Bart Simpson, meet Simon Woosterfield!
Piper: Wow...you look just like—!
Princess Peregrine: I know... this is seriously freaking me out. You don't think that we're—
Piper: Nah, I'd think I'd know if I had a twin sister. They say everyone has a double somewhere. I guess it's true!
Princess Peregrine: I know... this is seriously freaking me out. You don't think that we're—
Piper: Nah, I'd think I'd know if I had a twin sister. They say everyone has a double somewhere. I guess it's true!
— Storm Hawks, "Royal Twist"
They say that everybody has got a double somewhere. After all, the Earth has a human population that is more than a immense amount of people; it would actually be stranger if no two people were at least vaguely similar in their appearance. On the other hand, it's not as common in Real Life as it seems to be in media... or, at the very least, not as common for such individuals to actually meet.
On television this is often utilized for comedy, by making them very different people personality-wise.
As far as tropes go, this is one of the more ludicrously implausible ones. Take the probability of an Identical Grandson, ramp it up, and we're sort of in the right ballpark. This trope has stuck around mainly because it's a fun Plot Device. Meeting your own grandfather without obvious age differences requires you to be in a Time Travel scenario, whereas a stranger can be, well, anyone more or less. Still, expect groans from the audience if this trope forces both identical strangers onto the screen at the same time a little too often. It gets past our Willing Suspension of Disbelief largely because it seems less improbable in the abstract than when we're directly confronted with it.
In works with Only Six Faces, Identical Strangers often turn up as well (occasionally to lampshade the Only Six Faces trope, but frequently just as a byproduct of it.)
When combined with Swapped Roles it results in Emergency Impersonation. Add both Swapped Roles and Fish Out of Water and you have Prince and Pauper. If one gets put out of action, the other might be called upon to pull an El Cid Ploy. If the doppelgänger is attacked by someone who is going after the original, then it becomes Mistaken Identity Doppelgänger Assault.
If this happens in a Live Action scenario, the doppelganger is almost always played by the same actor or actress in an alternate role. (And oftentimes, in an animated scenario, by the same VA.)
May overlap with Denial of Resemblance.
Compare: Criminal Doppelgänger (when an Identical Stranger is also an evil duplicate of a character), Significant Double Casting, Similar Squad, Twin Switch (regular series with identical twins), Celebrity Resemblance, and Inexplicably Identical Individuals.
Contrast: You Look Familiar where an actor will play two different characters in the same continuity, but no one notices (as if the resemblance doesn't exist In-Universe), and the audience is expected to either forget the previous character or just ignore it.
In-Universe Examples Only.
Examples Subpages:
Other Examples:
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Advertising
- Discover Card has a series of commercials utilizing this trope to show that the company's representatives treat the customers the way they'd want to be treated themselves. The commercials have a customer call the company and talk to a representative played by the same actor.
- One commercial subverts this. The representative realizes that the caller is her twin sister when she says something she always says.
Asian Animation
- The Motu Patlu (2012) episode "Duplicate Patlu" is about Motu and Patlu accompanying Dr. Jhatka to a hill station. A man named Taklu who looks exactly like Patlu lives there. Cue obligatory confusion over which one is which.
Audio Plays
- In the BBC Audio Fourth Doctor Adventures, the Fourth Doctor discovers that, apart from having a different hairstyle and no beard, he's identical to Rasputin.
- Big Finish Doctor Who;
- The Church And The Crown, Peri is a dead ringer for Queen Anne of France, and is accidentally kidnapped in place of the Queen, driving much of the plot.
- "My Dinner With Andrew" features River meeting Andrew Edmondson, a random man who just happens to be the exact physical double of the Fifth Doctor. She initially uses Andrew as a scheme to trick Madame Kovarian into thinking she's killed the Fifth Doctor, but although she's reminded that the Doctor wouldn't accept an innocent man dying in his place, Andrew eventually accepts the need to die to save the Doctor on his own merits.
Comic Strips
- Garfield has had this happen several times in the many different media he's been in, and Jon has had it happen at least once, he even quotes the "everybody has a double somewhere" line when it happens.
- Retail: Marla has a doppelganger in Zoe, the coffee shop clerk, the only difference is she's blonde instead of brunette. At least a few strips are dedicated to everyone commenting on the weirdness of it (especially when Cooper briefly dates Zoe). Funnily enough, Marla doesn't see any resemblance.
