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1->''I wanted to die. It stopped; "Girl, you know it's-Girl, you know it's-Gir-" 80,000 people. "Girl, you know it's-Girl, you-" You know, I couldn't repeat it fifteen times! "Girl, you-" So I stopped, I panicked, I ran off stage. Julie Brown, who used to work for Creator/{{MTV}}, ran after me. I didn't wanna go back to the stage; I'd had enough. 80,000 people waiting. I said, "I've had enough. I quit."''
2-->-- '''Rob Pilatus''', on the disastrous concert that led to Music/MilliVanilli's exposure as a fraud.
3
4The performers are singing along in concert, wowing the crowd with their harmonies and lyrics. [[RepetitiveAudioGlitch But then lyrics and music start repeating in a way that only happens on records or CDs]]! The truth is out: the music and singing was all pre-recorded and the performers were merely lip-syncing -- and now they're [[{{Pun}} sunk]]. Basically, this is when someone is ''pretending'' to sing (or otherwise perform), but something (usually a mishap) reveals their deception. Very often an OhCrap moment.
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6While the fact that lipsyncing is all but expected in several places (live performances involving lots of uptempo dancing or very demanding material, TV appearances where the practice has been commonplace for decades and often not necessarily through the performer's choice) has lessened the general sting associated with it, the general unwritten rule is still considered "don't get caught".
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8A subtrope of ProfessionalVoiceDissonance and SingingVoiceDissonance. Compare HongKongDub for the movie equivalent. See also WrongSongGag.
9
10----
11!!Examples:
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13[[foldercontrol]]
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15[[folder:Advertising]]
16* In TheNineties, there was a commercial for blank audio tapes for recording (possibly Memorex). It shows a band onstage performing while occasionally cutting to a tape playing. The announcer for the commercial says "If music is important to you, be sure to put it on the right length tape." The band's lip syncing is discovered when the tape runs out. Then the band follows suit, followed by an angry mob.
17* The Music/MilliVanilli incident is parodied in a Carefree gum commercial, where the duo sing opera until the record starts skipping. The announcer even mockingly responds with "Until these guys sing for themselves." when bringing up the gum's long lasting flavor.
18* A soft drinks commercial starring Music/RobbieWilliams spoofed this trope by having him field an interview question about lip-synching at concerts and make a pious little speech condeming the practice... which carried on uniterrupted while he took a swig from a bottle of the aforementioned soft drink.
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21[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
22* In ''Manga/OuranHighSchoolHostClub'', Haruhi gets kidnapped by the Lobelia's Zuka Club and is made to sing in their play. Despite being poor at music, she sings nearly perfectly at rehearsal, which surprises her dad and Host Club members (who are spying on her). Then a girl accidentally unplugs the CD player and it's shown that it's all lipsync. Points for Haruhi continuing to lipsync and not even notice that the music's stopped.
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25[[folder:Comic Books]]
26* Done in ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'', when Veronica wants to join the carolers, but [[DreadfulMusician is a terrible singer]]. So she cooks up a scheme where Veronica gets a friend to hide while singing into a microphone, and Veronica will wear a speaker disguised as a pendant. At rehearsals, all goes well. When they go out actually caroling (which is, of course, in the dead of winter), her friend can't take the cold and starts coughing. Veronica tries to play along, but her friends quickly get suspicious. Those suspicions are confirmed when her friend apologizes to Veronica and says she's going home, which is overheard by one and all, exposing Veronica's scheme.
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29[[folder:Comic Strips]]
30* In one ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' Sunday strip, Garfield apparently sings a song to Jon, but starts repeating two words over and over. The cat then applies PercussiveMaintenance to the record player that was ''actually'' playing the song.
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33[[folder:Folklore]]
34* There's an UrbanLegend that for Music/ElvisPresley's last tour(s) one of his "backup" singers was an ElvisImpersonator who was actually singing the lead melody; if Elvis got tired or forgot the lyrics the control room would switch so that the impersonator's mic was the one being sent out over the speakers.
