Film: Gold The Straw Hats minus Luffy, Franky and Zoro actually diguise themselves as World Nobles to fool Gild Tesoro's mooks. Amusingly while Nami and Usopp act as the nobles and Robin and Sanji as a servant and armoured guard, Brook the living skeleton is the one who plays the Sex Slave.
  • In the Leverly arc Sabo (a Revolutionary) also disguises himself as an Noble's amoured guard, ironically acting as bodyguard to his own despicbale brother Stelly.
  • In the Wano arc finale at Onigashima, the alliance: the Straw Hats, the Red Scabbards, Minks and Kidd's crew are all fitted out in Beast Pirates uniforms thanks to Kin'emon's clothing creating Devil Fruit. Surprisingly despite most of their faces being known it works for awhile, before Luffy, Zoro and Kidd blow their cover and war breaks out.
• Not quite enemies, but the Lobelia Girls Academy's Zuka Club makes their first appearance in Ouran Academy uniforms, one as a male.
• Pokémon the Series:
  • In the Johto arc's "Talkin' 'Bout an Evolution", Lance of the Elite Four knocks out a Team Rocket grunt and steals his uniform so he can infiltrate Team Rocket's base in Mahogany Town and destroy their Evolution Inducement Ray.
  • In the Hoenn arc's "Gaining Groudon", Lance is disguised as a Team Magma grunt to recover the Blue Orb from Maxie.
• The group infiltrating Baba Yaga castle in Soul Eater dress in the same way as the Artifact Soldiers with long black robes and white masks. Causes a Crowning Moment of Awesome/Funny when Kirikou decides to reveal himself after wandering around for a while: "Surprise."
• Super Dimension Fortress Macross and its Robotech adaptation: Max is trapped onboard a Zentraedi warship and hides in a bathroom. An enemy soldier comes in and Max knocks him out and steals his uniform. The pockets come in handy for rescuing his squadmates and an officer who have been taken prisoner. The oddity is that Max doesn't disguise himself, but rather his Humongous Mecha in the uniform of the equally giant alien.

• Big M. dresses as one of his enemies, Smart S., in Season 3 episode 22 of Happy Friends to subject him to a Frame-Up and make him look like he's been causing trouble with the people in the city when he actually isn't.
• In the Lamput episode "Dr. Lamput", Lamput is drenched in gray paint and thus winds up with a Coincidental Accidental Disguise of one of the many scientists who are seeking to capture him and bring him to their lab. Lamput runs with the idea of pretending to be one of the docs and eventually becomes the #1 doc in the lab, much to the shock of Specs Doc and Skinny Doc.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf:
  • Weslie and Sparky disguised themselves as wolf cubs once, with the former having impersonated both Wolffy and Wolnie at different points.
  • Wolffy and Wolnie disguise themselves as goats frequently as part of their schemes.

• Big Finish Doctor Who:
  • In "The Beast of Orlok", the Doctor's companion Lucie does this without meaning to; after getting Covered in Mud during her escape from the castle, she's then mistaken for a Golem warrior.
  • In I, Davros: Purity, a squad of Khaled commandoes are on a mission behind Thal lines, and at Davros' suggestion they change into enemy uniforms. This backfires when one of the survivors makes it back to their own lines only to be shot by an automated weapon system that is designed to recognise Thal uniforms.

• Archer & Armstrong: Mary-Maria tries this to sneak into Area 51. The costume fits fine, but she's still caught almost immediately, possibly because she has a hard time concealing her surprise when she runs into an alien.
• Asterix: Played semi-straight in multiple stories. At Obelix's insistence, they always look for two enemies, one small and one... medium-sized. Note that Obelix is a big man by any standard imaginable, in case you didn't know.
• DC Pride: In DC Pride: Tim Drake Special, Tim steals the chaos monster mask and robes from one of the Children of Dionysus cultists in order to infiltrate their ceremony and rescue Bernard and the other kidnapped victims.
• The F1rst Hero: At the end of the "Fight For Your Life" storyline, when Jake is hiding on the ceiling of a room with two Extrahuman Task Force soldiers below him, he knocks them out and takes one of their uniforms. This allows him to sneak out of the building undetected, barring Paul Kirksen ordering him to bring him Sgt. Alvarez.
• Hunter's Hellcats: In Our Fighting Forces #119, the Hellcats dress in German uniforms before parachuting into Berlin to rescue a defecting general and his daughter.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us: Catwoman disguises herself as a Regime mook in Year Two and uses the opportunity to incapacitate the Flash.
• Jonah Hex: In Jonah Hex (1977) #10, el Papagayo and his men ambush a squad of Mexican soldiers and steal their uniforms to infiltrate the fort at Veracruz and steal the gold stored there.
• Justice League of America: In an "alternate future" storyline in JLA (1997), Batman spent years posing as Desaad, right under Darkseid's nose.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992): Zora grants Link the Zora's Mask to disguise himself and not look so conspicuous as he is sneaking around the Dark Palace. This is a nifty precursor to the actual Zora Mask first seen in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. (Rather than an actual mask, Zora plucks off one of his own scales and slaps it on Link's mug.)
• Mortadelo y Filemón: In El Sulfato Atómico, Filemón is imprisoned and Mortadelo decides to dress as a commander of the Tiranian Army (Tirania is the country they are infiltrating), but when it comes to give the orders, he realises he doesn't know how to speak Tiranian.
• The Scorpion: Done twice The Angel's Shadow. First Armando disguises himself as a warrior monk as part of a Trojan Prisoner gambit to gain access to the Vatican dungeons. later, he and Hussar disguise themselves as Warrior Monks to steal a shipment of gold.
• Sin City: The series has an extreme example. Dwight McCarthy had previously been shot in the face, requiring surgery. This ended up changing his appearance drastically. The Big Bad, meanwhile, was planning to see a drug courier. Dwight had the courier killed and took his place in order to infiltrate the villain's estate. Since he was essentially disguised after his surgery, this allowed him easy access to the villain's mansion.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): Knuckles does this with the Dark Legion's uniforms in order to infiltrate them. He takes the time to lampshade that its fortunate most echidnas are the same size and build, otherwise he probably wouldn't be able to pull it off. Oddly, in the same issue, it still works when the rest of the Chaotix do the same, despite the fact that Vector is at least a foot and a half taller than the rest, (and the hood shouldn't cover his snout, or Espio's facial horn), and Charmy is much shorter than the rest.
• Star Trek (IDW): Spock dresses up like one of the Narada survivors in order to infiltrate their ranks and learn their plans in the "Vulcan's Vengeance" arc.
• Star Wars: Since Mandalorians are always wearing their heavily customized armor and rarely taking of their helmets in public, it's very easy for Zayne Carrick to impersonate the evil scientist Demagol to free all of Demagol's prisoners in Knights of the Old Republic. And in a much more shocking case only minutes later, Demagol manages to overpower Rohlan while being put back into his armor for transport, and then drugs him up enough to be in a coma for half a year, during which he impersonates Rohlan.
• Street Angel: Subverted; the eponymous heroine is some 12 years old, 5'1, 95 lbs. She knocks out a ninja and wears his costume to impersonate him and get information from his cohorts. After they blindly feed her the info she was after, the ninja she assaulted wakes up and exposes the charade. Only it turns out they weren't fooled by the prepubescent girl impersonating a grown man — they actually knew it was the Street Angel specifically and just didn't want her to beat them up.
• Super Agent Jon Le Bon!: Jon disguises himself as a sadistic mercenary in order to fit in with the criminals of the Red Lands. Later he disguises himself as a Sect of Specters cultist to infiltrate their meeting.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Paula has one of her minions infiltrate Paradise Island by dressing like an Amazon. It doesn't work out well since it is a close knit island of immortal women, so it is quickly realized that there is a woman on the island no one recognizes.
• X-Men: In Uncanny X-Men (1963) #250, Havok tries disguising himself as one of Zaladane's Savage Land henchmen. It soon turns out she knew he was there all along, as did her minions (Lupus the wolf-man sniffed him out).