Marla: She's the same height as me and has a similar hairstyle. That hardly makes us clones.
Val: Hey, what are you guys doing out here...oh my gosh, that blonde girl in the cafe looks exactly like you, Marla!
Cooper: See?
Marla: Val wears glasses for a reason! - In one story from Wally Wood's Sally Forth, the squad escapes captivity from savage tribesmen by having the Dumb Muscle team member pass as one of the guards — just by taking his shirt off.
Fan Works
- Anybody
opens with Marinette discovering that new transfer student Adrienne Agreste is a perfectly identical match to her (including clothes) save for her blonde hair. She later runs into two more doppelgangers in the form of Kagami and Felicia. Halfway through the story, Amélie reveals that her sister Emilie had been enamored with 7-years-old Marinette when she visited Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie et Patisserie. As a result, she created her daughter Adrienne with the Peacock Miraculous to be a near exact copy of Marinette as she and Gabriel couldn't settle on a look, while other rich colleagues choose to create their own Sentibeing child in the same image. At the end of the story, it's revealed that Zoé Lee is also a near perfect copy of Marinette.
- Avengers: Infinite Wars;
- When meeting the Jedi Council for the first time, the Avengers all briefly assume that Mace Windu is Nick Fury. This Running Gag is starting to irk Mace Windu. They meet one another, much to Jedi, Avengers and Clones' shock in chapter 106
- Steve privately reflected that he found Padme Amidala familiar in their first meeting, although Hope van Dyne is the first one to 'recognize' Padme as Jane Foster's double. Jane and Padmé FINALLY met in chapter 104, much to their shock.
- When watching The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the Jedi are surprised when Saruman appears on the big screen, since he is played by Christopher Lee, who also plays Count Dooku in Star Wars. Curiously, while in other cases both doppelgängers are alive, in this case Lee has already passed by the time this story happens.
- Calvin & Hobbes: The Series:
- Socrates is identical to Hobbes save for red stripes on his tail.
- Andy discovers a pharaoh that looks just like him in "Pharaoh Andrew".
- Though they don't meet until the sequel, in Child of the Storm, it is repeatedly noted that Harry and Clark Kent look exactly alike — though the resemblance diminishes to siblings/close cousins as Harry starts resembling his mother a little more. This one is actually justified, however — when Thor was incarnated as James Potter, Odin went out of his way to give the House of El a nod by moulding James!Thor's appearance to mimic the 'El look'.
- Cor Autem Aurora:
- Played for Laughs with Kairi and Iris, when the former heals Riku's concussion while the latter is standing right next to her watching.
Riku: (to Kairi) I'm fine- why are there two of you?
Kairi: Not the most comforting thing you could have said!
Iris: Hi, I'm Iris. - Weaponised with Noctis and Riku. Since Noctis is wanted by the empire and thought to be dead by the masses, the team comes up with a plan in which Riku dyes his hair black, goes to a major city in Noctis' car (with a different license plate) and makes a scene about the Empire trying to arrest people who happen to resemble Prince Noctis. The tabloids go wild after that incident.
- Played for Laughs with Kairi and Iris, when the former heals Riku's concussion while the latter is standing right next to her watching.
- The Dexter/Buffyverse crossover series “Dexter the Vampire Slayer: Devil’s Dance” features this regarding Darla the vampire and the now-deceased Rita Bennett; there is no apparent connection between Darla and Rita beyond them sharing the same face, but Darla’s resemblance to Rita makes her a difficult opponent for Dexter and his step-daughter Aster.
- Doofenshmirtz Hero Incorporated! notes the physical similarity between Doof and Re-Destro, which even Dan Povenmire has made a video about. However, it turns out Re-Destro isn't Doof's alternate in the MHA world... he's Roger's alternate.
- Fates Collide: Robin Hood looks like Roman Torchwick. Neo does a double take when she sees him, while Emerald Sustrai wonders why she is attracted to him, since she hates Roman.
- Fate/Harem Antics:
- Servant Ruler is Saint Martha. Shirou comments that Martha looks like an older version of Sakura.
- Saber and Jeanne Alter have similar faces. Since Jeanne Alter hates her original self, she attacks Saber due to the resemblance.
- In Power Girl story A Force of Four, Kryptonian villain Mala is nearly identical to Superman and impersonated him once in the past. Lois notes he looks right like her late husband.
