Latex Perfection

Scooby-Doo gets his face peeled off!
stretchhhhhhhhhhhhh SCHLORP!!! And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
—The appropriate sound effect and following comment

Full-head latex masks can be made so perfectly that it is impossible to tell the wearer from the person he is impersonating until the moment he pulls off his face by grabbing an invisible seam at the back of his jaw.

Even close acquaintances and family members will be fooled. Masks of this quality can completely alter the shape of the wearer's face and head, even to the point of making them thinner or smaller as needed, regardless of common sense or physical law. Best of all for those who need them, masks of such exquisite detail can be made without resorting to casting the face of the target—a couple of small black-and-white photos will do just fine as a reference.

Typically, a mask like this can even easily mimic the wearers' expression, making it easier to fool others.

This is the number one tool of the Master of Disguise. It's not seen nearly as often in modern TV, but it still lurks about and surfaces every now and then. The Darkman movies, for example, and the opening of the first Charlie's Angels film.

Another variation of this involves the use of a full rubber bodysuit that is unzipped down the front of back for the reveal, usually used more in animation.

The exact polar opposite of Latex Perfection is the Paper-Thin Disguise. A usual technique is to use a different actor under the "mask" (Compare Magic Plastic Surgery for another method of "explaining" how one actor can suddenly perfectly resemble another). Remember, We Will Not Use Stage Make-Up in the Future, and the latex mask will be subsumed by Applied Phlebotinum.

Compare Full-Body Disguise.

Examples of Latex Perfection include:

Advertising

  • A really memorable but creepy Smokey bear PSA commercial from 1973 had this. It starts off with actress Joanna Cassidy talking to us about forest fires and then towards the end she takes her face off like a rubber mask to reveal a creepy Smokey Bear costumed character underneath. It was remade in 1980 with the unmasking being less scary and Smokey being more cuddly and friendly-looking and have a voice that sounds remarkably similar to John Goodman. The Joanna Cassidy original can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXcrbpMNvTs
  • One of those Mac vs. PC ads involved this too, with the PC guy impersonating the Mac guy, as if those ads weren't cliched enough!
  • Back in the 1990s, Waffle Crisp cereal use this in two related commercials. In one, a team of boys send a spy, disguised as "a real granny" with a mask, into the factory where the cereal is made and steals a supply. In the sequel, two of the boys fall victim to a pair of "young girls" who remove their masks (and costumes... revealing two "Real Grannies (TM)" underneath) to steal back their cereal and escape. Find the second one here.
  • A young couple go on a light-hearted date, and the young man drives off with a photograph and a wave. Once he's out of sight, the young woman unmasks. Apparently, he'll do anything for his friend.
  • "But I don't use it. Because I'm a woman".
  • Don't forget the late 1990s Subaru Forester commercial, where in some kind of spy parody, a pretty red-haired woman (complete with suggestive feminine American voice) escapes the bad guys' hideout in a Subuar Forester vehicle, managing to get out before the exit door closes. Then once safely outside, the announcer says that the experience can be "full of surprises," as the woman peels off her rubber mask and her wig to reveal Paul Hogan, whom says in his normal deep Australian accent, "Like mine for example!"
  • Also seen in the Wal Mart "Rollback Man" commercial from 2003-2004, which parodies all the old action/spy tropes as a parody of Secret Agent Man plays in the background, when a female Wal-Mart employee disguises herself with a rubber Smiley Face mask (a CGI effect.)
  • In this Vodafone Omintel commercial from 2000, the main character must smuggle the titular product across some kind of checkpoint. She drives into a convenient car wash, changes clothes, and removes her mask to reveal a completely different look underneath. However, the curly-haired-blonde look was apparently the result of a makeover... which she then covered up with a mask of her original, "natural" appearance.
  • A funny/creepy chewing gum commercial which spoofs the soap opera formula, when an old man reveals to his son that he's really his mother in disguise. Then, the son peels off his mask to reveal that he's just a puppeteer dummy. Bonus points for the random possible Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy reference at the end.
  • Got Milk?
  • One Eggo Waffles commercial from 1996 involved a Mission: Impossible parody where a teenage boy is preparing his waffles, his younger brother notices, sneaks into the basement, lays out the plan, then dons a rubber mask of his father, along with a black business suit. He jumps down from a vent and says to his brother "Leggo my eggo... son" (still in his true voice though), and then the real father enters, saying "Good morning," and the ad ends with him glancing suspiciously at what looks like a copy of him at the table with a shorter body and a wider shirt collar.


Anime and Manga

  • In Love Hina, Kanako Urashima masquerades as a number of other characters, including her older brother Keitaro and Naru Narusegawa. Her disguises are so perfect that everyone assumes it is actually the person she is disguised as, except for the last time she is disguised as Naru, when Keitaro knows the whole time that it is really Kanako. (This lent weight to an oft-mentioned dig at the manga artist that many of his characters' faces look alike.)
    • In addition, to make up for differences in skeletal structure, she would, without any apparent pain, dislocate and rearrange her bones at the joint. Logically, of course, this doesn't make any kind of sense, but hey, at least they took body differences into account too...
    • Anyone capable of making Mutsumi look convincingly enough like Keitaro to pass muster in a Furo scene wearing only a Modesty Towel...
      • Notably Kanako fooled even herself for a moment there. It Got Worse in the manga, with Kanako even going so far as to give Mutsumi a schlong, commenting that her brother "should be about that big".
  • Lupin III takes this to an extreme with a running gag where an anonymous femme fatale (who looks a lot like Fujiko) seducing this week's villain/victim is revealed to be Lupin himself, in a frighteningly well-made bodysuit. (Fujiko sometimes disguises herself as Lupin, too—which is disturbing in its own way.) Lupin also uses the conventional form of the rubber-mask disguise played straight—well, as straight as Lupin plays anything—fairly often.
    • One movie shows Zenigata being surprisingly Genre Savvy by tugging on the face of a random guard just to be sure it wasn't Lupin. It was, but he explains he has started using stronger glue, and Zenigata needed to tug harder.
  • Sayoko as Lelouch in Code Geass. It's a somewhat more realistic example, as the mask is clearly a hard piece of whatever shaped like Lelouch's face, and a voice modulator of some type was apparently also used.
  • KID in Magic Kaito—who often appears in Detective Conan—seems to have brought this down where he can fool Shinichi that he is Ran or vice versa. This is scary (if hilarious, for some) seeing they have been known as kindergartners.
    • Shinichi's Hot Mom Yukiko also manages to do this as a part of a Batman Gambit by both her and her husband, Yusaku, to try convince Conan/Shinichi to let them help him. Somewhat justified as she was a prize-winning actress before getting married, and trained under the same guy that villainous mistress of disguise Vermouth did... KID's dad, the previous Kaitou KID.
  • Deconstructed in Swallowing The Earth by Osamu Tezuka. Much of the story focuses on the development of an artificial skin that allows anyone to disguise themselves flawlessly & the catastrophic effect it has on society. Not only does it make criminals harder to catch, it's a massive source of Paranoia Fuel in general. Think about it: In a World where Latex Perfection is not only possible but commonplace, you never know if the people around really are who they are.
    • One particular chapter features a very interesting take on this trope, along with Becoming the Mask. The members of dysfunctional family go their separate ways and one by one are replaced with fugitives disguised as them, who eventually come to love each other more than the real family ever did.
  • Orochimaru of Naruto puts his own unique spin on this trope. He's able to perfectly disguise the face of his current host body to look exactly like his old face using his skin-shedding jutsu. On top of that he also has a habit of wearing other people's faces as a real disguise. Not masks of other people; he peels their faces off and wears them.
  • In the Read or Die manga, Paper Master Ridley Wan uses paper to make a full-body mask to impersonate Yomiko's deceased lover, Donny Nakajima. It's so detailed that Yomiko had no idea that he was an impostor until he voluntarily unmasked himself after bedding her. This is really impressive when you consider that not only had Yomiko been present when Donny died, she was the one who killed him.
  • Jessie on Pokémon tried this a couple of times when she would impersonate a Nurse Joy to convince the heroes that she is a good nurse who can help their Pokémon. The disguise is nearly flawless, except for the mask's mouth not moving when she speaks. In fact, this was one of the things the girl-crazy Brock would notice when he would detect the Nurse Joy is a fake. Jessie's rival Cassidy also did this once wearing the same Nurse Joy mask, to which some boy in the crowd asked his mother why her lips were not moving.
  • Transfer in Around the World with Willy Fog, being a Master of Disguise, is able to flawlessly disguise himself in his attempts to kill off Willy Fog. Since he is a wolf and all the characters are anthropomorphic animals, he can impersonate other animal types, from a badger to an elderly antelope to a female doe, even impersonating Willy Fog himself on a couple of occasions! He isn't shown putting on the disguises or unmasking very often, but it doesn't matter as no matter the disguise, he always has that freaky glowing left eye that shows up even when he's wearing a mask, so the audience will know...
  • The manga series Gimmick! features this in nearly every chapter, but Kohei is a professional SFX artist. It started with perfectly layering multiple latex masks on the same person in a scheme to help a model/actress escape from her abusive manager and only got more absurd from there.