• Adventures of a Line Hopper:
  • During The Years that Never Were, Ria's favored tactic to hijack the Master's ships is to have her agents sneak into the ship pretending to be his staff or troops in UFC garb before committing the hijacking.
  • In Irkoli, when Ace gets captured by the planet's police, the Doctor dresses up as one of them, tells her interrogators that he is supposed to bring her to be executed, and then hide again with Ace once they are out of the actual authority's sights.
  • In Perfect World, Jack infiltrates the lizard society by using holographic disguise to look like them, and he and Seo get Dave to do the same if he wants to help to investigate. Dave also considers dressing as a guard as well to infiltrate the slave camp Vedhor, but Jack convinces him to get Captured on Purpose instead so that the disguise can't be traced back to them.
• A Call To Monsters: One of the tactics used by the army of Stannis Baratheon to enter the fortified castle of Winterfell is dressing in the clothes of their dead enemies.
• Captain Proton and the Planet of Lesbians. On realising that Venus is a populated by gorgeous dames in stripperiffic uniforms, Proton notes that using this trope is clearly out of the question.
• Draco might not be a Weasley by blood, but he's family: Draco and Ginny disguise themselves as Death Eaters to obtain basilisk poison and other dangerous substances from a black market dealer for the purpose of trying to destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes.
• Not an enemy, but when Horus goes to see Isha in Everqueen, he wears a guard's uniform, obtained by convincing a servant.
• In Goggles and the Tears, Booker DeWitt bribes his way into getting himself, Goggles, Gordon Freeman, and Mjolnir Recon 54 fitted for Handyman armor to blend in with the people of Columbia. It doesn't work, since their weapons were confiscated, and stepping a few feet out of formation pissed off the security forces. They ditch the armor after making it to Emporia on a hijacked hovercraft.
• In If They Haven't Learned Your Name, Steve Rogers mentions that during the war, he and the other white members of the Howling Commandos tried disguising themselves as German soldiers once, only to get busted immediately because their pants weren't tailored tight enough to pass for real SS officers. He goes on to add that he's never met a Nazi who didn't have a weird preoccupation with their appearance.
• After Rose regains a body through one of Fire Agate's Rose Quartz soldiers in Rose Redemption AU, she sneaks in as just another member of the army in hopes of finding the others and a way back to their ship.
• Tarkin's Fist:
  • Mallory dresses up as a KDY security officer as part of his mission to hijack the Super Star Destroyer Ares's superlaser
  • Jason Bogan dresses as a stormtrooper after being drafted into the Imperial Army and uses his position to free the Earthlings enslaved by the Empire.
• Vow of the King: Like canon, Orihime does this in Soul Society, though she does so with Tatsuki rather than Uryu. Unlike canon, they think to steal a couple zanpakuto as well.
• In Wilhuff Tarkin, Hero of the Rebellion, it's revealed that the uniforms of the Rebel Navy troopers are identical to the ones used by their Imperial Navy counterparts before the widespread adoption of the Death Star Troopers, only the Imperials had the Imperial Crest on a patch on their left shoulder. Justified in that the uniform style is described as quite old and used by both the Republic Navy, from which the Imperial Navy inherited it, and many planetary security forces, many of which were disbanded with the Rebels buying or stealing their uniforms and weapons-or just belonging to surviving planetary defense forces whose worlds support the Rebellion.
• wires and cloth: After crashing into them, Bumblebee sees that the Jettwins are pretending to be recently-converted Decepticons, having covered their Autobot badges with (badly-painted) Decepticon emblems. To his relief, they're still fully loyal to the Autobots.

• Spoofed in Monsters vs. Aliens. Link, BOB, and Dr. Cockroach are all mistaken for cloned mooks just by wearing the same shirt they do. At one point a cloned mook sees through one of their disguises...only to order the other two to incinerate him.
• Spoofed in Recess: School's Out where T.J and Principal Prickly disguise themselves as Mooks in order to get into the Big Bad's lab. Unfortunately, the guard can plainly see that they're not mooks and they're forced to run.
• Done twice in Robin Hood (1973). Robin disguises himself as one of the sheriff's vulture guards, and Little John as the sheriff himself.
• The Simpsons Movie. Homer dresses as a hotel doorman to fool a soldier that he is a superior officer. He's only given away when the soldier queries why an order from the President is written on a leaf.
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Inverted. The waiters at an Alchemax dinner party are wearing Spider-Man masks, presumably in memory of Peter Parker. This allows Peter B. Parker, Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, and Spider-Man Noir to infiltrate the dinner party without making any changes to their costumes other than simply adding bow ties.

• Lone Wolf:
  • In Book 12, The Masters of Darkness, Lone Wolf is infiltrating the Darklands while disguised as a Drakkar and (later) Darklord Ghanesh's servant thanks to the help of a Turn Coat in the enemy ranks.
  • There are also multiple possible cases of Mugged for Disguise in the series.

By Author:

• A common tactic of Company C in The American Civil War novels of J.T. Edson. Sometimes it was not even necessary to dress in enemy uniforms as the only difference between the Federal and Confederate uniforms was the colour, so in near darkness it was quite easy to pass yourself off as a member of the opposing side.
• In the World War 2 novels of Sven Hassel, it's not unusual for 2 Section to be sent behind Soviet lines in their uniforms. Fortunately the Soviet army is made up of hundreds of nationalities, most of whom who can barely speak Russian (in The Commissar they get round this by posing as Volga Germans).
  • In Monte Cassino, 2 Section are dressed in SS uniform to smuggle holy relics from the Cassino monastery into the Vatican. Fortunately Julius Heide is a fanatical Nazi who always wanted to be in the SS, so he's able to get them through via sheer bluster. At one point they're warned of Italian partisans who are allegedly dressing up as German military police and are told to shoot at the least suspicion. "If you should mess up and kill a few bloodhounds, it won't be that much of a disaster."