- Glitched Miko AU
- The professor who created Miko looks almost exactly like Miko's mother. It's implied that they are actually sisters.
- Miko's would-be assassin M-2 could be her identical twin. Which makes sense as M-2 is a product of the same program that created Miko (i.e M-1)
- The Herald and Her Knight: Ariel Seo looks like a male version of Ariane Yeong with blond hair and blue eyes. The two find their striking resemblance to one another uncanny and are at a loss to explain it.
- “Hijink” opens with the discovery that Agent 99 (Get Smart) and Andrea “Andy” Sachs (The Devil Wears Prada) are each other’s exact double, which results in Andy being abducted by the rogue Agent 23 along with Max. This is subsequently explained as CONTROL’s plastic surgeon saw Andy in a café once and became so obsessed with her look he deliberately gave 99 a matching face during her subsequent plastic surgery
- Ukuthe Lorain, one of the Big Bad couple's victims in Hivefled, was chosen because apart from her horns she bore a striking resemblance to the Grand Highblood's dead matesprit; then again, the Grand Highblood is certifiably insane with a heavy dash of Yandere, so she may not have looked all that similar.
- This is a plot point in Infinity Train: Boiling Point: Hazel Hughes from the Apex is like a mirror image of the canonical Hazel, who has decided to take her spot on the Apex to further her own goals.
- Khaos Omega often does this, usually due to multiverse theory. Ends up causing an unexpected discovery in the debut of Ryo Zuccarello and his harem the Desert Angels when Rainbow Angel Marissa Malachite (a Khaos-altered variant of Miltia) jumps to a Khaos-created transformation from a far longer line originating from Dragon Ball Z and ends up undergoing a particularly powerful Chaos Reaction (a transformation-modifying phenomenon that had notably caused true OC Hollie to get a new limiter outfit-wise).
- Often times Khaos will give different variants other names, cases such as Marissa above involving legally changing their names (mostly to blend in when in dimensions like Jet's home one). The titular Amethyst Angel and her youngest homeworld teammate even adopt nicknames to help tell other variants apart (Anise and Natsume going by Amethyst and Zephyr respectively).
- Kimi No Na Iowa: Fusou/Harumi and Ayaka look similar enough, height aside, that none less than the former's own sister and close friend of the family are confused by the resemblance, and they spend part of their first meeting inconclusively discussing the possibility of shared ancestry. The identical looks magnify their contrasts in other areas like personality and shipgirl nature.
- Invoked in “Mistaken”, when Will Tippin (Alias) is arrested because he’s been mistaken for Lieutenant Templeton “Face” Peck (The A-Team) (basically an Actor Allusion as they’re both played by Bradley Cooper).
- In Necessary To win Teru notices the similarity between Komaki and a younger Saki's hairstyle, although Komaki has darker hair and much larger breasts. It's implied that Teru also momentarily mistook Awai for someone else when they first met, although Awai's boasting seemed to convince Teru that she wasn't who she was thinking of.
- During the Cult of Bya no Kuei Arc in One Piece: Parallel Works, Wolfgang is mistaken for Prince Bya no Kuei, the royal prince of the island that Capricorns are visiting. However, this becomes Played for Drama when Heathcliffe witnesses the suicide of Prince Bya no Kuei and the Capricorns mistake it for Wolfgang's suicide. Fortunately, the Capricorns manage to clear everything up by the end of the arc.
- Our Blades Are Sharp: Domeric Bolton's black tourney armor studded with rubies gives him a passing resemblance to the long-dead Rhaegar Targaryen. King Robert Baratheon even mistakes Domeric for Rhaegar and nearly charges the tourney field in a rage before Ned points out the differences.
- Queens of Mewni: the Heroic Bastard Hilda Blade bears a strong resemblance to Vesper the Morning Star, leading them to become good friends and, if rumor is true, Hilda sometimes served as Vesper's Body Double.
- In one of the Queens of Mewni Spinoffs, Future History of Mewni, Aura the Generous would have her own identical stranger in Arua, Daughter of a Whore. This example is actually invoked: Arua is being trained to impersonate the queen so that when she's old enough to become a moth (whore), men can live out their fantasy of banging the queen. Like Hilda and Vesper, Arua would become Aura's closest friend, chief advisor, and possible Body Double (while they definitely switched as children until they were caught, it's unclear if they ever switched after Aura became queen). This would lead to Arua's death, as Aura's future son in law mistook Arua for Aura and poisoned her in an attempt to get his fiance on the throne.