Comics

  • A regular feature of the Italian comic Diabolik.
  • The comic book series (and, briefly, TV series) Human Target starred Christopher Chance, a man who is paid to mimic people who have been targeted for assassination. The twist in later versions was that he was so good at mimicking them, he would sometimes forget who he really was.
  • In Sillage, Navis often wears a semi-liquid symbiote over her skin. Since she is the only human in a giant space fleet composed of thousands of species, normal disguise wouldn't be very effective. As a bonus, the symbiote adjusts her metabolism and immune system for No Biochemical Barriers and serves as Translator Microbes.
  • In the comics, Batman would occasionally disguise himself (often impersonating Superman to get the bad guys to use their Kryptonite Factor on the wrong target) and then pull off the false face, revealing his cowl, ears and all, underneath. This seems to have finally become a Discredited Trope because it just stretches Willing Suspension of Disbelief too far.
    • This was common in Batman the Animated Series, as well.
      • Probably reached its apex when Batman disguised himself, full-body, as Killer Croc. While playing poker for what was apparently several hours. And not only did no one notice any oddness in the way his (much taller, more muscular, and all-around bigger) body moved, when the light started swaying and he went into shadow, you could see his Batman costume underneath it. (This last was pretty much purely for dramatic effect, but still.) Making it even more implausible, the show's design of Killer Croc had a very wide, cheekless mouth open on the sides, making it impossible to hide a normal human face underneath it.
      • There was also the time that Dick Grayson dressed up as Bruce Wayne to discredit a man that had discovered Batman's true identity. Aside from looking and sounding exactly the same as Bruce, Dick's only complaint was that he had to use leg extensions to appear taller, lifting up his pant legs to reveal that he's on stilts. Did no one notice the disturbing bulges right in the middle of Bruce Wayne's shins?
      • Wouldn't it have been considerably easier for Dick to dress like Batman?
      • Not necessarily. If he essentially walked as though he were "wearing high heels", then there would not be a bulge (and careful acting and misdirection can help with the knees being weird). One can assume that he relaxed his feet when it was all over. As for it being easier to dress up as Bruce than Bats: Bats had to fight, if memory serves. And either way, Bruce Wayne has to move a LOT less than Batman.
  • This was also done shockingly well in Batman and Robin with the character of Oberon Sexton, who we are led to believe is a English best-selling crime author/detective, who assists the Dynamic Duo, Damien suspects Oberon is faking his accent and believes he is Bruce, but he denies this, and Dick confirms this, it turns out he is The Joker, yeah, let that sink in for a while.
  • Quite a few examples from Spider-Man comics:
    • Several Canon Discontinuities ago, it was explained that Aunt May was really alive because the one who died was an impostor in disguise. How any mask or makeup could possibly have fooled a close relative like Peter Parker (let alone a close relative with Spider Sense) was left unexplained.
    • In an early storyline, Frederick Foswell took on the alternate identity of a low-life stool pigeon known as "Patch." He wore a latex mask to look like a generic middle-aged man with brown hair and an eyepatch, and also wore a fedora.
    • The Green Goblin's costume also consisted of a green goblin-like latex mask in addition to the green-and-purple outfit. The Goblin was often played by different people over time. Originally in the Goblin's first appearances, we never saw the Goblin's true identity's face, until it was revealed that the original Green Goblin was really Norman Osborn.
    • The Chameleon, a Master of Disguise by trade, often took advantage of this trope. In his first appearance, he used his trademark "mask pouch" to create seamless disguises of anyone he encountered, virtually on the spot. Later on he abandoned the masks in favor of holograms or actual shapeshifting. More recently, he returned to Latex Perfection, with the justification that he does take molds of the person he's impersonating's face. (And then kills them.)
  • Harvey Dent uses one of these in The Long Halloween.
  • In The Authority: Kev, an alien infiltrator somehow manages a Latex Perfection disguise, despite being something of a Starfish Aliens, having 5 eyes, and about seven short, stubby fingers on each hand.
  • Regularly used by DC Comics' Unknown Soldier.
  • One of the trademarks of Master of Disguise Nemesis in The DCU. He uses special masks of his own invention that dissolve with the application of a special spray, allowing him to resume his normal appearance in seconds.[1]
  • Also in The DCU, Black Orchid frequently uses Latex Perfection; even managing to disguise herself as a man.
  • In the Chick Tracts Somebody Goofed, the Devil uses one of these to pose as a human and lead a young man to atheism. Even more amazing when you realize it somehow covered his horns too. Of course, he's the dark lord.
  • In earlier issues of Daredevil, he disguised himself like The Mighty Thor to attract Mr. Hyde and Cobra, usual foes of the Nordic God. Thor himself said that it was like looking in a mirror. DD even used some skin-coloured latex to cover his costume and ressemble the naked arms of Thor. Yeah.
    • A few issues later, DD participates on a movie with the Stunt-Master. The Stilt-Man knocks down SM and disguises his face to look like him. In about five minutes.
  • Supergirl did this quite a bit for some time, before she briefly gained the ability to shapeshift. In a non-canonical "Death of Superman" story, she finally reveals herself to the public by crashing a party the bad guys are throwing in a full Superman suit and mask, then removing it to reveal herself.
  • In Captain America's origin story, the Super Soldier project is hidden beneath an antique shop. The "old woman" who tends to the shop is, in fact, a young woman agent named Betsy Ross in disguise. In the 2011 movie, however, she appears to be an actual old woman, albeit one who's handy with a machine gun.
    • Spoofed in an issue of Rat-Man with a similar premise, where the old shopkeeper the young woman agent is disguised as is actually an old woman identical to her former appearance under the young woman mask. Also, her pet cat is actually a guard dog in disguise.
  • Modesty Blaise: In "Butch Cassidy Rides Again", the gang uses latex masks to make themselves appear identical to the Hole-In-The-Wall Gang.
  • One Darkwing Duck story in Disney Adventures had Darkwing wearing a mask that looked exactly like his real face over his traditional eye mask and under a series of other masks. Appropriately lampshaded by Launchpad and Gosalyn.
  • Partly adverted in a Spirou and Fantasio story where a latex mask is used to frame Fantasio. While the mask is good enough to fool people watching him on TV or from afar, it always keeps the same, smiling expression. It is also revealed that a sculptor was hired to create a bust of Fantasio from identity photographs (though, since he is his neighbour, he may have also worked from memory).
  • In Captain America #606 (No Escape, part one), Baron Zemo wears a latex mask of a person to break in to a mental ayslum to interrogate Sin. Like some other examples on this page, he wore it over his actual mask.


