History Main / OfCorpseHesAlive

* A variant of the posed-dead-soldiers is used in the SciFiChannel's miniseries adaptation of ''AliceInWonderland''. Unusually, the White Knight who sets them up is a CloudCuckoolander who ''talks'' to his skeletal "allies", and praises their courage when they stand fast in the face of the enemy bombardment.

** This is an adaptation of an old story which can be found, among other places, in ''The Arabian Nights''. There the person in question is a hunchback who choked on a bone.

* In ''FierceCreatures'', the boss is shot through the head by accident and a scheme is quickly set in place to make it look like a suicide in front of some of his colleagues involving the dead man's son impersonating him. This worked particularly well as the father and son were both played by the same actor, Kevin Kline to be exact.

* Happens in ''ASongOfIceAndFire'' to Cleon [[NamesToRunAwayFrom The Butcher King]] of Astapor to raise morale for a battle. It doesn't quite work out. After a battle, a sellsword got nicknamed "Corpsekiller".

* Used in Creator/TimPowers ''The Drawing Of The Dark'', after an assault by the defenders of Vienna against a position of Turks that had got too close to the main city wall. One of the armored knights died from wounds taken in the charge. The commander had originally brought out some explosives to take down the small wall there, but instead jury-rigged them to the knight's corpse so he could trick the Turks into thinking he had left defenders behind and catch them in the explosion. It worked too, naturally.

* Used in TimPowers ''The Drawing Of The Dark'', after an assault by the defenders of Vienna against a position of Turks that had got too close to the main city wall. One of the armored knights died from wounds taken in the charge. The commander had originally brought out some explosives to take down the small wall there, but instead jury-rigged them to the knight's corpse so he could trick the Turks into thinking he had left defenders behind and catch them in the explosion. It worked too, naturally.

* In ADog'sBreakfast, the main character repeatedly tries to kill his sister's fiancee, in progressively more permanent ways, to no avail.

* Used similarly by TheThreeMusketeers during the siege of La Rochelle to escape from a (previously damaged and deserted) minor fort in which they had gathered to eat, drink and plot: they and their valets set the corpses around the fort, so as to be visible to the advancing enemy party; while their enemies were shooting, they slink away at leisurely pace. In the scene, Athos is particularly BadAss.

* [[http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/2-accused-of-grim-real-life-Weekend-at-Bernie-s-2173546.php This article]] goes so far as to name drop WeekendAtBernies in the title. Which makes sense, as it's about two men that loaded their friend's corpse into an [=SUV=] and used his credit card for a night on the town.
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* In the ''{{Clue}}'' movie, the characters attempt to hide about three dead people from a cop using this method.

* ''{{Torchwood}}'' has a corpse used in such a manner in one episode, though only briefly. They use the corpse of an assassin who has died after they captured him to get into the facility he was working for by sitting him in the front of his van, duct taping his hands to the steering wheel, and hiding in the back with some sort of spiffy alien universal remote control.

* In one story from ''ArabianNights'' the jester of a ruler dies from a fishbone in his throat; no less than three people try to shift the blame by getting rid of his body. When an innocent man is condemned to death for the alleged murder, all of them (in reverse order) confess what they did. [[spoiler: At the end, it turns out that he wasn't really dead, just unconscious.]]

* A [[PlayedForDrama serious, dramatic example]] appears in the movie ''ElCid''. The title character dies before he can win the battle, so they just put his body in armor, put him on a horse, and set the horse running so he can inspire the troops to victory... and he still ends up mowing down several enemies. This is based on a legend about the real medieval Spanish leader, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid. See "Real Life" for more details.

* ''{{Stoked}}!'': In "A Prank Too Far", Bummer pretends to be dead in order to teach the groms a lesson. The groms then lug Bummer's 'corpse' around to convince an investor that he is till 'alive'.

* A skit on ''RobotChicken'' played with it in mocking ''HannahMontana'', as Miley Cyrus died and yet her friends insisted on dragging her corpse around to keep up the charade. It [[DeadBabyComedy didn't go well.]]

* Cage The Elephant's video for ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmHZDpvtppU&ob=av2n Around My Head]]''. A man digs up his dead girlfriend.

* Cage The Elephant's video for ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmHZDpvtppU&ob=av2n Around My Head]]''. A man digs up his dead girlfriend. It's actually very funny, especially the ending:\\
(singer brings out dead girl in a shopping cart)\\
Bandmate: What the fuck is wrong with you?\\
Singer: Fine, I'll put her back.

* Comedian LewisBlack proposed that the United States re-elect RonaldReagan as president. His thinking is that when America's enemies see them swearing in a corpse as president they would declare them too crazy to fuck with.

* An episode of the new ''FlashGordon'' series had a scene where the characters had to find a way to bring an alien soldier's corpse to the dimensional rift he had come from in order to properly dispose of the body. In order to fool a realtor that was in their way, they pretended that the corpse was their wheelchair-bound friend, appropriately named "Bernie".

* This is an example of TruthInTelevision. The death of Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang was kept secret for two months by his prime minister.
** To elaborate, the Emperor died on a journey in the middle of a blazing summer, so the minister hid the stench of the fast decomposing body by surrounding the imperial carriage with carts full of rotting fish. It was an indication of how feared the Emperor and his prime minister were that not one person questioned the driving arrangements.

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