History NeverTrustATrailer / AnimatedFilms

* Some of the theatrical trailers from ''Film/TheLandBeforeTime'' show a couple of clips from the deleted footage (which fans are still to this day desperately wanting to see).

* On the original VHS releases of the ''Creator/HannaBarbera Superstars 10'' movies, the trailers for ''Rockin' With Judy Jetson'' and ''ScoobyDooAndTheReluctantWerewolf'' did not use clips from the actual movies in question. Instead, the ''Rockin' with Judy Jetson'' trailer used clips from the original ''[[WesternAnimation/TheJetsons Jetsons]]'' episode "A Date with Jet Screamer", while the ''Reluctant Werewolf'' trailer used clips from ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo and Scrappy-Doo'' episode "Moonlight Madness". Also, the trailer for ''WesternAnimation/YogiBear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose'' mistakenly identifies antagonists Dread Baron and Mumbley as [[WesternAnimation/WackyRaces Dastardly and Muttley]].

* Similarly, an early trailer for ''TeamAmerica'' gave a long list of actors and political figures... followed by the note that "They're all going to hate this movie" (since it's a send-up of TheWarOnTerror and directly makes fun of many of them).

* One of the TV spots for ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' gave the concept that Jimmy wants to impress Cindy. The shorts, and even some of the trailers released for the movie say otherwise

* Good god, ''[[Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles TMNT]]'' was bad about this. The trailers, marketing, and [[LyingCreator even]] [[Creator/PatrickStewart his own voice actor]] stated that Max Winters was the main villain, and from the looks of things he was trying to unleash a bunch of horrific monsters on the world. [[spoiler:Winters is really TheAtoner who already unleashed the monsters centuries ago and was now trying to stop them, something that's made clear as early as the first five minutes.]] Additionally, the materials made it look like it would focus on all four turtles equally, but in the actual film, [[SpotlightStealingSquad Leonardo and Raphael]] are the only two with any real relevance to the story: Michelangelo and Donatello both have about 20 minutes of screentime each at most.

* A trailer for ''[[WesternAnimation/TheMagicRoundabout Doogal]]'' portrayed the film as being a comedy, specifically a parody of the adventure genre, i.e. ''Lord of the Rings''. The film ended up being filled with more sugary sweetness and life lessons than a Care Bears movie.

* One trailer for ''Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' makes the film, which is generally regarded as one of the darkest animated films, look like a comedy.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87M_XXu_w2U The majority of the commercials]] for ''Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' make it look more lighthearted than it really is

* The original trailer for ''Disney/{{Bambi}}'' consists entirely of scenes from Bambi's adulthood, which doesn't begin until halfway into the movie, and claims romance and action were the dominant elements. [[LighterAndSofter And now they advertise it entirely with scenes from when he's a fawn, causing some people to think he's a female]]

* The teaser for ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'', a Disney Princess movie which is an adaptation of ''Literature/TheSnowQueen'', didn't even show anything about the story or even our two female leads of Anna and Elsa. Instead, it was a quick one-to-two-minute gag involving Olaf (the snowman Elsa creates that she unknowingly brings to life) sneezing his carrot nose off and trying to keep Kristoff's reindeer Sven from getting it. Later trailers continued to overplay how much of a part Olaf had in the movie, often focusing on his jokes and slapstick over anything resembling the Anna+Elsa plot. The actual film turned out to be about a lot more than just Olaf's wacky antics.

** The "That's no blizzard- that's my sister" line, followed by a shot of Elsa on the top of a mountain casting her magic at Anna and Kristoff? That wasn't from the movie- it was from an earlier animation test. At that point in the filming, several things were different (if you look at the whole scene, Marshmallow has tree-trunk arms instead of the ice he had in the actual film) and the characterization wasn't quite finalized, resulting in Elsa being the villain that she was for much of the production. In the actual movie, Elsa's role was changed after the staff realized that Elsa's VillainSong Let It Go [[DesignatedVillain really wasn't all that villainous]], and they rewrote her as a AntiVillain who just doesn't have good control over her powers and suffers from anxiety.

* ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'':
** The "dinner argument" trailer prominently features the mother and father's emotions, but it doesn't show Joy and Sadness inside Riley's mind at all (since the scene takes place when they're both stranded in the long-term memory hallways). In the actual movie, the mother and father's emotions ''only'' appear in that scene, apart from one minor gag at the end of the movie; conversely, Joy and Sadness are the two most prominent emotions by a pretty wide margin, and most of the movie deals with [[TeethClenchedTeamwork their efforts to get along with each other]].
** The trailers make the mother and father look quite a bit more ignorant and adversarial ([[RuleOfFunny probably for humor's sake]]) than they are in the actual film: the father appears to be an easily distracted jerk with a temper problem, while the mother seems to be a cocky shrew who secretly regrets marrying her husband. In truth, they're both loving parents with a successful marriage, the "Brazilian Helicopter Pilot" joke is a one-off gag, and Riley's father actually has a tender talk with her after the dinner argument scene.
* ''Disney/ChickenLittle'': the trailer of this movie that showed the titular character dancing got "Dragostea Din Tei" from O-Zone ([[MemeticMutation the "Numa Numa" song]]) instead of "He's The Greatest Dancer", of Sister Sledge, so there was a dissapointing to discover at the final credits that the marketing guys made believe this (then) popular romanian tune will be part of the soundtrack. It's not.

* Television ads for {{Disney}}'s dub of ''Anime/{{Ponyo|On The Cliff By The Sea}}'' play up most of the comedy bits and even use the last few seconds of the film out of context. Also, the commercials use bits of dialogue both out of context and played over completely different scenes than they are in the actual film. (No, fish!Ponyo does not say "I will be a human too!" while still in the bucket.) There's a part where Ponyo's mother calls "Good luck Ponyo!" while in the movie she actually says "Good luck ''Lisa''", to Satsuke's mother. And the teaser trailer made it seem as if Ponyo's father tells her that she is the only one who can save the world, and then releases her, and her wave running somehow is related to said world-saving. In the movie, the lines her father says are actually directed to Satsuke (who can save the world only by accepting Ponyo) and the wave running has nothing to do with Ponyo saving the world.

* Television ads for {{Disney}}'s dub of ''Anime/{{Ponyo}}'' play up most of the comedy bits and even use the last few seconds of the film out of context. Also, the commercials use bits of dialogue both out of context and played over completely different scenes than they are in the actual film. (No, fish!Ponyo does not say "I will be a human too!" while still in the bucket.) There's a part where Ponyo's mother calls "Good luck Ponyo!" while in the movie she actually says "Good luck ''Lisa''", to Satsuke's mother. And the teaser trailer made it seem as if Ponyo's father tells her that she is the only one who can save the world, and then releases her, and her wave running somehow is related to said world-saving. In the movie, the lines her father says are actually directed to Satsuke (who can save the world only by accepting Ponyo) and the wave running has nothing to do with Ponyo saving the world.

* The trailer for ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster'' describes the movie as cheerful and "sure to warm your spirits." It is, at times, but it's largely also something of a drama.

** The trailer for the movie also makes it seem as though Fairly OddParents creator Butch Hartman is responsible for the movie's conception, even though ''Doogal'' is merely the US edition of the movie adaptation of the UK television series ''The Magic Roundabout'' (the trailer makes no reference to this, either).

* A trailer for ''[[WesternAnimation/TheMagicRoundabout Doogal]]'' portrayed the film as being a comedy, specifically a parody of the adventure genre, i.e. ''Lord of the Rings''. The film ended up being filled with more sugary sweetness and life lessons than a Care Bears movie. And the VA that they used for the main character (a dog) in the trailer? It was really the rabbit. As ''WesternAnimation/{{Hoodwinked}}'' had shown, you should Never Trust A Bunny.

* A lot of people didn't want to see ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}'', even ranting about how it wasn't as scary as the book, after seeing the theatrical trailer, which made it seem more kid-friendly. This resulted in several people missing out on a great film, and [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids many parents escorting terrified and crying children out of the theaters]]. Coincidentally, NeilGaiman cited the happy, childish trailer as his favourite. The theatrical trailer for Coraline is honestly pretty terrifying and accurate to the actual movie but the TV spots make it seem like lighthearted children's fare.