Fan Fic


Film

  • The James Bond film From Russia with Love contains one of the earliest examples.
    • A nice variation ten years later in Live and Let Die, the masked man, in a fit of frustration, grabs his nose and pulls it, stretching and removing the latex in pieces. A satisfyingly disturbing reveal.
  • Spoofed at the start of Austin Powers. Austin reveals that a woman is actually a man in disguise. The scene is done with special effects worthy of the 60s, where the actress playing the spy is obviously a (good looking) woman until the camera angle changes as Austin pulls off "his" hair, the actress having been replaced by a bulky man in Drag.
  • Mrs. Doubtfire seriously abused this trope, as Robin Williams' character would duck into a rest room to put on his "old woman" disguise in a matter of seconds, in spite of the fact that the "making of" documentary on the DVD explained that it took several hours to apply the mask to the actor's face.
  • White Chicks (the Wayans Brothers' semi-ripoff of Some Like It Hot) featured secret agent brothers Kevin and Marcus Copeland (played by Shawn and Marlon Wayans) disguising as Caucasian blond-haired co-eds (though they seem to resemble pale-faced lower-voiced imitations of the girls rather than perfect replicas), and like the case with Mrs. Doubtfire, prosthetic appliances are used to make the brothers look like white females, with regular latex masks used as props for unmasking scenes.
    • However, it has to be given with them an example in one of the beach scenes, in which Marcus appears in disguise, wearing a bikini! White-skin-colored body, fake boobs and all! (specifically the part in which "she" is sunbathing when Latrell (Terry Crews) unexpectedly casts his shadow over "her" just by standing by).
  • The Associate is a semi-combination of the previous two examples. Whoopi Goldberg dresses as an elderly white man to get ahead in business. Her latex mask fools everyone perfectly.
  • Similarly to the Slitheen example below, the trope is subverted in the first Men in Black, where the Bug alien somehow compacts itself enough to fit into the skin of the first human it had come across. The disguise itself, however, is actually of terrible quality, with hanging skin, and the Bug having difficulty just getting from one location to another, let alone remain inconspicuous. And the 'Edgar-suit' is visibly decaying throughout the movie.
  • The 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? featured the evil human villain Judge Doom (played by Christopher Lloyd) revealing himself to be an evil maniacal 'toon in disguise wearing a latex mask and a human suit. We don't see Doom unmask or a glimpse of his true identity, and the only traces of his 'toon form are his glowing evil eyes (which were hidden by prosthetic contact lenses resembling human eyeballs) and his yellow hand which can change into an anvil and buzzsaw (hidden by a black glove), and is melted by his own dip, and all that remains is his human mask and clothes. After this scene, a brief sequence can be seen where a sheep peels off his sheep disguise to reveal the Disney Big Bad Wolf.
  • Subverted in Minority Report, where several years in the future Tom Cruise's character puts a pen-shaped device on his chin to temporarily deform his face, a process that looks to be extraordinarily painful and makes him look many years older.
  • Handled somewhat realistically in Smokin Aces, where Tommy Flanagan's character has to spend a considerable amount of time (though not quite as much as he should have) applying his make-up/mask and working on a voice imitation of his target. It was more impressive that the film did not use the "actor switch" but actually did the full make-up of the other actor over Flanagan's features.
  • Subverted in Back to The Future II, when Doc Brown starts talking at length about the rejuvenation treatments he had in the future, and mentions that he disguised himself so that his new, younger appearance wouldn't catch Marty off-guard. He then rips off his latex mask to reveal... his exact same face underneath (less rugged, but equal).
    • This was probably done so as to avoid having put makeup on Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown) all the time. In the first film 1985 Doc only shows up at the beginning and end and is played by Lloyd in aging makeup. The majority of the film features 1955 Doc played by Lloyd as is. However, the sequels follow Marty and 1985 Doc so logically he should look older, except that he doesn't because of the rejuvenation treatments. It's easy to get confused, since the differences between young Doc and old Doc are so subtle.
      • They say as much in the DVD commentary, but they give the additional reason that it makes more sense for teacher in Back to The Future III to fall in love with the 40yo Doc than the 70yo Doc.
  • Arguably one of the most interesting variations of this trope occurs in Fourteen Oh Eight, mostly because of who uses it. Specifically, it is Room 1408 itself during the final nightmare sequence before the Final Battle. When the reporter thinks that his entire experience in the room was a nightmare, he then goes into a post office that he visited earlier in the movie. Then a series of workers appear to pull up the floor, tear down the walls and rip down the ceiling to reveal the all-too-familiar colors and textures of Room 1408.
  • In The Witches, the evil Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston) does this to hide her ugly witch face. At the meeting of the witches, she peels off her "normal" human mask to reveal her hideous witch form. Interestingly, Huston's real face represents the witch "in disguise," and the use of prosthetic masks was used for her true witch form and removing her "beautiful face" mask.
  • In The Master of Disguise, the mask cliche is used (sometimes even parodied) for several of the disguises in this film. Such examples include Fabrizzio Disguisey (portrayed by James Brolin) masquerading as Bo Derek, Michael Johnson, Jesse Ventura, and Jessica Simpson. For these disguises, the old "actor switch" technique is used, and only the unmaskings of Bo Derek and Jessica Simpson are depicted on screen, while Fabrizzio in his Michael Johnson disguise lifts up the Constitution scroll to cover his body out of frame, and among moving it back down he goes from black to his true Caucasian identity, and Jesse Ventura is only seen tugging on his cheeks as we cut away to a close-up of the villain as we hear the mask stretching offscreen. Similarly, Grandpa Disguisey disguises himself at one part as a smaller female maid, done via the "actor switch" technique and an off-screen masking, and Pistachio Disguises (portrayed by Dana Carvey) wears various disguises, the majority of them played by Carvey himself under different makeup/prosthetics, yet the only disguise we see him unmasking onscreen is when the villain manages to see through Pistachio's disguise of one of his henchmen (where the actor-switch trick was employed yet again).
  • In a recent short film entitled The Real Deal (starring Courtney Gaines), the five main heroes consist of the Elder (an old wrinkled man with glasses and a fishing hat), the Inbred (a yokel with a semi-disfigured face and stringy blond hair), the Sarge (a tough drill sergeant type of guy with a shaven head and almost always squinting), the Player (an black man in a long black coat and sunglasses) and the Gangster (a bald tough-looking man). The film involves them fighting martial arts style to fend off the main villain's henchmen and protect the money they just stole from the villain. At the end of the movie, the five men meet up and then through a montage we see them taking off their various hats and glasses, unbuttoning their coats or shirts, and then peeling off their super-convincing rubber masks to reveal hot young ladies underneath. The woman disguised as the Player was also black, like her male alter-ego. However, the actor-switch technique was employed here: for most of the film up to the unmasking scene, the five heroes were played by professional male martial-arts actors wearing the masks (and a different voice actor dubbing the voice for The Player), and were then replaced with the corresponding actresses for the unmasking scene and then the rest of the film's finale. This film was a promotion of sorts by the special-effects/Halloween mask company SPFX Masks, which designs convincing and realistic silicone full-head masks.
  • Seen extensively in the Mission Impossible series (since the original TV show, listed under Live Action TV, liked it a lot).
    • Mission: Impossible 2 provided some particularly egregious examples of this, with Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt apparently carrying perfect latex masks, not only of various bad guy henchmen but also of himself. These he was able to apply unaided to himself (or in the case of the mask of himself, a bad guy henchman), in about ten seconds flat.
    • Mission: Impossible 3 made it more realistic and time-consuming than its predecessors, leaving us to wonder what happened to the technology.
    • Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol had this technology malfunctioning, thus forcing Ethan and Jane Carter to impersonate Wistrom and Moreau without the help of such masks. Later, Wistrom turns out to be Hendricks wearing a mask.
    • In the N64 game of the film, the Face Maker seems to even duplicate the enemy's clothing (if the original body doesn't disappear).
  • Spoofed in the beginning of Charlies Angels, which was nearly a direct spoof of the beginning of Mission: Impossible 2.
  • In the film La Femme Nikita, we briefly see a supporting character applying a complex, realistic looking disguide, complete with extensive makeup to alter the shape of his face and a wig. Not quite a mask, but it does completely alter the way he looks.
  • Undercover Brother. The title character, while masquerading as an elderly janitor and James Brown.
  • The Beatles' Help! has the Eastern bad guys getting captured when they knock Ringo unconscious, then find it's Paul, and then John (but not George?) in a Ringo mask as bait for a police ambush.
  • The big reveal at the end of Murder By Death is that Bensonmum, after being accused of murdering Lionel Twain using increasingly outlanding deductions by all the assembled Agatha Christiesque detectives, pulls off a mask that he is really -- Lionel Twain. And then, after all the detectives go home, he then pulls off another mask to reveal he's really -- the mute maid, who laughs very vocally..
  • In the So Bad It's Good spy movie The Second Best Secret Agent in the World, the James Bond-like hero meets up with a sexy, petite Asian girl... who then tries to kill him. And the latex mask comes off, revealing (in standard fashion for special effects back then) a male Asian martial arts master in drag.
  • Partially averted by Darkman, whose synthetic skin (not latex) masks are only really convincing when he backs up the deception by researching his target's voice and mannerisms. The substance the masks themselves are made of is seen as a technological breakthrough in itself, the MacGuffin of the film.
  • Done when the security chief in Swamp Thing reveals himself to be Anton Arcane.
  • Could be said of Quaid's fat lady disguise in Total Recall.
  • The 1960s Fantomas movies featured the titular master of disguise villain almost always wearing a bald, bluish latex mask to conceal his true identity. He would often wear other latex masks over it when committing crimes.
  • Used briefly in Bloodfist VI where the main villain disguises himself as an elderly tourist at first. To their credit, after most of the mask is pulled off, the actor is left with patches of latex and glue on his face until continuity loses track of them.
  • Seen in the latest Captain America movie, for the Red Skull's human disguise. It is a rare aversion in that the mask slips a few times before he finally does away with it completely.
    • Lampshaded by MAD: "Really? Nobody's impressed that I'm wearing a face as a mask? Really?"
  • Parodied in German comedy Neues vom Wixxer where one of the characters dons a perfect latex mask that looks exactly like his face, just with added moustache. In the original Der Wixxer main antagonist wears such a mask over his trademark bulky skull mask.
  • Played with in Johnny English; the villains make a near-perfect mask of the Archbishop of Canterbury as part of the Big Bad's plot to make himself king, but they suspect (correctly) that English knows about the mask, so they scrap the idea and decide to trick the real Archbishop into going along with their plan. Naturally, English tries to remove the mask that the not fake Archbishop is not wearing, and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Could be said of the full-body cow disguise used in Top Secret; the rubber bovine suit becomes totally realistic when put on, despite having obviously painted-on brown spots and black rubber boots instead of hooves (done via mixing in shots of a real cow with the painted spots and boots). The disguise works well enough for the two men inside the suit to slip past the guards, and it even manages to fool a young calf (whom sucks the udder, presumably giving the guy in the back a blowjob that surprisingly arouses him) and a larger male bull (don't ask!)
  • Parodied in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth when the survivors try to discover the true identity of the killer, revealing hundreds of masks before getting the answer.


