Line #135 Main/TallTale


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16	->'''Vanessa Ives:''' You didn't tell the truth. By my reckoning, you were a boy when General Custer died and 'tis well known there were no survivors.\
17	'''Ethan Chandler:''' What we call a tall tale, darlin'.\
18	'''Vanessa:''' Exceedingly tall.\
19	'''Ethan:''' Vice of my nation. We're storytellers.
20	-->-- Creator/{{Showtime}}'s ''Series/PennyDreadful''
21
22	A tall tale is a story with unbelievable or outright impossible elements (such as an impossibly tall man, hence the name "tall" tale), told as if it were true and factual.
23
24	Tall tales arose, more or less, from braggy exaggerations and other cock-and-bull stories. They may contain exaggerations of actual characters or events, or they can be entirely made up. Common prototypes for tall tales are [[TheCatfish fish stories]] ("it was this big!") (which makes it transparent where the "tall" humor is coming from), as well as the [[FearsomeCritters hunter's story]], the [[MilesGloriosus war story]], and [[TheMunchausen the traveler's story]]. There's also significant overlap with the JustSoStory, as many tall tales center on the origins of notable landmarks. Tall Tales are inherently related to {{Satire}}, although they are usually humorous and good-natured.
25
26	Some tall tales draw on {{myth\|ology}} or {{legend}} but while mythology may exaggerate the exploits of their heroes to make them more awesome, the Tall Tale is aware of its own absurdity and exaggerates so as to become ludicrous.
27
28	Note that "tall tale" is sometimes also used in a wider sense for any "story that isn't true" (particularly when the teller pretends it is true); in this looser sense it also covers {{Shaggy Dog Stor\|y}}ies and campfire {{Ghost Stor\|y}}ies (in parts of the US, "tall tale" and "shaggy dog story" are indeed synonyms).
29
30	Tall tales are also often told in a way that makes [[UnreliableNarrator the narrator]] seem to have been a part of the story. If he himself is the hero, there are likely to follow outrageous [[BadassBoast Badass Boasts]] (often followed by the praise of one's own modesty). This kind of a narrator is a [[TheMunchausen Munchausen]] or a MilesGloriosus. Standard stylistic devices are also the insistence on factuality, and the pitying of naïve skeptics for their disbelief.
31
32	Tall tales may also include fantastic creatures. In the USA, the FearsomeCrittersOfAmericanFolklore are a traditional subject of tall tales. In Australia, expect to see YowiesAndBunyipsAndDropBearsOhMy.
33
34	Tall tales are an ancient genre of [[OralTradition folktales]] (as encountered in the tales around Myth/PaulBunyan in the USA or Myth/CrookedMick in Australia). But there is also the literary tall tale; the literary tall tale catalyzed the emergence of such respectable genres as ScienceFiction and the {{Utopia}}.
35
36	This page is for the Tall Tale genre. If a work is a tall tale itself, or a compendium of them, or the plot revolves around the telling of tall tales, then it goes in this trope. If it merely contains a braggart who is ''telling'' tall tales, but the tales aren't the focus of the work, then the trope you seek is MilesGloriosus or TheMunchausen instead.
37	----
38	!!Examples:
39
40	[[foldercontrol]]
41
42	[[folder:Asian Animation]]
43	* ''Animation/SimpleSamosa'': One of Samosa's signature characteristics is his tendency to tell tall tales about some stuff he claims to have done (to give a random example, in the episode "Sumo Momo", while on the way to a wrestling match featuring the wrestler Sumo Momo, he brags that he once encountered not one, but two Sumo Momos and defeated them both). This does not go unnoticed by his friends (except perhaps Vada, who actually believes the aforementioned Sumo Momo story); Jalebi in particular calls out Samosa for being such a "bluff master" several times.
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Comic Books]]
47	* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' story ''ComicBook/TheLivingLegendsOfSuperman'': The year 2199 sequence features an old snake oil salesman named Homer who is fond of telling outrageous and contradictory tales about his career as an astronaut.
48	[[/folder]]
49
50	[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
51	* "Literature/BootsWhoMadeThePrincessSayThatsAStory" revolves about Boots telling scurrilous tales until the princess cries he is making up stuff.
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder:Fan Works]]
55	* ''Fanfic/ArrestYeMerryGentlemares'': Spitfire thinks Rainbow Dash is telling tall tales to the team because she enjoys the attention. But it's {{subverted\|Trope}} because Dash is recounting her canonical and very much true adventures with her friends.