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37[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
38* A magically induced example in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks''. The Dazzlings, being Sirens, uses their jewels to be amplify their singing and induce a HatePlague which they feed off of. However when Twilight, Sunset and Humane Five manage to beat them in their musical battle, the jewels are destroyed and the girls' attempt at singing afterward are flat and toneless. Resulting in the crowd they were mesmerizing earlier to boo them off the stage, complete with ProducePelting.
39* One scene of ''Animation/HappyHeroes2TheBattleOfPlanetQiyuan'' has Happy S., Zelia, and Big M. pretending to be the band Aprilday (a parody of the real-life Taiwanese band Mayday). Big M. does quite an impressive singing voice when they perform at their concert, and the fans can barely tell the difference. And then Big M.'s phone battery goes dead, the audience realizes he was lip-syncing the lyrics, and they're certainly not happy about it.
40* On the "Gaucho Goofy" segment of ''WesternAnimation/SaludosAmigos'', Goofy is singing a traditional Gaucho folk song when the words start repeating, revealing that he was actually lip-synching to a record.
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43[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
44* In ''Film/SinginInTheRain'', Lina is forcing Kathy to dub all her performances from now on. When she's asked to sing a song at the movie premiere, she has Kathy behind the curtain singing for her. Don then pulls open the curtain, revealing Kathy to the audience, but Lina is not made aware until Cosmo starts filling in for Kathy. For added irony, Kathy's actress Debbie Reynolds was dubbed, and in some songs by Jean Hagen...[[IronyAsSheIsCast who played Lina!]]
45* In the night club scene in ''Film/MulhollandDrive'', a singer performs a TearJerker song during which she suddenly collapses while we continue to hear her singing. That's when the lead couple and the audience realize that the singer had been lipsyncing all along.
46* ''Film/{{Airheads}}'' features a variation of this as the climax: the band The Lone Rangers has managed to sign a contract with an (unknown to them) [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corrupt records executive]] that contractually forces them to lip-sync their songs when performing live. None of the Rangers accept this ([[HonorBeforeReason seeing their love of being able to perform as more important]]) and thus expose the scam on their very first live performance outside the radio station they're holding hostage, by not playing their instruments as the tape plays their song's opening riff and then finally inciting a riot.
47* ''Film/GetReadyToBeBoyzvoiced'': Things start to go downhill for [[BoyBand Boyz]][[FakeBand voice]] when the CD that they were lip-syncing to starts skipping during a charity concert.
48* Creator/TheMarxBrothers' classic ''Film/MonkeyBusiness'' has a scene where each of the brothers tries to get off the cruise ship they've all stowed away on by imitating Creator/MauriceChevalier (whose passport they've somehow gotten a hold of). When it's Harpo's turn, he starts "singing" "You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me" in Chevalier's own voice... only to reveal that he's got a portable wind-up phonograph strapped to his back, which starts winding down.
49* In ''Film/{{Boytown}}'', the band are forced to resort to this due to illness in their last concert of the tour, using a recording of their previous concert. It backfires due to the recording being damaged.
50* ''Film/TheRocker'': The main character's former band, ''Vesuvius'', is performing a concert to celebrate their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when the lead singer does a trick with the microphone stand, and the microphone goes flying away... only for him to be able to continue singing uninterrupted. Everyone starts to look confused as the stage crew rushes to give him a new mic. Then the RepetitiveAudioGlitch starts up and the jig is up. ''Vesuvius'' gets booed off stage and the protagonist's new band, A.D.D., is called in to perform an encore in their stead.
51* This drives the plot of ''[[Series/LizzieMcGuire The Lizzie [=McGuire=] Movie]]''. Lizzie is Rome, where she finds she has an IdenticalStranger who's a pop star, Isabella. Isabella's partner, Paolo, explains that Isabel relied on lip syncing and has recently quit; he wants Lizzie to take her place at a concert, while lip syncing, to preserve Isabella's reputation. It turns out his real plan is to cut the backing track during Lizzie's performance, invoking this to ruin Isabella. Moreover, ''he's'' the one who can't sing, and Isabella had quit because she didn't want to deal with his antics anymore. At the concert, [[spoiler: Isabella comes in to provide Lizzie's vocals, sparing them both from humiliation, while Gordo cuts Paolo's, revealing him as a fraud. Then Isabella comes on stage and does a duet with Lizzie.]]