* A minor example for ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6''. Some commercials for the movie have Music/FallOutBoy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)" playing in the background. Fall Out Boy does provide the main theme song for the movie (Known as Immortals), but not that song. However, it does provide {{Foreshadowing}} when [[spoiler:Hiro nearly kills Yokai.]]

** All the ads play up the CGI scenes...which take up about 20 minutes of the movie. The majority of the animation in film is actually hand-drawn, with plenty of {{ArtShift}}s. The trailer also promised a cameo by Slash as a street musician, which ended up being cut from the film.

** All the ads play up the CGI scenes...which take up about 20 minutes of the movie. The majority of the animation in film is actually hand-drawn, with plenty of ArtShifts. The trailer also promised a cameo by Slash as a street musician, which ended up being cut from the film.

* What marketing you will see for ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobMovieSpongeOutOfWater'' tells you is that the movie is all about the SpongeBob cast having an adventure out of the water for the whole movie. What it doesn't tell you is that the movie is that ''' the scenes shown in the trailer are part of the last twenty minutes of the movie!''' [[http://www.fandango.com/thespongebobmovie:spongeoutofwater_175334/moviereviews Many fans who were awating this]] [[http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-spongebob-movie-sponge-out-of-water/user-reviews?sort-by=score&num_items=100 left theaters]] [[http://www.amazon.com/The-Spongebob-Movie-Sponge-Water/product-reviews/B00YOR8TB2/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?pageNumber=1&sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=one_star feeling ashamed of]] [[http://www.amazon.com/The-Spongebob-Movie-Sponge-Water/product-reviews/B00YOR8TB2/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_2?pageNumber=1&sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=two_star their choice to see it]].

** From watching the trailers or paying attention to any of the marketing for ''WesternAnimation/ShrekTheThird'', one would think that the movie was about Shrek and Fiona having a ton of babies and Shrek having to learn to be a father. Wrong. The movie is about Shrek trying to find the only remaining heir to Fiona's parents' kingdom, and the baby thing is a minor reason behind it. All in all, about a minute and a half of the movie involves ogre babies--one NightmareSequence about halfway through (which shows dozens of babies, which is what most of the marketing drew its material from) and a short sequence at the very end of the movie where Shrek and Fiona have three children. That's all. But when you look at all of the promo merchandise, from fast-food toys to collectible glasses with pictures of ogre babies pasted all over them, that'd be a bit hard to deduce. In the UK, the trailers, standees and the ''title'' all implied the movie would be about Shrek being king. Shrek is King for a few short visual gags at the beginning before he sets out on his quest to find the true heir.

* The trailers for Creator/StudioGhibli's ''Anime/WhenMarnieWasThere'' present the movie as being a sweet story about the [[RomanticTwoGirlFriendship budding youthful romance between the two female leads]]. In the actual movie [[spoiler:Marnie turns out to be the ghost of Anna's grandmother, reaching out to her granddaughter to help her cope with her life issues]]. Let's just say that many {{yuri fan}}s where massively disappointed.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcOp0VOAd4M This]] TV spot for ''WesternAnimation/AGoofyMovie'' says Max is the most popular kid in school, when he is established to be trying to climb up from the bottom of the social ladder. It implies Roxanne is his girlfriend before the events of the movie, when a major subplot involves him trying to get together with her in the first place. It says Max's best friend is cool, showing Bobby, when Max's best friend isn't Bobby (it's always been PJ, and Bobby is portrayed as a FairWeatherFriend or ally in this movie), Bobby is not explicitly shown to be cool, and Max's best friend is even less cool than Max, being a [[FatBestFriend fat]] ShrinkingViolet NervousWreck. [[SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer Neither of the most important supporting characters, Pete and PJ, appear at all in the trailer,]] and the trailer makes Goofy and Max's conflict seem more one-sided than it really is (i.e. it makes Goofy out to be the only problem, and Max not at fault at all). And try to guess from the trailer that the movie has a RoadTripPlot.

* A minor example for ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6''. Some commercials for the movie have Music/FallOutBoy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)" playing in the background. Fall Out Boy does provide the main theme song for the movie, but not that song. However, it does provide {{Foreshadowing}} when [[spoiler:Hiro nearly kills Yokai.]]