- The Charmed (1998) fic "Revelations of the Ultimate Kind" opens with Darryl Morris and his wife Sheila initially willing to consider this as the explanation for how Darryl's "new" colleague Michael Holloway and Michael's wife Marie look exactly like Andy Trudeau and Prue Halliwell, since as far as Darryl knows the two have been dead for years. However, when Darryl arrives at the Holloways' apartment in time to see Marie throw an attacking demon back with a burst of telekinesis, he concludes that she has to be Prue even if he can't explain how that's possible.
- In Shadow of Another Hero, Link looks identical to a boy that Zelda once knew, except that the current Link has green eyes.
- "Top Secret" is a triple crossover between Quantum Leap, The X-Files and Lois & Clark where a key plot element is the fact that Lois Lane resembles a younger version of Sam Beckett's wife Donna (both were played by Teri Hatcher). Not only does Sam give Lois Lane a tape with detailed information on Quantum Leap during a leap because her resemblance to Donna helped Sam feel that he could trust her, but later on Lois is able to help her partner Clark Kent and new associates FBI Agents Mulder and Scully infiltrate the Project just because of her resemblance to Donna (they ran into a new staff member on the Project who had previously known Donna and mistook Lois for her).
- Turnabout Communication: Chapter 21 reveals that Ren Yamai's older sister Takara, who was murdered seven years ago, bore a striking resemblance to Shouko Komi except for the eye color. Yamai apparently had a serious case of Big Sister Worship which she seems to be projecting on Komi, explaining her obsessive fixation on her.
- Turnabout Storm's Sonata is uncannily similar to Phoenix's mentor, Mia Fey, in both voice and looks; Phoenix even manages to mix her up with Mia after first hearing her. To make things weirder, she's also an unicorn from Canterlot.
- In the RWBY/The Legend of Zelda crossover Unknown Legends, several characters comment that other than the pointy ears, Link looks like Jaune Arc.
- Shen Yuan from The Untold Tale shares a startling likeness to Shen Qingqiu. If Luo Binghe thinks it's a ploy from the Heavens to prevent a filthy demon from marrying a Celestial by giving him this particular face (as Luo Binghe hated Shen Qingqiu to the point he tortured the man to death), it has the potential to land Shen Yuan in hot water as he receives a premonition of being murdered because of a Mistaken Identity.
- Vocaloid Concerto: Playable Vocaloids has at least one lookalike in the story, but Linda from the Tomboy Princess arc is notable as she looks just like Rin. The difference between them is subtle enough that only Len and Meilia can tell them apart when they switched their outfits.
- Where We Don't Belong:
- Everyone comments on the similarity between Nia and Mio; not only is Mio arrested under a case of Mistaken Identity, but Nia talks to her about Flesh Eaters after Brighid declares she's one, and Torna's Blade tracker identifies them as nearly identical. Mio's dream implies that Nia is in fact her mother.
- Downplayed when Sena and Mio see XC2 Vandham, as his appearance due to his Urayan heritage compared to "regular human" XC3 Vandham trips them up until they hear his distinctive voice and hear other people use his name, then the similarities hit them like bricks.
Films — Animation
- Barbie movies:
- In Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, Princess Anneliese and Erika, in addition to being identical in all but hair colour and a birthmark, were also born at the exact same time.
- The same coincidence occurs in later Barbie movies Barbie as the Princess and the Popstar and Barbie: Princess Adventure (said identical strangers are Keira and Princess Victoria in the former and Barbie and Princess Amelia in the latter film).
Manhua
- My Beloved Mother have Sinbell, an orphan Raised by Robots, trying to find his "real" mother after rejecting his robotic parent, with only an old photograph as clue. He eventually managed to find a dead ringer to his mother, a prostitute named Asara living in the big city, and tries convincing her that he's her kid much to Asara's chagrin and insistence that she isn't.
Music
- "Once I was the King of Spain" by Moxy Früvous is about a king who switches places with a peasant who is identical.
Professional Wrestling
- "The Clones" Pat Kelly and Mike Kelly were not real clones, obviously, since they first met in the 1960s where human cloning would have made them far more money than wrestling ever could. They were not even related, they just noticed they looked remarkably aliked and decided to become Tag Team Twins.