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54[[folder:Literature]]
55* In ''Literature/{{Fairest}}'', this is done through ventriloquism. The new queen is awful at singing and hates it as well, but singing is deeply embedded in the culture of Ayortha. So when she discovers the heroine Aza performing ventriloquism to amuse herself, she hatches a scheme for Aza to be her singing voice. Unfortunately, they're exposed when a courtier spills water on the queen. The queen berates them without thinking, while Aza doesn't realise and carries on singing.
56* In ''Literature/StarIsland'', two years before the story begins, Cherry Pye, performing at Boston Garden under the influence of crystal meth, fails to lip-synch through three of her songs before breaking down completely. This incident leads to the cancellation of her ''Down and Dirty'' tour, but her career as a fake singer goes on.
57* In ''Literature/{{Maskerade}}'', Agnes Nitt is not conventionally attractive, but is a supernaturally talented singer. Christine, on the other hand, is a BrainlessBeauty who sings in a screech. The Opera House management therefore explain to Agnes that they would like her to ''sing'' the lead, but not, as it were, ''play'' the lead. Christine herself is totally ignorant of this, as she is of most things, and at one point complains to Agnes that she's singing too loudly for a member of the chorus. When Agnes realises the male lead has been replaced by the Opera Ghost, Christine opens her mouth to sing, but what everyone hears is Agnes shouting "[[Music/BatOutOfHell Stop right there!]]"
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60[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
61* In an episode of ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow'', Barney joins a chorale group. His singing is ''terrible'', but he's so happy to be there that nobody has the heart to kick him out. So they hatch a scheme with Andy's help. They tell Barney he's going to sing a solo, but that his microphone is super sensitive, so he has to sing almost silently. Meanwhile, the professional tenor they hired to sing the solo is backstage, singing into a live mic while Barney mouths along. Barney never catches on, but he leaves the group at the end of the episode, so it winds up not mattering.
62* In an episode of ''Series/FantasyIsland'' Scott Baio plays the oldest of a group of siblings who want to make it big in music. Mr. Rourke gets them an audition for a record producer, but Rourke makes them lip synch instead of performing live. Baio's character ultimately confesses rather than getting success based on a lie.
63* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': Phoebe lands a recording contract for "Smelly Cat," but after they shoot the music video the gang, and eventually she, discover that the record company has replaced her vocals with another singer's. In typical CloudCuckoolander fashion, Phoebe's initial response is "Oh my God! I sound amazing!"
64* In the last episode of ''Series/AreYouBeingServed'' Mr. Spooner gets discovered and is off to become a famous singer. In his first TV appearance he sings the song which got him discovered, "Chanson D'Amour." He makes a demo reel-to-reel recording to send to the talent scout. He is booked on a TV show but his voice is getting tired. During the TV performance his voice gives out so they switch to the recording - but the cheap recorder they used and the studio use different speeds, so it comes out sped up to double time.
65* In one episode of ''Series/AlloAllo'', Rene persuades Edith to mime to a record rather than inflict her own singing voice on the customers. Then he gets the records mixed up and she ends up having to mime as the very deep bass voice of Paul Robeson sings "Ol' Man River". The audience still find it an improvement on her usual performances.
66* Played for laughs in a sketch in ''Series/ABitOfFryAndLaurie'' where Hugh Laurie accuses "Michael Jackson" (played by Stephen Fry) of miming in a performance. He denies it, but it turns out even his lines denying miming are mimed.
67* In the ''Series/PerfectStrangers'' episode "Out of Sync", Balki is discovered by a record producer who tries to promote him as "Fresh Young Balki B". When his first music video airs on television, he discovers his vocals have been completely replaced, leading him and his cousin Larry to then reveal the deception during a press conference.