56	* ''Fanfic/TheBoltChronicles'': In "The Spaceship," Rhino's [[ScatterbrainedSenior age-related dementia]] sees the hamster playing the role of TheMunchausen. Among other things, he claims to have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, led an army of elephants over the Alps to attack Rome, invented the telephone and Internet, and served as trusted advisor to British Prime Ministers and U.S. presidents. It has unexpected consequences when [[AlienAbduction two space aliens try to kidnap him]], wanting him [[MistookTheDominantLifeForm to head up their civilization's Brain Trust Committee]].
57	[[/folder]]
58
59	[[folder:Film -- Animation]]
60	* In ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin2011'', Haddock tells the story of his ancestor battling the feared pirate Red Rackham. The events have clearly been exaggerated somewhat over the generations (and quite a few whiskey bottles).
61	* ''WesternAnimation/MelodyTime'' has segments for Johnny Appleseed and Pecos Bill.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
65	* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBaronMunchausen'' by Creator/TerryGilliam, based on the 18th century tall tales around Baron Munchhausen and the novel ''Literature/TheSurprisingAdventuresOfBaronMunchausen'' by R.E. Raspe.
66	* ''Film/BigFish'', which is all about a man deciphering his father's tall tales. Lampshaded in an exchange between Edward and Josephine.
67	-->'''Edward:''' Will never told you? Ah, he wouldn't have told it right anyhow. All of the facts and none of the flavor.\
68	'''Josephine:''' Ah, so this is a tall tale.\
69	'''Edward:''' Well, it's not a short one.
70	* In ''Film/TheHobbit'' Gandalf tells the story of how Bilbo's ancestor Bullroarer Took knocked the head off the orc chieftain Golfimbul and sent it down a rabbit hole, winning the battle and inventing the game of golf at the same time. Bilbo is skeptical.[[note]]The same incident is described in the book, but is presented more ambiguously and implied to have ''actually'' happened.[[/note]]
71	* ''Film/TallTale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill'', a Disney film about a young boy's adventures with Pecos Bill, Myth/PaulBunyan and Myth/JohnHenry.
72	[[/folder]]
73
74	[[folder:Literature]]
75	* ''Literature/ArabianNights'' is an ancient Arabic version, with a woman spinning fantastic tales in order to prevent her own execution and eventually win the heart of the king.
76	* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': Qwilleran collects various tall tales from around Moose County, and eventually publishes them.
77	* Grampy from ''Literature/GrassAndSky'' is fond of telling exaggerated stories about his family history, at one point claiming that Myth/PaulBunyan stole credit for his great-great-grandfather's accomplishments.
78	* Creator/JonathanSwift's ''Literature/GulliversTravels'' combines political and social satire with the genre of the traveller's tall tale.
79	* Grampa Hercules from Robert [=McCloskey=]'s ''Literature/HomerPrice'' and ''Centerburg Tales'' is the town tall tale teller, spinning a wide variety of highly improbable yarns of his youth and his alleged ancestors.
80	* In the Creator/PGWodehouse ''Literature/MrMulliner'' stories, the eponymous raconteur entertains his fellow pub-goers with tall tales about his numerous relatives.
81	%%* Literature/PippiLongstocking tells these all the time.
82	* The ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'' story "The Legend of the Cheese Maidens" begins with Ravenswood telling the story of the time a bunch of cheerleaders (the "Cheese Maidens") saved the Earth from an alien invasion.
83	* In the ''Literature/RedMarsTrilogy'', which is set on a future Mars that is being terraformed, people still tell stories of a Myth/PaulBunyan-type figure called "Big Man," but they make him out as a TheTrickster creator figure, not unlike Raven in Native American mythology. This is an InUniverse illustration of how tall tales can evolve into mythology.
84	* The characters in the Fantasy Midwest setting of ''Literature/TheSharingKnife'' entertain themselves with tall tales a few times; old boatman Bo is particularly good at it. Hero Dag, however, finds himself at a disadvantage, as the many improbable stories he has to tell are actually ''true''.
85	* Played with in ''Literature/TheStarDiaries'' by Creator/StanislawLem. It's never clear whether Ijon Tichy, the book's narrator, "really" had all those wacky adventures in space, or whether he is just a [[TheMunchausen teller of tall tales.]]