By Work:

• When the Animorphs dress as the enemy, the clothes always fit...because they've morphed into whoever they're trying to imitate. Taken a step further in the TV series episode "Face Off", wherein Rachel transforms into a Yeerk and crawls inside Tobias' head so that the two can infiltrate the Yeerk Pool to rescue Jake, Ax, and Cassie from their human-Controller captors.
• Aurora Cycle: During the heist on Sempiternity, Squad 312 uses Cat's Fake Defector ploy to acquire the uniforms of the two GIA agents onboard the station so Scarlett and Zila can arrive in disguise to "capture" Tyler, Auri and Cat when they're found burglarizing crime lord Casseldon Bianchi's office, just as planned.
• Bazil Broketail: To infiltrate a fortress guarding outside Tummuz Orgmeen where Thrembode has Besita, Lessis and some of the soldiers dress as Baguti, with the rest appearing like Teetol slaves. It gets them in past the guards.
• The Belgariad has a city filled with Grolim priests, conveniently wearing identical black cloaks and steel masks to hide their appearances. The good guys... obtain... a few, helping them get around the city despite the bloody stab holes in their new clothes.
• Played with during one sequence in the Belisarius Series, the title character has to escape from a city full of bad guys out for his blood. He needs a uniform to escape, but with the thousands of guards looking for him, he has difficulty finding a uniform that's both the right size, the right type, and being worn by a guard he can take out quietly. Several times he pulls a Bavarian Fire Drill on guards he runs into to get them to search someplace else. Eventually he finds the uniform, and makes it out of the city.
• Bruce Coville's Book of... Monsters: Uncle Joshua does this in Uncle Joshua and the Grooglemen, though unusually, instead of using an outfit, he does so by skinning the Groogleman alive and then wearing its skin as a disguise.
• The Chronicles of Dorsa: An assassin in the uniform of an Imperial Army soldier attacks Tasia after she becomes the Empress, with the fact being covered up afterward because morale could be badly affected were the real soldiers aware more infiltrators could be among them.
• C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia book, The Last Battle: The Narnians disguise themselves as Calormenes using makeup and other chemicals for espionage purposes.
• Conqueror: Bones of the Hills opens with a group of Mongols under Tsubodai engaging a regiment of Russian knights. Jochi's argan manages to kill a detachment of them, then steal their armour in order to attack the main force.
• In Robin Jarvis' The Oaken Throne, a prequel to his Deptford Mice trilogy, Ysabelle dons the costume (made of red silk and sewn as a ghastly representation of a flayed corpse) worn by the high priest of Hobb to direct his minions to leave and so not pursue her and her friends.
• In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Jingo, after being dragooned into spying on the Klatchians with Lord Vetinari, Fred and Nobby attempt to steal some Klatchian clothing in order to blend in. Unfortunately, since it's dark out they only end up beating each other up, and the men they lured into the alley rob "them" instead.
  • Nobby was never on the losing side of a battle when he was a quartermaster, the reason being that he'd sneak off and change into a stolen enemy uniform the moment his lot started losing. Due to his habit of selling all his army's weapons and armor (often to the enemy) this happened frequently: enough that experienced generals kept an eye on what he was wearing to see how the battle was going.
• Hilari Bell's Farsala Trilogy: Kavi and Jiaan do this to infiltrate a palace under the control of the Hrum in the third book.
• The Good Soldier Švejk: Played with - the main protagonist is taken prisoner by the Austrian Army when wearing Russian Army uniform (he was trying if he looked well in it and whether the Russian uniform was "warm and comfortable") and mistaken first for a runaway Russian prisoner of war, and then, for a soldier of the Czechoslovak legion fighting against Austria-Hungary. Chiefly played for laughs, until he's sentenced to death (his confession that he put on the Russian uniform voluntarily and from his own free will, certainly did not help him). He got better though - as there is belatedly realised that there was no way for him to defect to Russians hundred miles behind the front lines.
• Done a couple of times in Harry Potter, aided by Polyjuice Potion:
  • In Chamber of Secrets, Harry and Ron disguise themselves as Malfoy's best friends Crabbe and Goyle to question him about the Chamber.
  • In Deathly Hallows, the Trio Polyjuice themselves into three random Ministry employees to sneak into the Ministry of Magic. It works, but it's subverted in that the "random" part causes endless problems: Hermione and Ron are stuck in the jobs of their disguises not to blow their cover, and they have to bluff their way though; Ron's is man whose wife was on trial that same day. Luckily Harry realized quickly his disguise was a Death Eater. As all hell breaks loose he just starts giving orders and threatening people who try to stop them, getting a bunch of Muggleborns out through the front door. Then the real guys, they didn't knock out, return.
  • And again when Hermione and Ron pretend to be Bellatrix and some Death Eater-friendly foreigner to break into Bellatrix's Gringotts vault. Subverted again when the Goblins had been warned that someone may try to enter the vault, and Hermione having Bellatrix's wand blows her cover instead of helping it.
  • This was the essence of Fake!Moody's plan in Goblet of Fire, but done to get into Hogwarts.
• Horatio Hornblower uses this once or twice:
  • A few times he flies the enemy flag on approach before whipping it down and running up the Union Jack before opening fire. Not an uncommon tactic in naval warfare of the time but to be legal, the correct ensign had to be flying prior to commencement of active hostilities. Napoleon later uses this to trump up capital charges against him, even though Hornblower had observed the correct form.
  • He does wear an enemy uniform to escape France with Bush and Brown; his French hosts whip up three merchant marine uniforms for them to wear, and since Hornblower already knows French (and Brown becomes fluent in their extended stay), they pass easily.
• Journey to Chaos: When infiltrating the lair of the Black Cloaks, Eric knocks out a couple of them and steals their cloaks in order to pretend to be one of them. It still takes some quick thinking to sell the disguise, and if they weren't in a hurry, they might have paid more attention.
• Judge Dee and his lieutenants are constantly disguising themselves as assorted members of the underworld. Tao Gan actually IS a member of the underworld, retired.
• KG 200 by J.D. Gilman and John Clive is about a Luftwaffe unit that specializes in flying captured Allied aircraft (the unit actually existed, but used them for long-range reconnaissance and dropping enemy agents). In the novel however the intention is to use American aircraft to bomb London, to sow discord between the US and British forces.
• A half-comical example occurs in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, where it entails actually wearing the enemy's bear skin (dressing up in a Huron medicine man's bear costume).
• Legends of Ithyria: Myka disguises herself as one of Ulrike's priests to aid Kade in his temple Rok Garshluk.
• In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables French National Guard uniforms are worn by several revolutionaries and a jealous adoptive father to pass through National Guard lines into the barricades.
• The Murderbot Diaries. In the first novel, a SecUnit belonging to another company tries to kill Murderbot and kidnap Dr Mensah. After foiling this plan, Murderbot exchanges components and armor marked with its company logo for those of the other SecUnit, with Mensah covering what remains in mud to obscure the difference. Feigning comm damage, Murderbot then hands Mensah over to the villains as a Trojan Prisoner.
• Nick Velvet: In "The Theft of the Cardboard Castle", Sandra Paris breaks Nick out of jail. She is dressed as a jail matron, and gives Nick a guard's uniform to put on.
• Shows up twice in Noob:
  • The first novel, during which the guild is investigating a group of people wearing a Black Cloak, has the Noob guild kill members of the group so the can steal their cloaks and sneak into one of their meet-ups.
  • The third has them disguised as Colation players by changing the colors of the cursors indicating their faction in the game interface.
• In Open Sesame by Tom Holt, two main characters prepare to jump on a pair of guards, realise the outfits wouldn't fit, so give the guards their measurements. The guards, who are bound to narrative rules, walk off and send in two more guards, who are promptly knocked unconscious, letting the main characters steal their perfectly fitting costumes.
• Inverted in the Paladin of Shadows book A Deeper Blue, where mooks disguise as a friendly tactical team and later DEA agents.
• The Pendragon Adventure: In The Merchant of Death, Loor and Press dress as Bedoowan knights.
• In one of the Raffles stories, Raffles dresses as a policeman to rescue Bunny from the clutches of the villain, which he does by "arresting" him and taking him away.
• Done at least three times in the Redwall series: Brome of Noonvale dresses up as a searat, Jukka Sling (a squirrel) shaves her tail and dyes her fur to pass as a Blue Horde rat, and Midge Manycoats designs elaborate vermin costumes for himself and Tammo. On one other occasion, Mariel and friends are wearing stolen searat clothes while on board a ship, are seen by a helmsrat on another ship, and he mistakes them for other searats even though they weren't expecting other rats to be around and aren't actively pretending to be such.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Baudelaires unintentionally do this in The Hostile Hospital when they disguise themselves as doctors and are mistaken by Olaf's associates for the two powder-faced women who are also disguised as doctors.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Dark Mirror^note written before DS9 showed its version of the 24th century Mirror Universe, Picard, Troi, and La Forge have to disguise themselves as their mirror-universe counterparts to infiltrate the I.S.S. Enterprise-D to find out why their own ship was brought to the Mirror Universe.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • The Wraiths of the X-Wing Series have reason to do this a few times - dressing as Space Pirates in some situations, stormtroopers in others. As pirates they need no ID, but they run into some trouble as stormtroopers without the proper passwords.
  • The Courtship of Princess Leia: Luke, Leia, Han, Teneniel and Isolder infiltrate the Imperial prison on Dathomir. After getting inside, they're aided by an old prisoner who works in the laundry to get stormtrooper and witch outfits which help them blend in.
• Swellhead. Stacy Cotterill finds a locker room full of mook jumpsuits, so she's able to pick one that fits her. Things are going fine until the Genre Savvy supervillain orders his Faceless Goons to take their helmets off. Needless to say the beautiful heroine stands out among all the male mooks.
• The Sword of Saint Ferdinand: In order to flee from an enemy city with Elvira, García and Fortún don the robes of one nobleman -whom García had just killed in the battle- and one Jerezan soldier. They then pretend to be said nobleman and his slave, who are taking one captive to a safer location, so that the guards let them ride through the gates.
• In David Eddings' The Tamuli series, some of the heroes disguise themselves as mercenaries (complete with different faces) to get into Scarpa's army.
• Tolkien's Legendarium:
  • The Lord of the Rings: Frodo and Sam disguise themselves as orcs during the last leg of their journey. And no, it doesn't fit either of them right. Good thing it's dark. It also helps that the armor the orcs are wearing is rather mix-and-match to start with, so while the ill-fitting armor may be noticed, it's not an immediate giveaway.
  • The Silmarillion: Beren, Finrod, and his soldiers disguise themselves as Orcs. It doesn't work.
  • In Beren and Lúthien, Lúthien disguises herself as a bat and Beren as a werewolf to infiltrate Morgoth's citadel, this one does work.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • In Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novel Death Or Glory, Cain and his group travel in stolen ork vehicles. This does distract the orks, but when they come into firing range of an Imperial force, they nearly get fired on before they manage vox communication, and the force demands proof.
  • In Graham McNeill's Ultramarines novel Nightbringer, an eldar Pirate approaches an Imperial vessel broadcasting that it was the Gallant, an Imperial ship. Unfortunately for him, someone onboard knew that particular ship had been destroyed five years earlier.
  • In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 Blood Angels novel Deus Encarmine, Blood Angels steal a tank and use it to mask their approach to the Word Bearers camp.
  • In Space Marine Battles, Lysander hides from the Iron Warriors looking through their entire fortress for him by putting on the rags of mutants inhabiting Kulgarde's underground and keeping to the shadows, where his Space Marine bulk isn't as noticeable.
  • Deconstructed in Ahriman: Exile. Astraeos disguises himself as one of Amon’s lieutenants in order to infiltrate the Sycorax and rescue his master Ahriman. He manages to get aboard without incident, since they were expecting “his” return, but because the Thousand Sons wear highly distinctive and personalized armour, and because the sorcerer whose armour he’s wearing is well known for having a twin brother who never leaves his side, the maintenance crews realize that something is wrong the second Astraeos steps out of his shuttle alone and quickly sound the alarm.
• Wasp (1957): To break an ally out of jail, Mowry and a number of hired goons dress themselves as Military Intelligence and the State Sec, and arrive to the prison to request him for interrogation. It almost works, except just as they are leaving, the real State Sec agents happen to arrive, who immediately realize something's not right.
• "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar": The titular main character has developed supernatural abilities to beat the casinos, but he gets cocky one night and the owners send goons to his hotel. The bellboy comes to warn him (not out of altruism, but in the belief that it doesn't hurt to have the gratitude of a man who just won a stack of money) and offers to pretend that Henry overwhelmed him and stole his uniform to sneak out of the hotel.
• The Ultimate Adventure (1939): After knocking him out to save Tedmur, Stephen dons Karoof's clothes on Tedmur's urging so that he can pretend to be the ifrit and fool the guards into letting him and Tedmur leave the castle.