68* Parodied by Music/BritneySpears the first time she hosted ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', when she starts lip syncing her monologue while denying that she lip syncs.
69* An episode of ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'' has Cory's band decide to hire a singer. Cory is so in awe of the girl's beauty that he imagines her as a better singer than she actually is. Upon listening to a recording and realising how HollywoodToneDeaf she is, they're faced with the dilemma of either firing her and hurting her feelings or letting her perform and embarrassing herself. [[SweetAndSourGrapes Luckily the girl ends up getting cold feet]], so they decide to have Cory's mother Tonya sing behind the stage while the girl mouths to her.
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72[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
73* Wrestling/{{WWE}}: During an episode of ''Raw'' guest-hosted by Wrestling/DustyRhodes they [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ubeclmQxRc recreate]] the "Shockmaster" incident, where a debuting new wrestler breaks through a wall, falls down, and makes a fool of himself. In the original the Shockmaster's voice was provided by Ole Anderson offscreen. In the recreation, Arn Anderson is revealed reading the Shockmaster's lines. He looks up, makes a LoudGulp, and runs away.
74* WWE: Wrestling/JeffJarrett's gimmick is as a country singer who is using wrestling as a springboard to success in the music industry and his entrance theme song is his "big hit." After Jarrett left, it was revealed that his assistant Roadie (aka Road Dogg Jesse James) was really the one singing on the song.
75* Kandi Kisses "sang" on the ''Wrestling/{{Wrestlicious}}'' stage, where she was jeered for doing a poor job disguising she wasn't the one singing and continuously mocked by Wrestling/JimmyHart for it. Lizzy Valentine, who portrayed the character, confirmed that a different woman recorded the song too.
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78[[folder:Video Games]]
79* In ''VideoGame/BangDreamGirlsBandParty'', the side story for the band Pastel*Palettes has its members performing for a concert, with their staff having them just sync their movements and lips to the pre-recorded music; the band members are rather conflicted about the concept but are willing to go along with it if it means they can get their big break in music. Unfortunately, an equipment malfunction in the middle of the concert causes the music to go dead, revealing the true nature of the band to the audience.
80* At the disastrous Coolfest '99 festival in ''VideoGame/HypnospaceOutlaw'', people are already suspecting the Coolpunk movement of [[SellOut selling out]], which is not helped when the pioneering Coolpunk artist [=FRE3ZER=] is caught lipsyncing at his concert. His few fans claim he just had to sync along with a bit that had pre-recorded effects, but videos of the failure get swapped around online. Ultimately, this scandal, along with everything else that went wrong at the same event, was an in-universe GenreKiller for Coolpunk. Afterward, the Coolpunk Paradise hub page began shifting over to a more general 'music creators' hub.
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83[[folder:Web Animation]]
84* A Subverted example took place during WebAnimation/{{hololive}}'s "Link Your Wish" festival in March 2022 when Calliope Mori performed "on-stage" (given that she's a [[VirtualYouTuber VTuber]], the term needs to be amended a bit here). It was clear as her performance progressed that her lips were out of synch with the lyrics, but Calli was actually performing live -- what happened was that she was rapping so fast the face-tracking sensors that were supposed to convey her facial movements in real time could not keep up and essentially ended up lagging.
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87[[folder:Webcomics]]
88* In one ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell'' [[https://www.kevinandkell.com/2005/kk0103.html strip]], Fenton can tell a singer is lip-syncing thanks to his echolocation: he can tell the sound is coming from the amps and not her beak.
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91[[folder:Western Animation]]
92* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/ClueClub'' has an instance where lip syncing is justified. A rock star is one of the suspects in the theft of a priceless crown, based on an audio cassette Larry found. But he wasn't the perp. The rock star lip syncs from the cassette so as not to strain his voice.