86	* The several books under the label ''Literature/TheSurprisingAdventuresOfBaronMunchausen'', by Erich Rudolph Raspe (1785-1789 and 1792) and Gottfried August Bürger (1788), wherein Munchausen loves bragging about riding cannonballs and performing even more preposterous deeds.
87	* Creator/ArthurCClarke's short-story collection ''Literature/TalesFromTheWhiteHart'' consists of a number of science-fictiony tall tales told by an odd fellow in the titular Fleet Street pub.
88	* ''Literature/TallTaleAmerica: A Legendary History of Our Humorous Heroes'' is a book about American tall tales.
89	* ''Literature/TrueHistory'' by 2nd century AD author Lucian of Samosata is likely the UrExample.
90	* Creator/AlanMarshall wrote ''Whispering in the Wind'', a fairy tale with an Australian twist. Apart from drawing on famous tall tales of the Outback for characters like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Speewah Crooked Mick]], a Lying Competition also features, with the winner being the one who tells the best tall tale.
91	* ''Literature/TheWorstShotsInTheWest'' is sub-titled as being a tall-tale; although that's quite obvious when reading it.
92	[[/folder]]
93
94	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
95	* ''Series/TheBushTuckerMan'' mentions a story told in the Northern Territory of Australia about a mosquito that was so big it landed at Darwin airport and was filled with 100 gallons of fuel before anyone realised it wasn't a mosquito. The host Les Hiddins is skeptical. "I've never seen a mosquito that big. Ninety gallons, but not a hundred."
96	* Chau from ''Series/OffCentre'' did this once about the story of Euan and Liz.
97	* The page quote is from Creator/{{Showtime}}'s GothicHorror series ''Series/PennyDreadful''. In it, Ethan Chandler is the star of a traveling [[TheWildWest Wild West]] Show, so as expected, he spins some tall tales. He even gets called out on it. (His skill with a six-gun, however, is not exaggerated.)
98	* An episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' ("Hocus-Pocus and Frisby") features a backwoods man named Frisby who continually tells tall tales. When he tells the townsfolk he was abducted by aliens, they believe he is just CryingWolf--even though for once, he's telling the truth! (The whole episode could be a tall tale... from Creator/RodSerling's point of view.)
99	* Inspiration Network's (INSP) series, "The Tall Tales of Jim Bridger", spins some of the mountain man's unbelievable tales.
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:Music]]
103	* "Derby Ram" is about a comically-large ram whose more notable details include horns that reach the moon, eyes as big as soccer balls and a tail that could be used as a church bell clapper.
104	* "The Irish Rover" is about a ship sailing from Cork to New York. In addition to details like the ship having 27 masts and the voyage lasting several ''years'', the description of the cargo gets ever more outlandish with each verse ("five million hogs, six million dogs, seven million barrels of porter..."). The song also conveniently ends with the narrator as the sole survivor of the wrecked ship.
105	* Music/PeterPaulAndMary's "Autumn to May" is about several outlandish animals which the narrator allegedly possessed, namely a dog with fourteen-yard-long legs and ears they could ride on, a clothed talking frog that went sailing in a shoe, flying sheep which delivered gold and candy and a swan which hatched an oyster shell.
106	* Music/SteamPoweredGiraffe's song "Rex Marksley" is about an old West gunslinger in the vein of Pecos Bill.
107	[[/folder]]
108
109	[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
110	* Tales based on fictional characters:
111	** Myth/PaulBunyan, the giant lumberjack, who cut timber all across the continental United States with his blue ox Babe. He is the UrExample, many of the below figures are considered to be [[FountainOfExpies imitators]].
112	** Pecos Bill, the archetypal cowboy, and the love of his life Slue-Foot Sue. Raised by coyotes, rode a cougar, and had a live snake for a lasso.
113	** Alfred Bulltop Stormalong, a giant merchant seaman, who sailed around the world in a clipper so large it nearly scraped the sun and moon.
114	** "Windwagon" Smith, a former sea captain who blew into the town of Westport, MO in a sail-powered Conestoga wagon. Amusingly, though Smith was pure fiction, wind wagons were and are real.
115	** Rip Van Winkle, who drank and played ninepins with TheFairFolk and wound up falling asleep for twenty years.
116	** Annie Christmas, former slave, giantess, keel boat pilot, and strongest woman on the Mississippi.
117	** Crooked Mick, a Australian Paul Bunyan, a swagman and shearer[[note]]who was so fast at shearing that once when he took a break he shore three sheep before he could hang up his shears[[/note]] often associated with the Speewah, a sheep station where everything is unnaturally huge.
