Separated at birth, usually phrased as a question, is a light-hearted media device for pointing out people who are unrelated but bear a notable facial resemblance, implying that they are twins who were separated soon after being born and presumably adopted by separate families.
The title "Separated at Birth?" was a trademark of Spy Publishing Partners, the publishers of the now defunct Spy Magazine, a monthly publication that published satire, humor, and investigative journalism from 1986 to 1998. The magazine would pair two carefully selected photos of two unrelated famous persons and the juxtaposition would highlight their physical similarities to humorous effect.
There were several Separated at Birth? books issued around the same time, with whimsical comparisons such as Mick Jagger vs. Don Knotts as the fictional film character The Incredible Mr. Limpet
Famous quotes containing the words separated and/or birth:
“Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is the clay of the potter: which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature from the commonest brick or sun-dried clod.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
“They do not live in the world,
Are not in time and space.
From birth to death hurled
No word do they have, not one
To plant a foot upon,
Were never in any place.”
—Edwin Muir (1887–1959)