93* The Ashlee Simpson incident on ''SNL'' is parodied in a CutawayGag from the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS4E15BrianGoesBackToCollege Brian Goes Back to College]]", when "Ol' Man River" from ''Theatre/{{Showboat}}'' starts playing when she opens her mouth.
94* Narrowly averted on ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'', when Fred takes over the role of a popular rock singer who came to Bedrock but wound up unable to perform. The record he used for lipsyncing starts jumping, and he somehow has it fixed before anyone notices.
95* On ''WesternAnimation/HeathcliffAndTheCatillacCats'', Heathcliff is annoyed that Sonya is interested in snobbish feline opera star the Great Pussini. Heathcliff goes backstage at one of Pussini's shows and uses the various controls to mess with him. He reveals that Pussini [[GlamourFailure wears a toupee and a girdle,]] but impressively Pussini continues to sing through all the chaos - except Heathcliff's final prank opens the curtain to reveal that Pussini was lip-syncing, and his bookish manager was doing all the singing. Heathcliff successfully exposes Pussini as a fraud, but unfortunately for him, Sonya runs off with the manager.
96* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'':
97** In "Daffy's Inn Trouble", WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck dresses as a can-can girl to attract customers to his hotel, but is exposed when the record he's lip-synching to gets stuck. Just like Ashlee Simpson, he tries to cover it up with a little softshoe, only to receive a ProducePelting.
98** "WesternAnimation/PigsInAPolka" has TheBigBadWolf sneak into WesternAnimation/TheThreeLittlePigs' house by disguising himself as a beggar woman playing a violin. One peeks under his dress and discovers a record playing violin music. He switches the record to the other side, which plays an upbeat polka. The wolf immediately starts dancing and sheds his disguise in the process.
99* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E14FilliVanilli Filli Vanilli]]", Fluttershy is a great singer, but she won't perform in public because of her [[PerformanceAnxiety crippling stage fright]]. When Big Mac loses his voice right before an important performance, Fluttershy's friends convince her to hide behind a curtain and provide Mac's singing voice. The ruse works for several shows, but Fluttershy gets so into performing that she starts ad-libbing, and Big Mac has trouble keeping up. At the planned final show, Fluttershy accidentally knocks the curtain down, exposing the ruse. The audience applauds her, but she has a nervous breakdown and flees.
100* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "A Hard Day's Knight". When Perry the Platypus was impersonating a human evil scientist so he could infiltrate an evil convention, he bumps into his nemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, who [[PaperThinDisguise completely falls for Perry disguised as one of his evil heroes]]. Doofenshmirtz wants "Dr. Lloyd Wexler" to read an excerpt of his autobiography to him, which Perry manages to do by lip-syncing to a CD player loaded with the audiobook of the autobiography. Then the CD started skipping, but despite that error, Doofenshmirtz still falls for the trick. It's at this point Perry decides to end the charade and reveal himself.
101* Subverted in a ''WesternAnimation/PlutoThePup'' cartoon, "WesternAnimation/PlutosBlueNote". Pluto discovers that he can act as a gramophone by putting his tail on the spinning record and opening his mouth. He uses this to lip-synch to a Frank Sinatra song, much to the delight of a crowd of girl dogs. Pluto's tail skips during the final chorus of the song, and he briefly panics, but he's able to correct it before any of his adoring fans notice.
102* The ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode "Mordecai and the Rigbys" played straight and then defied this trope. When Mordecai and Rigby meet their future selves who are already popular musicians, they teach their present selves how to properly play guitar and sing. But when they go on stage at the Open Mic to impress Margaret, Mordecai trips mid-song, [[OhCrap and realizes that he's not the one singing]]. He looks over to see ''all the equipment unplugged'', and that the music is actually coming from a boom box. Mordecai stops it, and chews out their future selves who reveal that they made their career through lip-syncing, which is what they tricked their present selves into doing. Then and there, Mordecai and Rigby break up their "band", [[ButterflyOfDoom stopping those future selves from existing]].