• Even the Arthurian Legend makes use of this trope, with tragic results: The brothers Balin and Balan go their separate ways, have adventures, defeat their enemies, plunder the bodies, and put on the better armor. By the time they meet again, their armor and shields make them unrecognizable to each other. Tragedy ensues.
• In Homer's The Iliad, following the siege of Troy, the Trojans took the armor off dead Greek warriors and put them on in an inevitable resistance. Any poor Greek who thought he was joining his allies was racing towards his own death. In The Aeneid, the tactic is shown from the Trojans' viewpoint; it succeeds for a while, but the Greeks figure out their ploy, and the Trojan archers have no idea that the band of soldiers is made of their allies, so Aeneas loses a few men to the Greeks and to friendly fire.
• Used in the Robin Hood ballad where he faces Guy of Gisbourne, wherein after killing Gisbourne, Robin fakes his death by switching clothes with Gisbourne's corpse and mutilating the corpse's face so it's unrecognizable. There are also occasions on which Robin or his men dressed as the enemy without needing to employ fatal measures.

• In Interstitial: Actual Play Edith has the move Costume Change. Though designed to imitate the way Sora and friends change forms in different worlds in Kingdom Hearts, it can also be used to disguise herself as a Dusk and sneak up on Luxord.

• MAD Super Special Fall 1980. In The Moronic Woman (a The Bionic Woman parody), Jammy Summons (Jaime Sommers) and Oscular (Oscar Goldman) have infiltrated the enemy palace. In order to get a guard's uniform for Oscar to wear, Jammy walks around knocking out guards until they find one who is Oscular's size. Oscular puts on the uniform and they go to the office of the dictator.

• In The Gamer's Alliance, the heroes of the Alliance use stolen black cleric robes to infiltrate a city held by the Clergy of Mardük during the Great War. The plan would've been a smashing success if one of them wasn't a mole working for the clergy and leading them into a trap.

• In the sci-fi comedy Babes From Outer Space the heroes are in a Lady Land, so naturally the trope involves being Disguised in Drag as well.

• Earthdawn supplement Prelude to War, adventure "The Dragon's Daughter". The PC's must dress up as members of a mercenary band to infiltrate the Theran Behemoth Triumph.
• Exalted: Some charms make any disguise you want to wear perfect and infallible to non-magical means of perception. A Night caste Solar can infiltrate anything he wants.
• The Strange: Wearing a planetovore skin causes a planetovore-class creature or planetovore servitors to regard the wearer as an extension of itself as long as the wearer does nothing to jeopardise this illusion.