Literature

  • A very extreme example of this is featured in the Anonymous Rex novels, where the whole premise is that dinosaurs are still alive, just disguised as humans. Using very complicated latex costumes. Egad.
    • The TV movie adaptation had the dinosaurs hide themselves using Hard Light holographic projections...is that better?
      • Setting aside that the movie kind of sucked, this is revealed in one scene to be a recent switch—as in, probably in the last couple years. The characters need decoys, so they pull out the old latex costumes, which, aside from being terrifying and obvious fakes, don't look too much different from the holodisguises the characters are using right now.
      • The books Hand Wave the "elaborate costume" trick by saying it's also part evolution; the dinosaurs (which, undisguised, are quite dinosaur-shaped, if human-sized) have developed soft, rubbery skeletons so that they can fit into the costumes without, for example, having an elongated velociraptor snout poking out of a human face. It works if you're willing to ignore the fact that this pretty much defeats the purpose of having a skeleton to begin with.
  • In Bruce Coville's My Teacher Is an Alien books, this is how aliens disguise themselves as humans. Somehow it works despite them having very different features such as extra eyes.
    • To be fair, it's not simply latex, it's some sort of alien technology (note, for example, that it can automatically change skin tone). And while aliens in that series can look very weird by human standards, the aliens sent to Earth were basically (and probably purposefully) humanoid; Kreeblim just had to deal with only using two-thirds of her usual vision for a while.
  • In Dominique Jean's La Fiancée du Vent, the heroine, who can exist in 3 places at the same time, uses a latex mask to pass for a friend and pretend to betray herself, so as to work as a double agent with her enemies.
  • Subverted in H.P. Lovecraft's Whisperer In Darkness, in which the mask and hands used for Latex Perfection by a disguised alien aren't latex at all, but the actual face and hands of the abductee it's imitating.
  • The books in Goosebumps have occasionally used this trope, including the spin-off TV series, but perhaps the most famous use was in "The Haunted Mask" stories, where whoever wears a creepy mask that was taken from a mysterious party shop is transformed; the mask attaches to his or her face and takes over the mind of the wearer, making him or her act evil. In the sequel ("The Haunted Mask II"), a mask resembling a ghoulish old man even goes as far as making its victim wearer become very old and weak.
  • Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels: The Vigilantes use this a lot. In fact, Alexis Thorne carries a red bag that contains the necessary tools to create latex disguises. One book explains that Alexis had Hollywood aspirations, and while she couldn't get a job as an actor, she proved to be very good at dressing up actors. Those latex disguises have certainly proven to be very helpful!
  • In The Phoenix Legacy by M. K. Wren, major character Alex Ransom bargains with Amik, head of the "Brotherhood," for some "minor" cooperation — a day's use of a dozen or so small combat starships — between the Brotherhood and the rebels of the Phoenix Society. The Phoenix, Alex explains, has developed Latex Perfection to a degree no one else in the interstellar empire can match, and is offering this in "rent" for the Brotherhood's ships. He's able to talk Amik up to seventeen of them.

"It blends with any complexion, can be built up to a depth of a centimeter without becoming obvious or stiffening or cracking, can be worn up to twelve hours comfortably or longer with less comfort, and is unaffected by perspiration or moisture, but easily removed with a mild solvent."