103* In the ''WesternAnimation/RocketPower'' episode "Beach Boys & A Girl", the kids form a band but later find out they sound awful. Sam remixes their recorded audio to make them sound better, and they become a hit. They're later asked to preform live, but since their music isn't genuine, they resort to lip-syncing. Their cover is blown, they get laughed off stage, and they decide to end the band.
104* ''WesternAnimation/SabrinaTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Witchy Grrrls" opens with a local talent contest. RichBitch Gem Stone is seemingly the only one performing well...until Sabrina sees her sip a glass of water during the performance and realises she's lip synching.
105* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/SallyBollywood'' starts with a famed singer named Melody M being found out that she uses an auto-tuner to mask her singing when it malfunctions during a performance. Sally and Doowee are prompted to look into the matter and see who sabotaged it. While it doesn't damage Melody's career too much, a fan shows dissatisfaction with her for using it and, at the end, Melody promises to learn to sing better on her own.
106* In the Scotland episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheScoobyDooShow'', Scooby appears to be playing the bagpipes when part of his tune repeats. It's revealed that he has a skipping phonograph under his costume.
107* Creator/DisneyChannel's ''WesternAnimation/ShortyMcShortsShorts''' multi-part episode "Boyz on Da Run" involves the titular band [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin on the run]] from angry fans after their singing talents (or lack thereof) is exposed a la Milli Vanilli.
108* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E14NewKidsOnTheBlecch New Kids on the Blecch]]", a Navy lieutenant disguised as a talent scout persuades Bart and several classmates to form a BoyBand as part of a SubliminalAdvertising campaign to gather recruits. The boys are all terrible singers, so the lieutenant uses real-time AutoTune to fix their singing at their live shows. When the lieutenant is told that the band is no longer marketable thanks to a scathing article by ''Magazine/MadMagazine'', his commander ends the band in the bluntest way possible: turning off the auto-tune in the middle of a song. Upon hearing their uncorrected singing, the crowd immediately leaves.
109* ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst'': In "The Silent Knight", Sofia requests Sir Maxwell to lend his deep voice to Sir Bartleby, who's embarrassed about [[VocalDissonance his high-pitched voice]], by hiding behind a bush to sing the latter's love song to Aunt Tilly while Bartleby lip-syncs to him. It almost goes well until Bartleby falls backwards into the bush and exposes Maxwell in front of Tilly.
110* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'':
111** In the short "Texas Tom", Tom tries to impress a girl cat by singing to a recording. Jerry has some fun by changing the speed on the record player, forcing Tom to lip-sync faster and then slower.
112** The later Gene Deitch-era short "Carmen Get It" has Tom posing as a concert violinist to get into an opera house where ''Carmen'' is being performed, so he can get Jerry in there. He has a violin with a reel-to-reel tape recorder inside, which he plays during the actual performance, and mimes playing the violin to the tape. Jerry gets into the violin and changes the speed setting of the tape to fast, upsetting the conductor, who proceeds to break the violin/tape recorder over Tom's head.
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115[[folder:Real Life]]
116* Music/MilliVanilli is the TropeCodifier for this and RepetitiveAudioGlitch, to the point that their name has become synonymous with this trope. From 1988 to 1990, the duo was one of the most successful pop acts in Europe and the US. However, when they performed live onstage on MTV at the Lake Compounce theme park in Bristol, Connecticut in mid-1989, the recording of the song "Girl You Know It's True" played and [[RepetitiveAudioGlitch began to skip]], repeating "Girl, you know it's..." over and over on the speakers. They continued to lipsynch onstage for a few moments before [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere running offstage]] when [[OhCrap they realized what was happening]]. Downtown Julie Brown rushed after Rob Pilatus and had to convince him, who was in such a state that he told her "I've had enough. I quit," to return to the stage and finish the concert. While this didn't keep them from winning a Grammy for Best New Artist the next year, people became suspicious - especially after one of the ''actual'' singers announced that it was a scam before retracting his statements [[RevealingCoverup at the duo's request]]. Eventually, their producer finally confessed to the scam, causing their Grammy to be revoked and twenty-seven lawsuits to be filed against them for fraud. Their debut album was pulled from shelves and the masters were deleted, while their second album was hastily re-credited to the actual singers, branded "The Real Milli Vanilli" (or "Try 'N' B"), and [[NoExportForYou only released in Brazil, Europe, Asia, and New Zealand]].