• Higurashi: When They Cry: In a Villain Protagonist case Played for Drama, Shion kidnaps and impersonates her twin sister Mion throughout the second half of Meakashi-hen (and of Watanagashi-hen). She does this falsely believing Mion and her associates were partly responsible for her love interest Satoshi's disappearance; and taking an opportunity to avenge him. However, Shion's judgment is clouded by Mion's position as their yakuza family's favorite and successor—which sometimes requires her to pose as Daddy's Little Villain—as well as by Shion's own position as the Un-Favorite; thus justifying her Cain-and-Abel rivalry. After she offs the "evil" twin, this trope zig-zags as she reassumes her true identity, and becomes a Disguised Hostage Gambit / Fakeout Escape / False Innocence Trick.
• In Ikemen Sengoku, this happens on Mitsunari's route. He sneaks many of his soldiers close to Shingen and Kenshin's camp by having them dress in ragged clothes and carry only crude weapons so that Shingen and Kenshin will mistakenly think they're village recruits for Kennyo's Ikko Ikki. When Shingen corners the rest of Mitsunari's army, thinking that he's hopelessly outnumbered, the "Ikko Ikki" shed their disguises and rush to help Mitsunari.

• Red vs. Blue:
  • To fool the Reds into thinking they have more than one freelancer, Tucker and Caboose are ordered to draw the Red's fire while wearing black armour. How do they get black armour? By jumping through a very experimental teleporter.
  • Later in the series, Simmons defects to Blue team, originally because he was shunned by the others, but when Church returns, he begins a charade to try and learn information. To get the effect, he paints his armour blue (although he misses a few spots), but it is subverted in that Church is not fooled by this disguise for one second. Church even takes advantage of the situation by making Simmons do chores and make him lunch...
  • Season 12 takes this trope, and ends up deconstructing it. Two soldiers dressing as the enemy works okay for the regular guards, but Locus sees through it, and kills one, while the other is mistaken for a EOD specialist, and called over to remove a sticky explosive that his allies have planted and dies when Felix blows up the building.

• Subverted in Another Gaming Comic - the player characters done cultist robes, but the Genre Savvy villain has magicked said robes to alert him and all of his other cultists to the fact.
• Subverted in Antihero for Hire. While the protagonist wears a Mantis Agent's outfit, which conceals the individual from head to toe, the Mantis use electronic and DNA based identification systems, and is immediately recognized as an intruder.
  • Played straight here then subverted later here with a beautiful Oh, Crap! moment by Shadehawk followed by a Precision F-Strike.
• Bob and George: Bass needs a disguise
• Gordon Frohman does this a few times in Concerned, though it's up for debate whether it's really dressing as the enemy considering he absolutely loves the Combine, but is so bad at helping them he may as well have been with the Resistance the whole time.
  • The first time is for part of "Bike Lane 17", where he meets up with another group of Combine who take him to the bridge outpost. He ends up giving away that he's not a real Combine when he's unable to pass through the force fields on the bridge^note there was another minor instance where he gave it away during a trip in an APC, but then they hit a load screen and forgot all about it, and in the process of dumping the outfit, accidentally gets it stuck in the rotors of a gunship, which promptly crashes into the bridge and destroys everything.
  • The second time is during the uprising after Gordon Freeman has returned, where Frohman's gotten tired of being shot at by the Combine, and decides the best way to avoid this is to dress as one of them. Of course, this just leads to the other rebels shooting him until he gives up and dresses as a medic, figuring that the rebels will appreciate his healing skills and the Combine won't shoot him in accordance with Subsection B of the resolutions of the Geneva International Conference. Of October. 1863. Neither part works out how he hopes, though, as another Combine blasts in with a shotgun the instant he finishes his monologue, and his insistence on performing surgery over just giving people medkits just gets even more Rebels killed.
  • The last time is after Henderson quits, and Frohman decides to steal his Combine Elite uniform for a bit. This doesn't play into much before he ditches the outfit again.
• In The Dreamer, Alan dresses up as a redcoat to rescue Beatrice from Gen. Howe's ship.
• Sojueilo, Thomil and Mijuu of Juathuur disguise themselves as Solluu in order to infiltrate Erab Adur.
• Liquid of The Last Days of FOXHOUND had to dress up as a mook to break into the fortress. He didn't really fool anyone.
• Done in The Order of the Stick by Celia when she has to smuggle Belkar and Haley ( as well as Roy's corpse) out of Azure City. She disguises herself as a necromancer, calls Mr. Scruffy her evil cat familiar, and uses eyeliner to draw Xs over Belkar and Haley's eyes so that they look dead. She's almost found out when one of the guards calls her out on not being a necromancer, at which point Belkar "rises from the dead", kills the guard, and asks if anyone else wants to question his creature type. Surprisingly, it works.
  • Far more common is the enemy disguising themselves as a hero. Sabine, being a shapeshifter, frequently disguises herself as guards or policemen. Nale spends a good part of War and XPs disguised as Elan (made easy given that they're identical twins), with Elan in jail on Nale's behalf. Zz'dtri disguises themselves as one of Tarquin's aides during the Order's time in the Empire of Blood (so that they can reveal themselves along with the rest of the Linear Guild). Lastly, in a bizarre case of Enemy Dressing as the Enemy, Tarquin disguises himself as Thog because he considers Thog to be too much of a loose cannon, but they can't let on that it's really Tarquin fighting them.
• Inverted and played with in Our Little Adventure. While Brian Souballo doesn't impersonate any of the heroes of the story, he magically impersonates a neutral wizard he tried and failed to recruit to his side. The Emperor goes to the very elven metropolis he's planning on invading and commits a mass murder while disguised as the neutral wizard. This way if the wizard goes to the city to warn the elves, he will instead be arrested.
• In The Paul Reveres Paul is recruited as one of Washington's spies, and disguises himself as a British troop in order to infiltrate occupied Boston, and try to flip Allen.
• Played with in this Sluggy Freelance strip.
  • Done again later in the same Story Arc.
• In this strip of Spinnerette, a supervillain sneaks into a military installation wearing one of their troops' all concealing uniforms. He mentions to the officer in charge that it's not a good idea to outfit troops with uniforms that hide their faces, even referencing the Faceless Goons entry on this very wiki.
• In Tales Of Gnosis College, Professor Corwin and Li Anwei escape from Federal custody by expropriating the gear of the Gas Mask Mooks in Senator Madder's "security detail."
• Terra Incognita (2023): Agrippa dresses in an Asurian military uniform to infiltrate their ranks during the battle of Aurora III and kill their commanding officer. Possibly this is his own old uniform with the insignia altered since he defected from the Asurian military to join Horizon.
• Wayward Sons: A number of Ulympeans do this while infiltrating Egypt. Having a Master of Illusion on your side doesn't hurt, either.

• In addition to the two rules above, some more suggestions from the TV Tropes Additional Evil Overlord Vows;
  • Encourage the minions to customize their uniforms in small ways, to make it harder for the heroes to impersonate them.
  • Encourage a "Silly Hat Day", to make the heroes think twice about wearing a stupid hat for this trope.

• For the April 2021 episode of FailRace's Survive the Hunt (debuting on April Fool's Day), Alex decided to play a trick on the hunters by copying a distinct avatar of one of the hunters, down to replicating that player's usual custom car.
• Borman's idea for getting Yaeger near The Mercury Men's Gravity Engine.