Live Action Television

  • Rollin (Martin Landau), Paris (Leonard Nimoy), and Casey (Lynda Day George) on Mission Impossible not only made use of this trope, but gradually turned it into a cliche. Early in the series, Martin Landau would often play a guest character, made up to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Then Rollin Hand would be shown applying the makeup to impersonate him. Other times another actor would play both the guest character and "Rollin" in disguise. Nimoy played the guest character much less frequently, and George didn't do it at all, relying entirely on conveniently perfect masks.
    • In the 1980s Revival series the masks were made automatically with a digital camera (with an umbilical the size of a small fire hose), a computer, and a sort of vacuum forming machine.
    • Interestingly, in the first movie Tom Cruise actually did play a guest character (a senator) who as Ethan Hunt he later impersonated. It was pretty good too, despite the rest of the film being a Base Breaker.
  • Used frequently in The X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen.
  • A high quality rubber mask was worn by a bank robber in an episode of Numb3rs and it was totally convincing, though the wearer wasn't impersonating anyone in particular, just concealing his own appearance.
  • Spoofed in Sledge Hammer!: the female KGB spy turned out to be a male KGB spy behind a latex mask, however, the rest of the bodily alterations were apparently permanent (so that he/she could win the Miss Iron Curtain pageant).
  • Similarly spoofed in Police Squad!'s second episode, when a pretty cocktail waitress in a club turned out to be a bearded Frenchman in a mask and wig.
  • The Master in Doctor Who uses the latex mask routine several times in the Third Doctor era—totally convincing while he's wearing it, the mask suddenly becomes an obvious lump of rubber when he takes it off. In one episode, the disguise also seemed to involve being nearly a foot shorter while wearing the mask.
    • Of course, considering that this is the series (and race) that gave us the Does Everything Tool in the Sonic Screwdriver, the Master being able to create masks that do that kind of stuff is a little more believable. In his first appearance he had a deal with the Nestene Consciousness, controller of the living plastic Autons - he could have gotten them then.
    • However, despite this great disguise he'd still in some way refer to himself as The Master, usually by translating it into another language.
    • On some occasions, he'd pull a reverse trick - slap a disguise of himself on someone else while he makes a getaway.
    • In the new series Doctor Who, the Slitheen use actual dead people to form complete body suits in this fashion.
      • One wonders whether this was borrowed from the Warwolves, in Marvel Comics' Excalibur, who did the same thing.
    • In the serial City of Death, the main villain has a head which is a mass of tentacles with a single eye in the center. Despite this, a latex mask enables him to perfectly appear as a human being complete with eyes, tongue, facial expressions, etc. Bonus points for the villain's real head being bigger than his head when masked as a human.
  • Spencer in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive at one point assumes the form of the much younger, much more female Ronny and succeeds. He'd done disguises of this nature before, but this one really embodied the trope. In a similar manner, his Super Sentai counterpart, Makino, does the same with female team member Sakura.
  • In another particularly egregious example, aliens in V used latex masks to disguise themselves as human despite having noticeably larger heads (thereby causing some problems for the makers of the action figures). In the 2009 version, the aliens cover themselves in human skin that grows and ages with their bodies.
    • In the episode "The Secret Underground", the Resistance Duo Mike and Juliet board the main mother ship, undercover as Visitor scientists disguised as humans (while wearing the Visitors' distinctive orange jumpsuits), and at one point, Diana nearly catches Mike and Julie, until our heroes peel off their latex masks to reveal Reptilian heads underneath, thus letting them pass without any trouble. But in the next scene, it's revealed that the Resistance Duo "impersonators" are indeed the real Resistance Duo, wearing latex Reptilian masks and having pulled masks resembling their human selves over their scaly disguises (we don't see them peel off their Visitor heads, although we do clearly see them peeling off the human masks to reveal their alien masks).
    • In V: The Final Battle, a Visitor fifth columnist disguises himself as Mike Donovan to make Diana believe Donovan has been killed. One wonders why the Visitors never exploited this ability to impersonate specific humans.
  • Done twice in a single episode of Alias, and then never seen or heard of again.
  • Used once in The BBC Robin Hood. Which is set in 1192.
  • In an episode of Due South, Ray Vecchio and Benton Fraser are each simultaneously abducted by someone in a mask of the other.
  • A staple of the Canadian action show FX the Series. Averted in the sense that lead character and makeup/effects artist Rollie Tyler often takes several hours to create the masks he wears, which are applied as separate strips with supplemental makeup. The same goes for his arch-nemesis, Victor Loubar. On the other hand, they do fall prey to the "extrapolate the face from a few photos" setup.
  • In Syfy's The Invisible Man, the character of Arnaud De Thiel (aka De Fohn) manages to disguise himself as a perfect copy of the office gopher, Eberts, for an entire episode. He is found out when the characters find his 'mask' in Eberts's apartment and further identified when he won't shut up.
    • As a fun bit of trivia, Arnaud De Thiel is also the name of the first case of identity theft legally recorded in France.
      • Better known for the name of the man he stole the identity of, Martin Guerre.
  • An episode of The Dukes of Hazzard used this trope to try and ruin Bo and Luke Duke's reputations. Boss Hogg apparently found a fellow who made such masks to order from people's photographs.
  • Used more improbably than usual in an episode of The Wild Wild West when Artemus Gordon wears one latex mask under another for a double reveal, (when he impersonates the henchman Leto impersonating him.)
  • An episode of Eerie, Indiana had Marshall using a "Disguise Yourself So Even Your Own Mother Can't Recognize You" Disguise Kit to pretend to be an Amish-like IRS agent, complete with peel-off mask and wig. Also a nice example of Chekhov's Gun, as the Kit was introduced early on in the episode.
  • Avoided on The A-Team. Hannibal Smith used disguises like this frequently, but just to hide his own appearance, not look like any other specific person. Usually to screen people he would "send" to the A-Team later. He also apparently had a few regular personae.
  • Dr. Marlena Evans from Days of Our Lives was shocked when she witnessed her then husband Roman Brady committing a murder, thus revealing him to be the Salem slasher. However several episodes later, "Roman" pulled off his face mask to reveal that it was actually Tony Di Mera underneath, seemingly having undergone a Face Heel Turn, or was it?. The murderer turned out in the end to be Andre, Tony's identical cousin.
  • An episode of Get Smart parodies The Fugitive when Max is framed by a rubber mask-wearing impostor. At show's end the real criminal is caught, and in a TV-drama-style night scene Max walks off, putting on the captured rubber mask...and walking straight into a lamppost in the process.
  • Spoofed in Scrubs, the episode "My Balancing Act". In one of JD's daydreams, Dr. Kelso pulls off his face to reveal Carrot Top underneath.
    • In another JD's mental opera singer (don't ask) interrupts him just as he's about to kiss what is clearly an attractive woman. The singer pulls off her wig (and only a wig), revealing an ugly guy in drag, complete with facial hair.
    • In yet another example, JD is wondering how he could use the Janitor's fear of Carla to his advantage. The fantasy cut is to a straightforward scene of Carla telling the Janitor to leave JD alone, but then she doesn't know how to speak Spanish, which tips the Janitor off to the fact that it is JD in an implausibly good disguise. When he takes off the mask, JD is revealed, still in a nurse's uniform, but suddenly with his own figure.
  • Childrens Hospital: Malin Akerman is Jon Hamm.
  • Used a few times in Lois and Clark. They even Justified Trope one case by showing how it takes a long time for the Master of Disguise to achieve it with makeup.
  • The Mission Impossible version was examined by the MythBusters: Adam and Jamie got silicone rubber masks of themselves from a professional mask-maker (to be precise, it was SPFX Masks) and were instructed by an acting coach in an attempt to see if they could fool people. There were little problems here and there,[2] but the disguises managed to fool fans, Kari, and Grant until they got close enough to notice the Uncanny Valley, so the myth was declared plausible.
  • She Spies episode "Learning to Fly" included this gem, with the rarely-seen complication: "Mine's stuck!"
  • The Cheers episode "The Improbable Dream" includes this reason why Sam might not want to date Kirstie Alley's character.
  • Catherine Martel from Twin Peaks does this after the fire burns down the mills. Disguised as a Japanese business man. In fact the actor Piper Laurie had to come on set disguised in order to keep the plot twist a secret and she managed to fool a couple of the other actors; including her on-screen husband.


Music

  • Makes a brief appearance in the video for Britney Spears' song "Toxic" when a stewardess rips the "face" off a fat, balding businessman to reveal a Brad Pitt lookalike underneath.
  • Makes a brief appearance in video clip of U2's Hold me, Thrill Me, Kiss me, Kill me - just watch.
  • The very end of Switchfoot's "New Way To Be Human" music video features Chad Butler yanking his face off to reveal that he's actually Tim Foreman, at which point the other Tim rips off his face to reveal that he's actually Jon Foreman, at which point the other Jon pulls off his face to reveal that he's actually Jerome Fontamillas.
    • That isn't Jerome. He didn't join the band until at least a year later. It could possibly be the legendary "Chin", namesake of their first album.
  • During L.E.G.O.'s video for "Te Robaré El Amor" ("You Steal The Love" ?) a female shopper unmasks to reveal a much larger male robber.