117* During Music/MichaelJackson's last few TV concerts, he was pretty obviously lip-syncing, including him covering up his mouth so people wouldn't catch on to the fact that he was mouthing along with the music.
118* During her 2004 performance on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', Music/AshleeSimpson was revealed to be lip-syncing when her voice started singing even though she wasn't. She gave some awkward dance moves (which she described as a "hoe-down") before sheepishly walking offstage. The incident proved to be the beginning of the end for her music career; as when she performed at the Orange Bowl halftime show, her attempt at singing live completely flopped, which resulted in her mostly shying away from the mainstream music industry.
119* British singer Betty Boo ([[WesternAnimation/BettyBoop no relation]]) was famously booed off stage when the audience realized she was lip-syncing her songs to a backing tape.
120* A number of early commercials for the Xbox Kinect didn't actually feature live gameplay; the screen displayed prerecorded video, which played while the "player" tried to awkwardly synchronize his movements with the action. A number of viewers were able to pick up on this, and it became painfully noticeable when it was found that the first Kinect games weren't even close to being as responsive as the hype led them to believe.
121** The same happened to a lesser extent with the Wii's motion controls, which were hidden mostly by ''not'' showing gameplay and the person playing the game in the same shot (for instance, the ''VideoGame/RedSteel'' trailer had one scene with the "player", contemplating whether to finish off an enemy after a sword duel, making a motion that would have most definitely registered in the actual game as "swing sword and execute them" before he reconsiders).
122* A lot of 60's music shows like ''Series/TopOfThePops'', ''Beat Club'' and ''American Bandstand'' routinely forced acts to lip-sync their songs, and several acts invoked this trope as a protest against being forced to do so. In the most extreme cases, band members would not even ''pretend'' to play their instruments, and would just stand there while the song kept playing in the background. Other acts tended to have fun with this, though. Music/TheBonzoDogBand, for example, once mimed to [[https://youtu.be/olGXtohOs7c "I'm The Urban Spaceman"]] with one member "playing" a recorder with his nose, while another wore a fake arm and a bass with a comically long neck.
123* According to a ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'' developer, the game started out as a complete clone of ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} II'', including nausea-inducing graphics and clumsy controls. Then, at a game show, the booth next to them showed an at-the-time revolutionary RTS game that led them to make ''[=StarCraft=]'' as we know it. Only later did he find out the demo was prerecorded with the demonstrators pretending to play.
124%% Music/MariahCarey had this happen to her during the 2017 New Years' Eve celebration in New York.
125* Invoked in this Theatre/TheRockAfireExplosion [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfVgtOArj1E skit for Showbiz Pizza in the 80s]] involved Rolfe Dewolfe claiming he would be singing a tribute to Music/FrankSinatra, to the dismay of his sentient ventriloquist puppet Earl. But Rolfe simply lip-syncs to a record of Sinatra's song "Witchcraft," and Earl notices something screwy when the record glitches...
126* In the very beginnings of U.S. network television (1946-47), the American Federation of Musicians forbade its members from performing on television until an agreement was reached with the networks and its president, James Petrillo, was dragging his feet on reaching said agreement because he wanted to see where this whole television thing was going first. As a result, singers who performed on television had to prerecord their performance, then lip-sync to that recording on the air. [[https://books.google.ca/books?id=ZEsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q&f=false This article]] from the May 20, 1946 edition of ''LIFE Magazine'' shows Evelyn Knight miming along to a phonograph record that was very likely shown on camera as much to avoid deceiving the home audience as to show Petrillo they were not flouting his interdiction. This strange rule particularly affected Creator/{{NBC}}'s ''Hour Glass'', the very first regularly scheduled variety show on U.S. network television.