118	** Bowleg Bill, a Wyoming cowboy who became a sailor and rode tunas and whales, basically a cross between Pecos Bill and Stormalong.
119	** Joe Magarac, a Croatian born steelworker in Pittsburgh who worked nonstop and was actually made of steel.
120	** Febold Feboldson, a Swedish rain maker in Nebraska
121	** Johnny Kaw, a giant farmer whose plowing formed the Kansas landscape
122	* Actual historical characters that have tall tales built around them:
123	** UsefulNotes/JohnnyAppleseed
124	** John Henry, a steel driver and former slave, said to have been born with a hammer in his hand and died after beating a machine.
125	** Casey Jones, a train engineer who miraculously stopped his train, saving the passengers but getting killed in the process.
126	** Mike Fink, a combative keel boat captain
127	** Daniel Boone, legendary frontiersman
128	** UsefulNotes/DavyCrockett
129	** Jim Bridger was a mountain man in the old West who also spun some tall tales around himself, such as:
130	*** Finding a mountain made of pure crystal, that could magnify far away objects like a telescope
131	*** A petrified forest full of petrified birds that sang petrified songs
132	*** A canyon that was so long it would take six hours for an echo to return to you; he used it as an alarm clock, yelling "it's time to wake up!" before he went to bed at night
133	*** A lake full of trout, that was fed by a hot spring, such that if you caught a trout and dragged it in slow enough, through the hot layer, it would be cooked and ready to eat when you landed it.
134	[[/folder]]
135
136	[[folder:Radio]]
137	* An adaptation of the Baron Munchhausen stories was popularized by radio comedian Jack Pearl in the 1930s, with his character's signature response to any doubts about his veracity- "Vas you dere, Sharlie?"- becoming a well-known catchphrase.
138	[[/folder]]
139
140	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
141	* ''Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Expedition'', a board game from [[http://www.cheapass.com/ Cheapass Games]]. You play members of a Victorian gentleman's club, all of whom are trying to one-up each other with heroic tales of adventure. In fact, all your exploits are entirely fictitious. You've just spent the last few months hiding in a hotel and sneaking out in disguise to scavenge in junk shops for "artifacts" from your "expeditions". The aim of the game is to collect convincing sets of photographs, anecdotes, and artifacts, without being spotted and exposed as a fraud.
142	* ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'':
143	** The "Living Legend" monster is a Tall Tale character that spontaneously comes to life as a result of the ambient magic, which can (and, considering the CrapsackWorld, usually does) have tragic occurrences. Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill are explicitly statted up as examples of the forms taken by the Living Legend.
144	** John Henry is a real character in the Deadlands version of the Wild West. In fact, his hammer has become a magical artifact, and the man himself has returned from the grave as an undead monster called a Harrowed.
145	* The party game called ''The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen'' is based on the art of tall tale telling. Each player in turn tells the most unbelievable (but absolutely true!) stories, with the others trying to trip him up, without calling him an outright liar. Whoever tells the best story wins.
146	[[/folder]]
147
148	[[folder:Video Games]]
149	* The entire point of ''VideoGame/CallOfJuarezGunslinger'': The over-the-top violence so typical in {{First Person Shooter}}s is justified in-story by the manner how said story is presented by Silas, who is both CharacterNarrator and protagonist--namely, as a TallTale to entertain random pub patrons.
150	* In the beginning of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', the CharacterNarrator, Varric, tries to start his story as a tall tale (resulting in a TutorialLevel wherein you control unkillable GameBreaker characters), but is soon interrupted by his listener, who wants to hear the real story. He still occasionally lapses into tall tales later (and is always interrupted again).
151	* Rarely in ''Videogame/TomodachiLife'', a Traveler the player receives via [=Streetpass=] may exclaim that a Mii on the player's island was interested in their "stories" and they want the traveler to visit their apartment and tell more. The extreme number of [[PictorialSpeechBubble Pictorial Speech Bubbles]] that appear strongly suggest that they're Tall Tales due to the over the top natures of some of them (which include being attacked by an octopus, swept up in a tornado, riding in a kangaroo's pouch, or finding a group of {{Lilliputians}}), and the player's Mii believes every word they say.
152	* Your goal in ''VideoGame/WhereTheWaterTastesLikeWine'' is to collect stories of the common folk of America, and then to tell them to other people, planting the seeds for tall tales to grow.