Tabletop Games
- Toon: I Foogled You has two tiger NPCs. One is old, harmless, and willing to talk. The other is a savage beast. They look near-identical.
Theatre
- In Avenue Q, Nicky searches for a boyfriend for his friend Rod (who secretly has a crush on him), and finds Ricky, who is almost identical to Nicky, right down to having the exact same voice, except that he's gay. Rod is overjoyed.
- Most plays (and films) based off the "Courrier de Lyon" case take this so far as to have the same actor playing Lesurques and Dubosq. In reality, Lesurques and Dubosq did at least look similar enough that the former was mistaken for the latter by most witnesses, leading to his execution.
- In A Flea In Her Ear, faithful husband Victor and drunken porter Poche are absolutely identical.
- Marie-Antoinette (Musical): Marie and Margrid's resemblance is often remarked on by other characters. Justified by The Reveal that they're half-sisters.
- Martin and Arnaud from Martin Guerre must be identical strangers. Granted, seven years have passed between Martin leaving Artigat and Arnaud returning, but they must look A LOT alike for there to be actual doubt as to who is who.
- The Roman author Plautus' Menaechmi, circa 200 BC, has two identically-named people of identical appearance from different cities, thus making it Older Than Feudalism. William Shakespeare's adaptation of this The Comedy of Errors did it out the wazoo, with two sets of identically named identical twins from different cities in the same master/servant relationship. In either case, since no one knows of the other's existence when they first arrive in the same city, Hilarity Ensues.
- It doesn't end there: Rogers and Hart wrote a musical, Boys From Syracuse, based on A Comedy of Errors. Now you can have all the Identical Stranger goodness you want, plus singing!
- Played with in Miss Saigon towards the end of its Broadway run, when an Asian actress (instead of the usual white one) was cast as Ellen, the wife of the title character's lover Chris. Suddenly, instead of moving on with his life, as he insisted that he had, it now appeared that Chris only married Ellen because she reminded him of Kim.
Web Animation
- The season two premiere of Camp Camp gave us Daniel, a near-identical clone of head counselor David, much to Gwen's horror. However, Daniel's cheerful personality is an act; scratch the surface and you'll find an Ax-Crazy cult leader who is more than happy to brainwash and kill kids.
- In Deadly Space Action!, Gregarion the Sea Barbarian is either this or an Identical Grandfather to Lemarion the Space Barbarian, though they never meet.
- Etra chan saw it!:
- In this story, Akane accuses Tsutsuji of being a pornstar, using an alleged image of her to prove it. Turns out the pornstar wasn't actually Tsutsuji; as the real Tsutsuji was a chubby high school student by the time the actual actress did her productions.
- In this story, due to Akamatsu's wife's affair with another man, he is not biologically related to his son, who is also the kid version of himself.
- Azami goes on a business trip to a village in a foreign country, then she gets approached and worshipped by several men because she resembles the goddess who saved the village from destruction. When she's about to leave the village, the men attempt to prevent her from leaving before the village chief Tokusa stops them from harming her.
- In this story, Kuroki is mistaken by Yuzuriha for her ex-boyfriend because they look alike, she is also suspicious of his name because she thinks he faked his name. Fortunately, Yuzuriha completely acknowledges that Kuroki wasn't her boyfriend. However, right after Kuroki left, the actual ex-boyfriend comes into Yuzuriha's lodge, only to be killed by her immediately, because he was treating her like crap when they were still dating.
- Akamatsu gets mistaken by Yuzuriha for her boyfriend, making her think that her boyfriend was a married man with children who is willing to cheat on his wife with her. Fortunately, the real boyfriend named Todomatsu shows up to clear up the misunderstanding. Both Akamatsu and Todomatsu almost look identical to each other; however, the latter has an Idiot Hair and a darker hair color.
- In this story
- Foolmates: In the scrapped episode “The Landlord”, Not Richard, a man who looks exactly like Richard with a brown mustache, asks Morry to give him his rent money. Morry suspects that it’s Richard in a Paper-Thin Disguise trying to scam Morry out of giving him his rent money, but the real Richard walks behind him and it turns out that Not Richard really is the landlord.