127* The British rock band Music/TheOutfield did this a lot during their prime (the mid to late '80s) for some reason, to the point that actual live performances of their SignatureSong "Your Love" are rare. The most commonly uploaded video of them lip-syncing is their "performance" in Montreaux, Switzerland to the original ''Play Deep'' '''album''' recording of the song, which is also what they lip-synched to in other footage. They ''did'' release an ''actual'' live album of their performance in Tyler, Texas, and more recent performances from the band (at least until they broke up after guitarist and main songwriter John Spinks's death) are also genuine live performances, as well as Tony Lewis's (the lead singer) own solo live performances.
128* Lipsyncing caused a bit of a scandal in K-Pop during the early 2000s once it became public that many music acts weren't singing live.[[note]]Considering some acts were performing with what were clearly cheap computer headsets not plugged into anything, it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise.[[/note]] Rather than causing an end to the practice, though, music-performance shows started clearly labeling if an act was live or lipsyncing.
129** Notably, Music/SechsKies (one of the most important Korean boy groups during the late 90s) was one of the most frequent targets of lipsyncing allegations - that is until they had enough of the allegiations and decided to prove they're '''[[SubvertedTrope not]]''' the case in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k_BO5KUBUE most impactful way known to mankind]]:
130-->'''Jiwon:''' ''[ad-libbing]'' Aww yeah! Haha, listen to my words! [[spoiler:[[PrecisionFStrike THE FUCKING]] [[WhamLine DICK IS IN YOUR PUSSY!]]]][[note]]They got away with it.[[/note]]
131* Every UsefulNotes/SuperBowl halftime show has the performing musicians pre-record their audio, as the Super Bowl is ''the'' most watched program in the United States every year and any major mistakes in the music would generate a whirlwind of bad publicity both for the NFL and the performers. [[https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/2/16961244/super-bowl-halftime-show-audio-patrick-baltzell-2018 The only known band to successfully fight to perform live]] was Music/TheRollingStones in 2006. When the Music/RedHotChiliPeppers performed in 2014, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20140205002215/https://redhotchilipeppers.com/news/454-a-message-from-flea they deliberately left their instruments unplugged as they "thought it better to not pretend."]]
132** This often extends to even the NationalAnthem performance. Most famously, Music/WhitneyHouston's cover of The Star Spangled Banner in the [[https://youtu.be/uAYKTMQl7MQ 1991 game]] was her lip-syncing to her pre-recorded voice, and despite being hailed as one of the best renditions ever performed, she still garnered some flak for not singing it live. She eventually responded to the criticism by performing a live rendition during that year's "[[https://youtu.be/hn9ckYb7SJw Welcome Home Heroes]]" HBO special.
133* Lindsay Lohan was caught lip-synching on an episode of ''Good Morning America'', where the music itself was performed live with an on-stage band but she noticeably was too late coming in with one line and could be seen wincing (and the broadcast then cut to two children who had noticed exchanging a look).
134* In 1999, the satirical Italian band Music/ElioELeStorieTese (Elio and the Tense Stories) once had a performance on the Italian music program 'Festivalbar'. The band was told to lip-synch their performance, and that their instruments would not be plugged in. Though this was common practice, this didn't sit well for a band known for playing its music live. So what did the band do? Half-way through their song 'Discomusic', the entire band froze in place, all while their song continued playing with vocals to a confused crowd. And they stayed like this '''''for the rest of the entire performance''''', even as they were carried off at the end like mannequins. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn6oi3DJkOo It has to be seen to be believed.]]
135* There have been cases where musicians were wrongly believed to be playing to backing tracks because of audio delay-- for instance, if you're in a large enough venue, you may see the drummer bang their sticks down before the sound waves get to you. Similarly, a mismatch in video and audio processing on a simulcast screen may create the appearance of a delay between the sound and the picture. There are technical solutions to this problem, such as the SMPTE ST-2064 standard, but they are generally very expensive and not widely adopted.
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