Tabletop Games

  • In the tabletop RPG Cybergeneration, there is an entire subculture - the Facedancers - devoted to the high-tech version of this.
  • Active Flesh Masks from GURPS: Ultra-Tech even have tiny motors to make then move properly.


Videogames

  • In Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater, Naked Snake is given a mask that remarkably resembles a major in the enemy army. If you call a specific character over the radio while wearing it, he explains how it is the cutting edge of masquerade, with the ability to allow the wearer to blink with the mask blinking with it. Naked Snake promptly replies with a query of why they didn't work on the ability to have its mouth move with the wearer, to which the person on the other line shrugs it off, calling the man who invented the mask "just weird". (Though in the creator's defense, while someone may not be suspicious of a guy who doesn't talk to you, they will definitely be suspicious when the guy doesn't appear to blink for a while.)
    • It fulfills its intended purpose of getting Snake through the Colonel-only security checkpoint, but the trope is subverted when Volgin becomes suspicious of the disguised Snake because crotches are hard to disguise, latex perfection or not.
    • In Metal Gear Solid, although the player doesn't find this out until well after the fact, one of the NPCs you interact with turns out to be master of disguise Decoy Octopus in a very convincing mask. Octopus, in fact, Invoked this trope: he had sliced off his own ears and shaved down his cheekbones in order to remove distinguishing features under masks.
      • Speaking of Octopus, there's the face camo that Snake nabs off of Laughing Octopus in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which is somewhat of a Justified Trope example, if only because it's explicitly tech and not just a fancy disguise. Still, it does have the problem that it has nowhere to breathe out of.
  • Professor Layton and the Curious Village has Don Paolo disguising himself as Detective Chelmey with a mask featuring a full body suit. It gets more ridiculous in the second game where he disguises himself as Flora who is about half his size.
    • Unwound Future has him impersonating Dr. Schrader, the Dean of Layton's university and Layton himself during their temporary truce. Paolo pulls each one off so well that even Layton requires some serious contemplation on each person's mannerisms to begin catching on.
  • IIRC, this was how LeChuck disguised himself as the sheriff in the first Monkey Island game.
  • Can be seen in the trailer for Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time, when after a typical thieving by a silhouetted Sly Cooper, we fade into the Cooper Gang hideout, where Sly enters with his loot, only for him to peel off his latex Sly Cooper mask and reveal Dimitri underneath (it should be noted that his silhouetted tail actually changes from raccoon to lizard and that he was also smoking, with his cigar completely hidden by the mask!) Not sure if something like this will be in the real game though.
  • In Team Fortress 2, this is how the Spy's disguise ability looks to the enemy team (to the Spy's own team, it's just a paper mask over his face).