153	* The ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' quest series "The Day that Deathwing Came" features three adventurers with their own stories of how they defeated the dragon, whether it's punching him in the face, throwing him across the ocean, or beating him in a knife fight.
154	[[/folder]]
155
156	[[folder:Web Comics]]
157	%%* The Heterodyne Boys tales in ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' are these. %% Zero Context Example
158	* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in the forty-eighth chapter of ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'', titled "Tall Tales", where a bipedal pink frog tells another creature of the forest about the alleged achievements of the new forest medium, with stories increasingly unbelievable. Then the other character gives the frog [[https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1363 a fairly accurate description]] of [[https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1193 what happened]] when the ''court'' medium first visited the forest, and the frog doesn't believe a word of it. The frog later gets to [[https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1381 ask Annie herself]] about the stories, but accidentally misses out the bits that weren't actually true, so Annie just matter-of-factly agrees.
159	[[/folder]]
160
161	[[folder:Web Original]]
162	* The ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has one such example in [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-5634 SCP-5634]], which is heavily inspired by the legend of Paul Bunyan.
163	[[/folder]]
164
165	[[folder:Web Videos]]
166	* In ''WebVideo/TheAdventuresOfTheLeagueOfSTEAM'' episode "Tall Tails", three League members sit around telling stories of their encounter with a [[KrakenAndLeviathan Kraken]]... some of them being a bit hard to swallow.
167	[[/folder]]
168
169	[[folder:Western Animation]]
170	* ''Series/CaptainBluebear'''s whole shtick. The FramingStory of every episode (done in puppetry) is [[FatherNeptune retired sea captain]] Bluebear telling an improbable sounding tale about an adventure he once supposedly had. Those stories (told in animation) are always {{MST}} fodder for his three very skeptical grandkids.
171	* ''WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyshorts'': Disney has made shorts based on Myth/PaulBunyan and John Henry.
172	* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'': The episode "Short Tall Tales" revolves around Grim telling the [[FracturedFairyTale fractured]] tall tales of Pecos Billy, [[GenderFlip Paula Bunyan]] (Mandy) and John Henry (Irwin), and how he played a part in each of them.
173	* ''WesternAnimation/MollyOfDenali'': In "[[Recap/MollyOfDenaliS1E4FirstFishAMazeIngSnow First Fish]]," Molly wants to catch her first fish so that she can join in the fish story competition her parents and grandfather have going.
174	* ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' had "A Legendary Tail", an episode where the Brain used a computer to combine elements of other tall tales and make one starring himself. He hoped to use this as a way to gain acclaim as a folk hero. However, the resulting tall tale ended with other folk heroes suing the Brain's character for plagiarizing parts of their names (his name, by the way, was "[[OverlyLongName Big Johnny Brain Jones Peachpit Bill Boone Crockett]]").
175	-->'''The Brain:''' The trouble with computers is that they're just too blasted logical.
176	* ''The WesternAnimation/PixarShorts'':
177	** "Mater's Tall Tales" are a modern spin on this tradition.
178	** The short "Boundin'" is a tall tale that features a {{Jackalope}}.
179	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' did "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E21SimpsonsTallTales Simpsons Tall Tales]]", featuring Homer as Paul Bunyan, Lisa as Connie Appleseed, and Bart and Nelson as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
180	* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'': The episode "Tall Titan Tales" has Robin trying to get his teammates into Tall Tales, only for them to tell [[FracturedFairyTale their own versions.]] First, Raven as Paul Bunyan suffering from a painful [[FunWithHomophones bunion]] due to having shoes too small for her and her talking green socks (played by Beast Boy). Next, Cyborg as John Henry, who buys the steam drill after losing to it and goes off into space to fight aliens with a CombiningMecha. And finally, Starfire as Johnny Appleseed who harvests the apples so [[ProducePelting they can be thrown at the forest animals bullying a skunk for its smell]], before giving the skunk its stripes to show it's under protection.
181	* ''[[WesternAnimation/TennesseeTuxedoAndHisTales The World of Commander McBragg]]'', loosely based on Baron Munchausen, consisted of the eponymous [=McBragg=] telling ridiculous tall tales about himself, including digging the Grand Canyon, building the Great Pyramid and digging the Panama Canal. [[ExpositoryThemeTune Or so says the brag of McBragg.]]
182	[[/folder]]

Context Main / TallTale