• Alfred J. Kwak: Waterland's government in exile sends Alfred and colonel Rangpang back to the NCP-controlled Polderstadt to rob the party treasury to destabilize the regime. Once inside the city, Alfred tricks two redshirts into stripping and jumping into a canal by pretending to drown so that Rangpang can steal their uniforms. The uniforms are a bit too big for Alfred and blatantly too small for Rangpang, but nobody questions them even when an actual redshirt who seems to have a higher rank stops them to berate them about being in the wrong place.
• Archer: During a hostage crisis, Archer manages to evade capture, take out one of the masked assailants, and steal his outfit. The others figure out Archer probably pulled this and try to find out which one is him. Lana picks out one of the attackers, realizes it's not Archer, knocks him out so he won't tip off the others about Archer's presence, then steals his outfit. Elsewhere, Pam takes out a guard and steals his outfit. Then Archer, Lana, and Pam all enter the same room and attack each other, not realizing who the others are. And then, the hostage takers realize they're in too deep and swap clothes with the hostages so they can walk out past the cops.
• Turning the trick around, in Avatar: The Last Airbender "The Earth King", the Fire Nation antagonists dressed up as allies of the protagonists.
  • Played straight in the first half of season 3 when the Gaang travels though the Fire Nation in local outfits, change their hairstyles and Aang even uses a fake name (Kuzon; and when Sokka doesn't he's given away instantly).
  • Also near the beginning of Season 3, Hakoda uses a Fire Nation ship (with some of the Gaang's allies dressed in Fire Nation armor) in an attempt to blend in when sailing through Fire Nation waters. Aang almost believes he's been captured by the Fire Nation (having been in a coma for a few weeks). Hakoda spoils the ruse when he mentions getting orders from a commander currently on leave.
  • Also in "The Boiling Rock", Sokka and Zuko disguise themselves as prison guards. Cue icons of Suki delivering Princess Leia's line.
    • Dressing as the enemy gets Sokka into to trouble twice with the very people he was trying to rescue, by not identifying himself to them. Suki punches him into the door, Hakoda almost does.
  • Aang adds a hat to hide his arrow tattoo when the Gaang dons the Fire Nation garb again in "The Ember Island Players," although Zuko's costume needs work.
  • Subverted in the season 1 finale, when a Water Tribe warrior uses antique Fire Nation armor to infiltrate the flagship, and when he tries to kill the admiral, he gets offhand backhanded. Although that was probably less because of a failure of his disguise than because he pulled off his helmet and declared himself before attacking.
    • What's more, during an earlier briefing, they reveal they have a stolen Fire Nation armor... only to pull out something that only looks vaguely like the armor we've seen. The commander admits it was stolen around 85 years ago, and, as Sokka notes, the Fire Nation's been updating their wardrobe during that time.
  • Zuko plays with this trope near the end of season 1, disguising himself as a Fire Nation soldier to infiltrate Zhao's ship (played with because he is still an enemy at this point, but he's disguising himself to get past his enemy).
• Danny Phantom: In "Beauty Marked", Danny and Tucker briefly disguise themselves as two ghost henchmen to rescue Sam from marrying an evil ghost prince, much to her dismay, as she was orchestrating her own method of escaping just fine and the boys end up ruining it.
• A frequent issue for Darkwing Duck; it seems Saint Canard thinks anyone in the purple suit, cape, and hat is Darkwing (except, of course, Drake Mallard when he dressed up as Darkwing for Halloween). Very annoying when your Evil Twin does this, of course.
• Family Guy:
  • Spoofed in an episode where Peter beats up a hotel bellhop and steals his uniform (which doesn't fit) only for Brian to tell him they don't need disguises because the person they're after has no idea who they are in the first place. Peter then beats up and steals the outfit of a second man who just so happens to be just as fat as Peter and wearing an exact copy of Peter's normal clothes.
  • In "Road to Germany", Stewie, Brian, and Mort stole Nazi uniforms (with McCain Palin button on Stewie's uniform) to infiltrate a nuclear facility.
• A common occurrence in the various G.I. Joe series. It's particularly common in G.I. Joe: Renegades, as the Joes (who are a small group of outlaws in this incarnation) frequently infiltrate COBRA Industries to try and find evidence of the company's crimes, and their Cool Car is a stolen advanced COBRA truck, that can change colour and marking to blend in as any truck.
• The Herculoids:
  • "The Crystalites". Zandor, Gloop and Gleep knock out some guards and enter the title opponents' fortress dressed in their uniforms.
  • "Ruler of the Reptons". After knocking out several reptanks, several Herculoids use the tanks' shells as disguises to approach the enemy base.
• Jonny Quest TOS episode "The Fraudulent Volcano". After Jonny and Hadji knock out a couple of guards, Dr. Quest and Race don their uniforms while attempting to escape the enemy base.
• In Kim Possible, Ron dresses as a henchman in "Odds Man In" and uses it to successfully scare Drakken's men into quitting by mention probability hazards before saving Kim.
• Martin Mystery: In "Attack of the Lawn Gnomes", a town is terrorized by an old lady’s collection of lawn gnomes, who she brought to life with a magic spell. At one point, Billy (who’s the same size as the gnomes) grabs a cowboy gnome outfit from the old lady’s house and pretends to be a gnome to fool the gnome army. Even though Billy is green, they fall for it.
• Played so painfully straight in one episode of Mighty Max. Needing to dress as members of a cult, Max, Norman, and Virgil mug some average-size cultists and steal their robes. It's worth noting that Norman is over 7 feet tall and heavily muscled, Max is a skinny kid, and Virgil is a four foot tall chicke...er...fowl. The robes, of course, fit perfectly. The same thing happened in another episode, this time involving aliens.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Sparkle's Seven", Twilight and her friends helping to test Canterlot's new security features akin to a Red Cell. Rarity disguises herself as a guard to slip through a door and, despite her being both a national hero and a world-famous fashion designer, the guards fall for it.
• Ninjago: A favorite tactic of the ninja. They've gone undercover as Serpentine, Stone Warriors, and cultists, among others.
• The Owl House: In "O Titan, Where Art Thou", Luz and Eda sneak into an Emperor's Precinct in makeshift Coven Scout uniforms.
  Raine Whispers: You're wearing a stolen uniform.
  Eda: And I am working it.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode "Bubble Boy" has Rowdyruff Boy Boomer captured by the girls. Bubbles impersonates him and infiltrates the Rowdyruffs in a bid to capture the other two. It's a nine-day wonder that Butch and Brick didn't catch on to Bubbles' noticeably higher voice and lighter eye color.
• In an episode of Quack Pack, Dewey and Louie don the clothes of the human henchmen of the stock villain of the week (some weird pale-faced woman bent on world domination) in order to rescue their brother Huey and foil her evil scheme. Once again, the bad guy in question doesn't notice the species difference.
• Robot Chicken parodied and deconstructed this when characters from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero are sent to Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban. Three of the Joes dress as Taliban terrorists... and are then immediately gunned down by American soldiers who mistake them for actual terrorists.
• Samurai Jack did this in one episode, killing one of Aku's demon soldiers and taking its clothes. (After rescuing the fairy princess, her reaction was a Shout-Out to Leia's reaction to Luke in A New Hope; in fact, that whole episode was loaded with Star Wars references.)