Webcomics


Western Animation

  • Extremely common in Scooby Doo; the vast majority of bad guys were made up this way, to the point where a more efficient way to solve the mystery would be by tugging on the face of everyone they met and seeing whose came off. The more recent Scooby-Doo TV series do not feature latex mask disguises as often, such as What's New, Scooby-Doo? (where holograms, animatronics, and makeup are often used for the portrayal of the "monsters") and Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! (a bizarre series where the only latex mask featured in the show was in the final episode when Shaggy finds his rich Uncle Albert posing as the show's main villain's assistant). Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated brings it back though, even with good guys sometimes almost always masked (such as the Wild Brood).
    • On a few occasions, sometimes someone (usually a villain) would wear a mask of Scooby-Doo himself to either confuse him or give him a bad name. This could be seen in A Scooby-Doo Valentine (with former NSync member J.C. Chasez as an "evil" Scooby-Doo and four extras as demonic versions of the Mystery Inc. humans), even DavidBeckham did so in an Adidas ad with the gang, and vice-versa. Perhaps the most famous example of this was in the classic episode "Never Ape an Ape Man" when the Ape Man slipped on a Scooby-Doo mask to make the real Scooby think he has come up to a mirror, and then later apparently Shaggy finds the rubber Scooby mask and wears it briefly at the end.
    • On the same topic, many Hanna-Barbera cartoon series often involved at least one episode where the main character was impersonated, typically by a villain wearing a mask and costume of the character. This has happened with Yogi Bear, Ricochet Rabbit, Squiddly Diddly, Hong Kong Phooey, Richie Rich, Don Coyote, and a few others.
  • Even Disney got into the act in some of their animated movies and shorts. The Big Bad Wolf in the numerous Three Little Pigs shorts sometimes employed through this sort of disguise to catch the pigs, the most famous one being him posing as a Jewish peddler (complete with a mask featuring a big nose and a beard), though usually he would settle for something cheesy. Another example was in the 1986 animated film The Great Mouse Detective, in which Basil of Baker Street disguises himself as a white Chinese mouse, complete with rubber mask and an inflatable bodysuit. And yet another example was in the 1992 film Aladdin, where Jafar disguises himself as an ugly old man to lure Aladdin into the Cave of Wonders (his mask even gives him hideous teeth, one with a gold filling!), and in the 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid, when Ursula disguises herself using Ariel's voice as the sexy Vanessa to marry Prince Eric, in which her skin rips off during the "wedding" to reveal her true self (though this last is justified because a sea witch did it.
  • Quite a few Looney Tunes cartoons from Warner Bros. Animation also often employed the mask device as well, typically when a surprise ending/gag is needed, or when wearing a cheesy disguise would not work. Such examples include What Makes Daffy Duck (1947) when Daffy Duck masquerades as a ranger dog, Odor-Able Kitty (1945) when a cat hiding from Pepe Le Pew disguises in a completely convincing Bugs Bunny costume, Scent-Imental Over You (1947) when Pepe Le Pew peels off his skin to reveal a dog underneath, then removes his dog mask revealing Pepe's true skunk features once again, The Sheepish Wolf (1942) which features a twist on the old wolf-in-sheep's-clothing gag ala "The Far Side", Of Fox and Hounds (1940) in which George Fox masquerades as another dog to fool his adversaries, Don't Give Up the Sheep (1952) where Ralph Wolf wears a convincing latex mask and suit to imitate another sheepdog (which his adversary Sam Sheepdog sees through), Paying the Piper (1949) where a cat disguises himself in a convincing rat suit to fool Pied Piper Porky, A Sheep in the Deep (1962) where Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog engage in a "disguise duel," Muzzle Tough (1954) where Sylvester disguises himself full-body as a really attractive female dog to lure away Hector (but instead it fools the dog catcher), Fowl Weather (1953) when Sylvester wears a very convincing goat mask when hiding behind a fence (which Tweety instantly detects as the "puddy tat"), Ready, Set, Zoom (1955) where Wile E. Coyote masquerades as a female Road Runner to attract his prey (but instead attracts a bunch of other hungry coyotes chasing HIM), and Knight-Mare Hare (1955) when the wizard Merlin attempts to use a magic spell to transform Bugs into a pig, but instead it just magically conceals Bugs in a realistic pig suit, to which Merlin transforms himself into a jackass, but keeps unzipping each suit to reveal another mule underneath.
    • Similarly, the 2003 movie Looney Tunes Back in Action had an animated Granny unzip her body suit during the jungle scene (via a CGI effect) to reveal the evil live-action ACME Chairman (played by Steve Martin). Similarly, Tweety unzips in his cage as well, revealing the Tasmanian Devil (who breaks out of the cage doing his spinning/babbling routine), and Sylvester unzips as well, to reveal the Chairman's assistant Mr. Smith, who then unzips his own body suit to reveal an animated female Tasmanian Devil!
    • The 1948 Warner movie Two Guys From Texas featured an animated dream sequence (directed by Warner Bros. Animation's Friz Freleng) in which an animated Danny Foster (Jack Carson) is entertaining a flock of sheep by playing a piccolo, but then his rival Steve Carroll (Dennis Morgan) shows up and slips into a realistic 'toon wolf costume and mask (complete with giving him 'toony eyes and becoming completely unrecognizable), which also includes a bowtie, tuxedo jacket and straw boater hat, gets out a music sheet setup and wolf-whistles to attract the other sheep, then peels off his wolf mask once he has their attention, thus causing all the sheep to gallop over to him in excitement. Bugs Bunny then helps Dan with a plan to get the sheep back; as Steve is singing to the swooning sheep, Dan puts on a similar 'toon wolf suit and mask (but without the straw boater) and tries badly singing the same song as Steve is, except here he forgot to take off his mask, so the sheep toss their sneakers at the "wolf" and then a large fat Indian lady comes up and chases Danny away (a running gag in the film itself).
    • A rare World War II cartoon titled I Got Plenty of Mutton has a wolf trying to snatch some sheep from a big ram named Hercules. He decides to disguise himself as a sexy ewe and tries to lure the horny ram to his doom. The latter part doesn't go so wel, but the attracting bit works all too well.
  • The 1990-1992 WB TV series Tiny Toon Adventures was full of masks and disguises, including in the opening sequence (Buster and Babs pose as each other), "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow" (Furball, Fifi Le Fume, and Tyrone Turtle all disguised as Buster Bunny), "Buster and the Wolverine" (Babs attempts to pose as a female wolverine to woo the male one terrorizing our heroes, by only wearing a mask that comes right off during a kissing scene), "Pluck' of the Irish" (in which a beautiful lass reveals herself to be three leprechauns in disguise), "Kon Ducki" (which explains how latex masks are made in a cartoony manner, as Plucky Duck has a mask of his head upside-down grafted onto his head), "Real Kids Don't Like Broccoli" (where a bunch of missing androids disguise themselves as many of the main characters, but Buster sees through their disguises because they're eating broccoli, which real kids don't eat), "Stuff That Goes Bump in the Night" where Buster Bunny wears a Fantasia-esque demon suit in the opening act, and then Babs scares Buster with a devil suit, later in the episode a vampire scares Babs, but the vampire turns out to be Buster in a mask and on stilts, and at the end Buster and Babs both disguise themselves as a two-headed monster, "The Horror of Slumber Party Mountain" (with a surprise ending featuring Elmyra posing as a monster), "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas" (where Bugs Bunny wears a convincing disguise as Harvey, a white rabbit in a purple bowtie and with a different voice actor as well!), and "Night Ghoulery" (where Babs is disguised as Satan, a gremlin is disguised as a female stewardess - which looks strikingly like Lt. Uhura from Star Trek -, and the ending reveals Buster and Babs to be monsters in disguise).
    • Its sister show Animaniacs also had quite a few mask scenes as well, but not as much as Tiny Toon Adventures did. Some notable examples include in "Chalkboard Bungle" when the Warners impersonated their teacher Miss Flameel near the end (with Dot on top wearing the mask and easily imitating Miss Flameel's voice, thanks to Dot and Miss Flameel both being voiced by the same actress), and "The Three Muska-Warners" with a Honeymooners-esque ending where the Warners announce the people playing the king, the wizard and the window wiper, whom all unmask to reveal actors and actresses from the Honeymooners (the King is played by Sheila MacRea, the Wiper is played by Art Carney, etc.)
  • Biker Mice From Mars has Lawrence Limburger (the villain)a plutarkian who wears a latex human face mask, a couple of other plutarkians disguise themselves this way. Limburger is rarely seen with his mask off but in some episodes he is such as in the first episode where in one scene Throttle (it's Modo in the comics) unmasks him- which is also done near the end of the intro by Vinnie.
    • Does not cover the stench, or lack of fingers. But somehow changes his teeth to Hollywood smile.
    • In the Once Upon a Time on Mars three-parter, Lawrence gets the mask glued onto his face, which makes it difficult for him to peel it off when his boss orders him to.
    • Limburger's rival Napoleon Bonapart also had the same mask.
  • Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century had "elasto-masks" Justified Trope by the use of future technology.
    • Sherlock Holmes arguably deserves his own sub-section of this trope, in that one of his shticks was that he could follow a client or a suspect anywhere in Victorian London due to his "mastery of disguise".
  • The Misfits' pal, Clash is quite guilty of this trope. Her best known disguise is her attempt to fake Jem from "One Jem Too Many".
  • Parodied in Sam and Max Freelance Police. When the trusted doctor reveals himself to be the big bad (and a woman) by removing a mask, the reaction is simply "Oh, that old parlor trick. We can top that!" Sam, Max, and the Geek then each remove several layers of masks, but eventually stop when the villain orders them too (and we don't see them reveal back to their normal faces on-screen).
  • Totally Spies!
  • Arthur sometimes does this, mostly during fantasy/dream sequences Buster comes up with (often involving aliens or super villains), though one exception was the ending to "The Boy Who Cried Comet", when all of the cast members peel off their masks to reveal they are actually aliens.
    • The Brain lampshades this in one episode, when he and Binky are watching an episode of The Bionic Bunny Show, and the Brain is unimpressed at how predictable it is, and he knows when the villain, Dr. Fowl (a chicken) will reveal his master plan, which will be robbing banks dressed as Bionic Bunny (and he slips on a rubber mask of him while explaining this.) The Brain's reaction: "The age-old mask device? We've seen it a million times!"
  • An episode of SpongeBob SquarePants has Mr. Krabs in a Plankton suit, and vice versa. Then the trope is parodied, even going as far as having Patrick impersonate Sandy Cheeks!
    • In the episode "Doing Time", Mrs. Puff is seeing Spongebob and Patrick everywhere, even seeing two guards remove their masks to reveal the twosome! She even accuses the two guards and rips off their faces, to reveal their skulls underneath. But of course, it turns out to be all just a dream.
    • In "One Coarse Meal" Mr. Krabs disguises himself as Pearl to scare Plankton. The flaws in the disguise don't appear until he takes it off.
  • An episode of The Simpsons ("The Monkey Suit") parodied this. After Bart tries to have Milhouse stand in for Lisa (by wearing Lisa's clothes and a wig of her distinct hairdo), Bart tells Milhouse he can take off the wig, to which Milhouse responds in Nelson's voice "I'm Nelson," then peels off his mask to reveal Nelson underneath, which is then followed by a puzzle-piece transition to the next scene with spy-like music playing (ala The Saint). This also occurs at the end of the episode, when Nelson impersonates Todd Flanders.
    • Played straight in "The Great Money Caper," "Lisa Gets an 'A'", "How I Wet Your Mother" and "The Frying Game," among a few others.
    • Another example was when the evil Mr. Burns hired three actors to portray Homer, Marge, and Lisa to fool Bart into thinking via a hidden camera that the family does not love him anymore. They briefly peel off their latex masks when Mr. Burns complains about their second-rate performance. The actor in the Homer mask looks strikingly similar to Michael Caine, Marge is really a hot black-haired Asian type of woman, and Lisa is actually a crossdressing Estonian midget.
  • Family Guy in its famous gag, when a talk show hosted by Diane Simmons reveals a dating couple, where the male was really a woman in a mask, but then confesses that she is not even a woman, and unzips her full body suit to reveal a horse, and then confesses that he is a broom, removes the horse disguise to reveal a broom that lifelessly falls over.
    • Another episode had Fred Savage doing so, impersonating Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore and other celebrities through the use of full rubber bodysuits, in an attempt to show his career as the world's greatest actor.
  • Zartan from G.I. Joe. In fairness, he was also a trained contortionist and master of voice mimcry, but even so.
    • In the movie, he achieves it through surgery.
    • The female villain The Baroness frequently did this as part of her schemes to capture the G.I. Joes. A random woman would often peel off her mask and wig to reveal the Baroness. In one instance, she actually dressed up as Lady Jaye, and vice-versa
  • In an episode of King of the Hill, this trope is referenced when Dale hatches a ridiculous scheme to sue a tobacco company for five thousand dollars. They counter sue him for a larger amount, and Dale decides to step up his game a bit. Hank tells him what a dumbass he's being, and tells him that if he drops the lawsuit they might go easy on him. Dale is instantly suspicious and suspects Hank of being the company's CEO in diguise due to his 'insight'. He then demands Hank remove his "false face" by grabbing behind his jaw and pulling with a flourish. He even demonstrates the technique with an imaginary mask. Hank refuses and Dale grabs at his hand, prompting Hank to slap him away. Dale tells him he just earned himself an assault charge. Later in the episode, when they actually go to court and he meets the CEO, Dale's response is "Wait... if you're here... THEN WHO'S THAT?!", with him pointing at an annoyed Hank.
  • Freakazoid! have full body suit of himself in one episode, where Lobe is trying to remove his brain to find out: What makes him tick?
  • An episode of Jimmy Two Shoes had The Rodeo Clowns wear several disguises like this.
  • In the Kim Possible episode "Attack of the Killer Bebes", Ron demonstrated a surprising skill with latex by perfectly impersonating Kim's father, who was being targeted by Drakken.
    • Not quite perfectly, as he doesn't ever speak until just before he pulls off his mask, and when he does so, the lips on the mask don't move.
    • In this same episode, Ron made that mask, along with some others, thanks to his new Movie Makeup Magic Kit. He even made a mask of Kim Possible (which he briefly wears at one point when mocking her), and he also created the mask for his Mad Dog mascot costume prominently featured in the episode this way, complete with the ability to foam at the mouth (which is actually a banana cream),
  • Subverted in an episode of Stroker and Hoop, Coroner Rick rescues the titular detectives by disguising himself flawlessly as a Hispanic gangster named Chico, whom they'd met earlier. However, upon Hoop asking where the Coroner could have possibly acquired a perfect mask of a total stranger, he replies that he had actually cut off the man's actual face and wore it like a mask. The fact that Chico was already dead by someone else's hands at that point did little to leaven the horror.
  • During the 1989 season of the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 series, the Turtles had disguises made by April's TV studio consisting of latex masks that resemble generic male bald humans. Usually they would simply wear these masks with only trenchcoats and nothing else (not even caring if their true turtle hands are exposed. On another occasion, Raphael wanted to be a Master of Disguise and made himself up with latex to look like the gangster Mad Dog. Of course in true wacky cartoon tradition, a mix-up occurs and the real Mad Dog winds up with the turtles, and Raphael winds up with the gang Mad Dog works with.
  • Spoofed at the end of an episode of The Ren and Stimpy Show entitled "Aloha Hoek"; the Gainax Ending features Stimpy mourning the loss of the seemingly-deceased Ren, only to be interrupted by his buzzing wristwatch. In tThe next shot of them they suddenly look all bulgy with empty eyeholes and exposed zippers and mask-lines, and they both tug their Ren and Stimpy masks off to reveal they are actually two human vaguely "Russian" spies (whom resemble Soviet versions of Fred and Barney for some reason) and riding off in a Russian submarine.
  • An episode of Two Stupid Dogs had an interesting variation: in the episode "Cartoon Canines;" the Non Sequitur Scene ending involved the drill sergeant guy that had been tormenting the two dogs throughout the episode is about to snap, but instead, his body suit splits in two and collapses, to reveal a monkey in a dress and a talking atom that claims, "Free! We're free!" and they float off and vanish. The two dogs just stare in awe, not saying a word for a few seconds, then shrug it off and the episode just ends.
  • In an episode of the 1993 Pink Panther series (where the Panther talks) entitled "Werewolf in Panther's Clothing" had a small male gypsy disguise himself full-body as a werewolf (complete with stilts to make him appear larger), and the disguise appeared perfectly flawless, but suspicions were aroused when a part of the "wolf"'s skin was torn off on his chest during a fight with the Panther.
  • Also a common practical joke on April Fools' Day in animation, as demonstrated on Cat Dog, Rocko's Modern Life and Disney's House of Mouse.