- As he originated in an Imagine Spot where Strong Bad imagined himself as not "stylish, buff, and handsome" (well, sort of, considering the heavy Recursive Reality going on in that series), Senor Cardgage of Homestar Runner looks basically like Strong Bad if he were middle-aged, dumpy, and hairy. This is rarely acknowledged and never explained; the two have no connection besides Strong Bad inexplicably thinking Cardgage is cool. It's especially obvious because Strong Bad's actual family looks nothing at all like him — though this really just adds to how surreal Cardgage tends to be.
- Manga Room: Akiho Kyomoto looks exactly like Sakura Hanomoto, who was Ren Matsushita's childhood friend and girlfriend until she suddenly passed away.
- Piece of Cake: The credits show Val and Mara being purchased by a couple who look exactly like them, right down to one of them missing an arm.
Webcomics
- Akuma TH has the "Superhero" Mathman, who looks like the title character in a cape and a not particularly concealing mask. Everybody who sees Mathman assumes that he's actually Akuma, and neither of them is particularly convincing when denying it. However, the third annual World Spriter's Tournament showed that they were, in fact, separate people.
- Awkward Zombie: The author recreates her likeness in every Dragon Age game, so when Rook and the Inquisitor first meet, they're shocked to discover they're nigh-identical. They're also a dead ringer for the Grey Warden.
I am the kind of narcissist who is inclined to remake their likeness in every videogame character creator, because it is fun to see an elf facsimile of myself hold a sword and do backflips. The Dragon Age series has seen fit to punish me for my crimes.
- Brawl in the Family has Kingsonnn Dededoo, who looks exactly like King Dedede with a moustache. He's here to clean your clock.
- El Goonish Shive:
- Diane is physically identical to Susan. The two are distinguishable only by hair colornote and fashion sense (and, since Susan got a magic-powered growth spurt, height). Despite this it appears that they have never met. Considering the amount of lampshade hanging around this one, as well as the fact that we know of at least one way for this to be perfectly possible (not counting identical twins separated at birth), this is probably going to become important later. Indeed, it turns out to be a case of Identical great-great-great-grand-niece, or something like that.
- In the "Death Sentence" arc, Raven casts a disguise spell on Grace so he can pass her off as his niece. The disguise looks just like Susan. He doesn't know it at the time, but Raven actually is Diane's father and Susan's ancestor.
Grace: Are you sure you don't have any children?
Raven: Positive. Why?
Grace: No reason. - After Diane becomes interested in Elliot, she starts watching the online review show he's doing with Susan. She doesn't notice the similarity, and just refers to Susan as "lanky bitch."
Rhoda: Listen to her voice! She sounds just like you!
Diane: Pfft. I don't sound like that. - The artist has admitted that the resemblance originated in his limited artistic ability in the early stages of the comic, and by the time it was pointed out to him, both characters were too well established to change them.
- Downplayed in Linked Universe. All of the Links heavily resemble each other despite differentiation, justified that they are all different incarnations of the Hero of Hyrule. Other characters that see them together often conclude that they are family members.
- Exploited by Time, who uses the resemblances to send his wife Malon on a guessing game to figure out which one of them is their descendant, but refuses to give any details. It's Twilight.
- Nedroid: Over the course of the ongoing Harrison Stories arc Harrison comes across two creatures underground who look exactly like his friends Beartato and Reginald only to find out that they're Buttfranklin Buttwhistle and...His friend Reginald who's a little insulted Harrison didn't recognize him
- During an earlier arc Beartato jumps into outer space and encounters an alien who looks exactly like his friend Reginald with a pair of antenna. It's then subverted when Space Reginald wipes some dirt off his face and crawls out of the crater he's standing in, revealing himself to be quite different from regular Reginald.
- During an earlier arc Beartato jumps into outer space and encounters an alien who looks exactly like his friend Reginald with a pair of antenna. It's then subverted when Space Reginald wipes some dirt off his face
- Nintendo Acres has Link from Zelda and Lionk, Link's part-time door-opening stunt double and full-time employee of all the town's restaurants.
- Off-White: A wolf pelt that looks like Iki except with orange eyes instead of blue.
- The Prince and the Princess: Emilia immediately notices Edmund looks very much like her when they meet, leading to a Twin Switch though they aren't related.