• Spoofed in an episode of The Simpsons, in which, while trying to sneak out of Vegas away from their new wives, Homer and Ned Flanders pull two janitors into a broom closet to rob them of their uniforms. Punching sounds are audible, and the two janitors walk out content, leaving a beat-up Homer and Flanders. Similarly, in "Burns Baby Burns" Homer and Larry Burns are fleeing from the suddenly half-competent Police (who believe Homer to have kidnapped Larry), and duck into a costume store. The viewer is then shown a man who looks quite a bit like Homer, dressed as an organ-grinder leaving the store with a vaguely Larry-shaped man dressed as his monkey. The subversion comes when we see the clerk look into the store's bathroom, where Homer and Larry are actually hiding: "Either buy a costume or get out, fellas!"
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
  • "Hostage Crisis": Bane's droid commandos don the armor of the Republic guards Bane's group murdered in order to prevent those outside the Senate from figuring out what's going on too quickly. The disguise fails when they say their trademark "Roger, roger!"
  • "Carnage of Krell": General Krell sends Rex and the 501st to stop a group of attacking Umbarans who are attempting this by stealing armor from dead clone troopers of the 212th Attack Battalion. Except it's then subverted. Turns out Krell sent a similar message to the 212th warning them of an Umbaran group wearing 501st armor, before giving both battalions the same coordinates. By the time both sides realize they're shooting at their own brothers, dozens of clones have already been killed in the firefight.
  • "Slaves of the Republic": Anakin, Obi-Wan and Rex go undercover disguised as Zygerrians, or at least criminals and/or slavers wearing Zygerrian armour. Ahsoka, on the other hand, is disguised as a slave girl, which she's not especially thrilled about.
  • "The Lawless": Obi-Wan infiltrates the Mandalorian capital of Sundari to rescue Duchess Satine by luring a supercommando onto the Twilight, and mugging him for his armour.
• Star Wars: The Bad Batch chronologically started the occurrence of anti Imperial guerrillas dressing up as Stormtroopers to infiltrate Imperial bases in "The Summit", with Saw Gerrea and the Partisans using TK Stormtrooper armor to sneak into Tarkin's Raven Peak compound and set explosives around the base in the hopes they can kill him and other high ranking Imperials at a summit, such as Orson Krennic and Dr. Royce Hemlock, who Clone Force 99 is trying to track in order to find Crosshair and many Clones kept at Mount Tantiss by the Imperial Advanced Science Division.
• Star Wars Rebels has this as a relatively frequent occurrence.
  • "Breaking Ranks": Ezra goes undercover as an Imperial cadet, while Chopper gets an Imperial paintjob.
  • "Rebel Resolve": Chopper gets a new and improved Imperial paintjob to infiltrate an Imperial cruiser to steal information on where Kanan is being held.
  • "The Siege of Lothal": Kanan mugs a stormtrooper for disguise, and later on Ezra dons his cadet disguise again.
  • "Stealth Strike": Kanan and Rex go undercover as stormtroopers to free captured rebels, with Chopper along in his Imperial paintjob. While this should be easy for Rex since he was a clone trooper during the Clone Wars (i.e. the original stormtroopers), it turns out he's put on some weight during his retirement.
  • "A Princess on Lothal": Kanan and Ezra go undercover as a stormtrooper and cadet to meet Princess Leia so she doesn't blow her cover. This leads directly to the sight of Kanan charging an AT-AT with his lightsaber, still disguised as a stormtrooper!
  • "The Antilles Extraction": It's Sabine's turn to go undercover as an Imperial cadet, this time to extract some would-be defectors at an Imperial pilot academy.
  • "Hera's Heroes": Ezra goes undercover as a scout trooper, and Chopper yet again has his Imperial paintjob, in order to help Hera recover a family heirloom from her old house, which has been occupied by Imperials.
  • "An Inside Man": Kanan and Ezra go undercover first as factory workers, then as a stormtrooper and scout trooper respectively, while sneaking around Lothal City's Imperial complex. Chopper's also along, repainted as per usual.
  • "Through Imperial Eyes": Kanan and Rex are back disguised as stormtroopers, Chopper's sporting his paintjob, and Ezra, thanks to Agent Kallus, winds up impersonating an Imperial officer, specifically Lieutenant Lyste.
  • "Double Agent Droid": Chopper goes undercover with his paintjob yet again — and this time it proves to be a liability, as the same droid with the same paintjob causing trouble has been seen too many times, and he gets recognized. Wedge also goes undercover as a TIE pilot.
  • "Jedi Night": Ezra and Sabine don Imperial pilot uniforms and helmets while infiltrating the Imperial complex to rescue Hera.
  • "Wolves and a Door": Ezra and Sabine mug two scout troopers to infiltrate the Imperial excavation at the Lothal Jedi Temple.
  • "Family Reunion — and Farewell": When the rebels enter the Imperial complex as part of their plan to rid Lothal of the Empire once and for all, most of the heroes are playing Trojan Prisoners, with Rex as a stormtrooper and Kallus as an Imperial officer.
• Star Wars Resistance: "The New Trooper" has Kaz disguising himself as a First Order stormtrooper to help Eila and Kel after they knock out the armour's original owner, and to do some spying.
• Superman Theatrical Cartoons: In the episode "Jungle Drums" Lois does this, stealing the robe of a dead Nazi Agent in order to use the Nazi-bases radio to warn the Allies of a planned submarine attack. This fails when the Nazi commander spots Lois's high heels under the hem of her robe.
• Done in the "Baloo Thunder" episode of TaleSpin with Baloo, Kit, and their friend Buzz the inventor taking the place of a Corrupt Corporate Executive 's three security guards in order to return a top secret prototype helicopter to its rightful home. Baloo perfectly fits into a uniform even though he's at least twice the size of the largest guard. Also, the bad guy doesn't notice his feline guards replaced by two bears and a bird until it's too late.
• Teen Titans (2003)'s Starfire and Raven mug two random villains for their disguises in "All Revved Up" and get on a bus with other villains to catch up to the rest of their team. It works up until Raven sneezes off her fake horns and Starfire tells Raven "Bless you" in her language.
• A Thousand and One... Americas: In the fifth episode, Chris' pet dog Lon gets kidnapped by a priest, whose henchmen take him to a sacred temple so he can be cooked (this is because they, being they're Mayans, who ate dogs in Real Life). To rescue him, Chris and the girl accompanying him (Papalotl) run to the temple, and the former character paints his face and hands brown to pass for a Mayan in order to fool the entrance guards and enter (the disguise is also helped by Papalotl, herself an actual Mayan, entering with him and telling the guards that the dog she has in her hands is being given away as an offering). When Lon is rescued, he licks Chris' face, comically undoing the disguise.
• The girls of Totally Spies! do this from time to time. "Black Widows" has the three infiltrating the lair of Margaret Nussbaum/Candy Sweet disguised as her robot cheerleaders. Nussbaum, needless to say, is not fooled.
• The Transformers has the episode "Masquerade" which features the Autobots replacing the captured Stunticons to uncover and sabotage Megatron's latest plan.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Mirage tries to infiltrate a Decepticon scouting party using a holographic disguise, only for it to short out and blow his cover almost immediately.
• Played dead straight in The Venture Bros. by the original Team Venture in "Past Tense". Unfortunately this means a squad of elderly men in Fanservicey Fembot swimsuits.