Real Life

  • Some jewellery store robbers did this. Not to look like anyone in particular, but just to disguise their appearances without people realising they were disguised before they pulled out their weapons. It worked so well that even afterwards witnesses, and cops looking at the security footage, didn't realise they were disguised. But the make-up artist wasn't in on it – he'd thought the makeup was for a party. So when he saw the footage on the news, he immediately went to the cops for protection, as he was the only one who'd seen the robbers' real faces.
  • This Mask. Rather creepy... especially regarding what uses criminals could put it to.
    • They have. A 30-year-old Polish man wore the mask and gloves of a young black man and was convincing enough that someone got arrested in his place.
    • However, masks like those can be used in harmless practical jokes, even to simply driving around in one.
  • In this story, a twenty-something man was able to pass as an elderly one. Suspicion was raised when the man had young-looking hands, but was only discovered after he went into a bathroom on the plane and returned without his disguise.
    • The sequel to this story will involve someone with the budget to purchase not only the mask, but the associated "sleeves" to go with it.
  • In most cases, these were done using silicone masks manufactured by SPFX Masks, a company that specializes in realistic and horror masks. When those crimes have occurred using the masks, they went to the company's founder, Rusty Slusser, who was shocked and appalled for criminals using masks for evil purposes. Another company called Greyland Films also makes rather decent realistic masks, but out of foam latex (like many movie prosthetics/masks are), and while some can be pretty realistic, they are not as impressive (or expensive) as the SPFX masks are.
    • There is also Composite Effects, which also makes hyper-realistic silicone masks, including a few realistic ones (such as their "Mac" series), but mostly specializes in REALLY INCREDIBLE horror/fantasy-related masks (most famously their imp mask ). So far no robberies were committed using these masks thankfully, but they have proved popular in haunted houses/attractions and for harmless pranks or amusing YouTube videos.
  • Be advised that Rule 34 is definitely in effect. For the time being, the subculture in question simply refers to its membership as "Female Maskers", although sometimes rubber fetishists and furries are included.
  • ThatsMyFace.com offers stiff resin "3D portraits and wearable masks" made from customer-supplied photos. Given that Shapeways already offers online fabrication of anything customers can submit in the appropriate programming language (weapons and other obviously dangerous things excepted, of course), it seems like only a matter of time before some demented genius starts marketing an online mask-making service.
  • Aside from professional sources like the above-mentioned SPFX Masks, there are also dozens of hobbyists around the world who make and sell masks of varying levels of realism. In addition, a growing number of companies offer full-torso and lower-body suits. Full one-piece bodysuits are available, but would-be impersonators must still pay steep fees and wait several weeks for completion.
  • There was also this time [dead link] when professional jumper Jeb Corliss attempted to parachute off the Empire State Building in New York. He sneaked in wearing an elaborate disguise including a fat suit and a full-head latex mask that transformed him into a mustached, balding middle-aged man. Among entering the observation deck, he stripped the fat suit to reveal his jumper outfit and parachute but kept the rubber head on when he was eventually caught by the police as he tried going over the guard rails. People on the deck at the time didn't realize that the middle-aged "daredevil" was actually the former host of Stunt Junkies in disguise.
  1. ↑ In his 21st century appearances, Nemesis often instead uses even higher tech Hologram technology for his disguises.
  2. ↑ The most obvious being their voices, but besides that the Adam mask was made on a dummy head that was wider than the real Adam's head, which made it look slightly off
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