- Questionable Content has recurring cast member Penelope, an employee at Coffee of Doom, and minor character Pizza Girl, a pizza delivery worker who dresses as a superhero. They look almost identical except for Penelope's glasses (And apparently bust size, Penelope angrily states Pizza girl must stuff her costume). Faye insists that they are the same person but Penelope denies it. She also claims that Pizza Girl once delivered to her house, causing them both to scream.
- Satan and Me: Michael Panagakos and the Archangel Michael both look incredibly similar (excepting their eyes) and even share the same name. As characters, however, they're completely different.
- Sluggy Freelance:
- The medieval warlord Lord Torgamous looks exactly like modern day Torg (except for the beard). It's heavily implied to be a case of Reincarnation.
- Subverted another time. (Or perhaps hinting at Identical Grandson.)
"Wait a minute! You just taped a picture of Riff's head to this painting."
"Makes the story more dramatic, don't it?" - Due to the ubiquity of dimensional travel, various minor or side characters can pop up at any time, often in wildly different roles but with the same name and usually general personality. (With the exception of the Dimension Of Lame, where all natives are significantly more friendly, peace-loving and... well, lame.)
- The medieval warlord Lord Torgamous
- In the 'Strip Club of the Damned' storyline in Something*Positive, all the strippers we see are incredibly similar to Davan's exes and female friends. Also, Kharisma.
- In Weak Hero, Kingsley Kwan happens to look eerily similar to Hyeonjin Cha, Gerard's former bandmate. This leads to Gerard accosting Kingsley when he happens to meet him on the street, and segues into a flashback detailing Gerard's backstory and his history with Hyeonjin.
- In this Whomp! strip, Agrias gets a text from Ronnie asking why she left him at the store, which is when she sees that she accidentally brought home a guy who looks like him but with darker skin, curlier hair, and a red maple leaf pattern shirt.
- Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic: Lady Sidonie of Falconheim and Astrid Wormhunter look enough alike that people confuse them, which results in Sidonie getting kidnapped instead of Astrid. Astrid takes advantage of it to escape those kidnappers, who want to drag her back home to an Arranged Marriage she wants nothing with.
Web Original
- Played with in May Xnocens. January and April look similar and someone does manage to confuse the two at one point, but April is a child while January is an adult.
- It is the point of this Not Always Right story, where OP finds out that a similar looking women regularly visits the casino next doors to their work.
Web Videos
- A running gag in Achievement Hunter videos is that despite Trevor Collins and Alfredo Diaz being two completely different people (Alfredo isn't even white), they look so eerily alike that they have been mistaken for each other, and are jokingly dubbed by the fans as either twins or "Team Same Face." Not helping their case is the fact that they are literally the same height and size (although they have since taken to disputing their heights with Alfredo believing they're 6'1 while Trevor claims they're 6'2). In fact, during Off Topic #118, they wore contrasting t-shirts and not only swapped their shirts during the episode's ad reads, they also swapped their seats. The Rooster Teeth TikTok account even posted this clip in reference to them.
- Before this, viewers (or rather, listeners) had some major trouble figuring out whether it was Jack Pattillo or Ryan Haywood speaking in some videos, as their voices sound very similar. Their canon team name even highlighted this, as pairing them together resulted in "Team Same Voice".
- Grant from CollegeHumor and Keith from Buzzfeed are so similar that the former site made a sketch called "Is Grant Keith from Buzzfeed?" Throughout the sketch, they swap which one is wearing which shirt — sometimes both being played by the same person — and even bring in their twin brothers Keith and Grant to make things even more confusing.
Mike: Fuck off! No, no, you have an identical twin named Grant?
Keith: Nah, we're fraternal. - Ryan George, creator and star of the Pitch Meetings series and other comedy skits on YouTube, plays all of the characters in his videos almost all of the time. In most skits the fact all his characters have the same face is not a factor, but sometimes the characters do realize they look alike. One such skit has a potential victim of identity theft realizing he might be in trouble when the aspiring criminal looks just like him.
- "FINE, I'll review my doppelgangers" by Karolina Żebrowska: Fans of the channel often send in pictures of people that they think look like Karolina, and in this video she goes through them. Karolina has a long face, and she thinks that most of the pictures are just women with long faces. However, while they don't look like her, she thinks that she could look like them with a bit of work.
- During the Sethan arc in Vaguely Recalling JoJo, Jotaro doesn't think that the child Polnareff is Polnareff at all and mistakes Benimaru for Polnareff.