• In nature, Batesian Mimicry is when a harmless species mimics a harmful one, for example, a moth larva looking like a snake head.
• There are insects adapted to prey on ant larvae, which smell just like fellow colony-members to adult ants.
• Similarly, mealybug destroyers in their larval stage look extremely similar to the mealybugs that they eat.
• Thousands of Truth in Television examples. Not counting false flag stuff, the 1976 rescue of a large number of Israeli hostages from Entebbe, Uganda had elements of this. Note the movie adaptations.
• The First Battle of Bull Run during the The American Civil War had some Union soldiers in grey uniforms and Confederates in blue uniforms. Both sides had not adopted their standard uniform colors until a few months after the battle.
  • The battle at Pilot Knob ended with the union soldiers blowing up their cache of ammo and powder, and evacuating the fort under cover of night and rain wearing confederate uniforms.
• It's not actually illegal per se to dress in the enemy's uniform while engaging in espionage or sabotage but it does mean that you are not a soldier in combat, which means you're an unlawful combatant, and the other side can do to you as they wish after they capture you. It is, however, illegal to kill enemy soldiers while still wearing the enemy's uniform whether behind enemy lines or in the open battlefield as it constitutes unlawful acts of perfidy (opening you to war crimes charges). That said, you can throw away the disguise (or at least rip off their identifying insignia), reveal your faction's uniform beneath and open fire guilt free (the expression "show your true colors" comes from pirate ships dropping the friendly flag and showing their own just before attacking).
• Vlad the Impaler was an expert at this tactic. After rebelling against the Ottoman Empire in 1462, he killed Ottoman admiral Hamza Bey before using his fluency in Turkish to walk his army right into the fortress of Giurgiu and capture it. Vlad did it again shortly before the Night Attack at Târgoviște, disguising himself as a Turk once more in an attempt to learn the location of the sultan's tent and cut off the head of the snake in battle. While his disguise worked perfectly, the attack not so much as it was soon discovered they were targeting the wrong tent the entire time.
• This was the main modus operandi of the Selous Scouts, a Rhodesian special operations unit that would capture terrorists, turn them against their comrades (usually by giving them the choice between that and death) and then send them back to become The Mole. With them, of course, would be white Rhodesian officers or NCOs disguised as black terrorists.
• Navies love this trope. During the Age of Sail, a popular tactic was to raise enemy colours (or, if you were really sneaky, a plague flag) and only lower them at the moment of firing. Died out after advanced naval gunnery and explosive shells meant that it was common practice to sink enemy vessels rather than capture them (the deception only worked if the disguised ship pretended to be a captured enemy one). Still the British raid on St Nazaire used this, flying a German ensign from the HMS Campbeltown. It worked.
  • A particularly funny example from World War One also combined with Confronting Your Imposter. The British and Germans both employed armed merchant ships (the Germans used them to attack British shipping, the British to hunt down German raiders), and often used fake markings, false smokestacks, and other elements to disguise them as the other side's ship. In the 1914 Battle of Trindade, the German SMS Cap Trafalgar, while disguised as the British RMS Carmania, encountered a British ship... which, unfortunately for the Cap Trafalgar, was the real Carmania.^note A common myth about this battle is that Carmania was herself disguised as Cap Trafalgar; although this would've been hilarious, Carmania was not disguised. At that early point in the war, neither side actually knew which merchant ships the other had converted into auxiliary cruisers, and thus Cap Trafalgar's captain made a poor choice of disguise (as did many others).
• On June 20, 1942, four members of the Polish anti-fascist resistance, Kazimierz Piechowski, Eugeniusz Bendera, Józef Lempart, and Stanisław Jaster, imprisoned as political prisoners in the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, successfully made their escape by dressing up in stolen SS-Totenkop uniforms, covertly hijacking a car belonging to one of the SS officers in the camp, and then driving right out the front gate. According to their accounts, the guard at duty first hesitated to open up the gate, but when Piechowski, the best German speaker among them, leaned out of the car so the guard could see his rank insignia and yelled at him to open the gate, the guard immediately did so with no further questions asked.
• Operation Greif: Otto Skorzeny and a small group of SS Commandos, wearing captured U.S. and British uniforms and with as many fluent English speakers as they could find, infiltrated U.S. lines during the Battle of the Bulge with the main objective of capturing the bridges over the Meuse river. They were also supposed to use captured U.S. vehicles but there were basically none in usable condition, so they resorted to disguising Panther tanks as M10 Tank Destroyers by sticking on metal sheeting and removing the commander’s cupola. Although they failed due to an insufficient number of fluent English speakers, they did succeed in making the U.S. Army so paranoid about their presence and activities that many checkpoints were set up which slowed down the Allies.
  • In the end, an estimated 18 German commandos wearing U.S. uniforms were captured behind U.S. lines during the Battle of the Bulge, tried by military commissions, found guilty, and executed as spies.
  • On the other hand, Skorezny himself escaped conviction after the war by pointing out that he'd never actually ordered his men to fight in US uniforms, just use them for sneaking around purposes. The tribunal might have wanted to press the issue, but considering how many examples there were of US troops doing the same thing, they declined. That, and a surprise defense witness in the form of Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, who testified that he and many operatives in the SOE had done the same thing.
  • The U.S. troops famously caught some of these spies by asking questions only Americans would be expected to answer correctly, like baseball trivia and the capitals of US states, particularly trick questions like "What year did Babe Ruth hit 64 home runs?"^note The correct answer would be "Never, the most he ever hit in one season was 60." In fact nearly 80 years after WWII ended there still hasn't been an American League player to hit 64 home runs, the current AL record is 62, set by Aaron Judge of the Yankees in 2022. It didn't always work—one U.S. general was held at gunpoint by a couple of privates after he incorrectly stated that the Chicago Cubs were in the American League, and General Omar Bradley was briefly detained because the MP who had questioned him, thought he had given the wrong answer^note General Bradley had been asked what was the capital of the US state of Illinois, and he had answered the correct one: Springfield, only that the MP believed the correct answer was Chicago. The questions also failed to take into account the numerous British soldiers in the area, who couldn't answer them any better than the Germans could. When a reconnaissance officer found himself faced with a guard demanding “Who won the World Series in 1940?”^note The Cincinnati Reds, for those wondering. all he could say was “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
  • On a more tragic note it also lead to a few Friendly-fire incidents. Two US Infantry men were killed by a nervous MP, and two more were killed (plus several wounded) when a case of mistaken identity caused an armored task force to fire on the U.S. 35th Infantry Division.
• In his memoirs Tigers in the Mud, Otto Carius mentions the Soviets commandeering new German equipment in an attack like MG 42 heavy machine guns and new winter coats. After one attack too many by Soviets using this equipment, the Germans ordered anyone wearing the coats at that part of the theater to be shot on sight. This led to some friendly-fire incidents when some Germans who had received (and were able to keep) their coats were killed.
• The greatest theft of private property ever, the $500 million of art stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1991, was carried out by two thieves dressed as Boston police officers.
• Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, a 17th century Polish Intrepid Merchant (and founder of one of history's earliest coffee shops), did exactly this when the city of Vienna was besieged by Turks. Having traveled about the world quite a bit before settling in Vienna, he simply disguised himself as a Turk, wearing Ottoman clothes and singing Turkish songs to himself, allowing him to walk straight through the enemy camps and carry messages between the Viennese and their allies.
• One inspired escape from the Colditz prison camp involved an inmate capitalising on a resemblence to the feared German Regimental Sergeant-Major, by dressing as him, and intimidating the guards into allowing him to pass. Both the impersonation and the fake uniform worked like a charm - until the real German RSM showed up.