Cassandra Truth / Western Animation

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• The Simpsons
• South Park

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A-D

• In The Amazing World of Gumball, Gumball gave an excuse to Miss Simian that their dad ate their homework. No one really believed it until the end when Richard confessed that he really did eat their homework.
• In one episode of American Dragon: Jake Long, Jake is trying to get some money off Rotwood, so he takes a picture of himself as a dragon and gives it to him. Rotwood tells him that the picture is clearly a hoax, as it's too good for an amateur to take. So Jake gives him clippings of his claws and scales, but he still refuses. Why?
  Rotwood: Everyone knows that dragon claws glow in the dark, and their scales have the faintest hint of lavender.
  Jake: [disgusted] That's crazy! You wouldn't know a dragon if it took a bite out of your butt!
• Amphibia: In "True Colors", Sasha discovers that King Andrias, far from The Good King he presents himself as, is a vicious tyrant looking to use the Calamity Box to invade other dimensions, including Earth. Unfortunately, because of her history of lies and manipulation and being complicit in an ongoing toad coup, alienating Anne and Marcy as a result, her attempts to reveal this fall on deaf ears until it's too late.
• On Animaniacs, cartoons featuring Chicken Boo revolve around this concept. Chicken Boo, a giant chicken wearing human clothes, shows up as a renowned expert in some field. Exactly one person immediately sees through the Paper-Thin Disguise and is exasperated that no one else will believe that "He's a chicken, I tell you, a giant chicken!" In one of the first Chicken Boo stories, "The Man with no Personality", it's possible that the townsfolk thought the Cassandra-Man of the story was accusing Boo of being a coward. Fortunately for the individual, at the end of every segment, Chicken Boo always gets exposed as the fowl he is, allowing them to get the last laugh.
• Played with in Atomic Betty, Alpha Bitch Penelope has discovered the existence of the Galactic Guardians on multiple instances; from messing with Betty's bracelet, to reading one of her "captain's logs", to even receiving a letter from her future self detailing everything. However, she quickly dismisses all of these things as being elaborate pranks or part of Betty's publicly known space obsession on each occasion, preventing the need for Betty to take the extra effort to dissuade her or anyone she'd tell.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • Jet goes through this when trying to warn people that Zuko and Iroh are firebenders that are trying to infiltrate the city. After spending several days trying to get proof, he loses all credibility when he decides to suddenly attack them in front of a bunch of customers to get them to firebend in defense, which leads to his capture and Brainwashing by the Secret Police. The sad thing was, in that instance he was wrong in his fears. Those firebenders weren't trying to do anything evil. It just makes the second season ending really ironic.
  • In Jet's first appearance, Sokka also went through this while trying to convince Aang and Katara that Jet planned on wiping out a village just to take out some Fire Nation soldiers stationed there. Jet's plan would have worked as even the towns people didn't believe him until the elderly man that Sokka saved earlier backed him up.
  • In The Legend of Korra, Korra tries to tell the Earth Kingdom military guys that are imprisoning her that Zaheer wants to kill the Queen, but they don't listen to her because she says (paraprashing), "a terrorist in the Spirit World told me".
  • Also happens to Mako when investigating an explosion everyone attributes to the Northern Water Tribe but which he believes Varrick is behind. Leads to him being thrown in prison due to a Frame-Up.
• In one episode of Back at the Barnyard, everyone thinks Freddie's psychotic nature had gone overboard when several attempts are made on their lives, not believing his claim that his Demonic Dummy Mr. Jinx (actually termites from the tree the dummy was made from who want revenge) was behind them, even locking him up after he frees them from cement Mr. Jinx trapped them in. It wasn't until Mr. Jinx made his final attempt on their lives where he revealed himself do they realize that Freddie was telling the truth, to which Mr. Jinx replied, "Thanks for not believing the little guy".
• At the end of the episode of The Batman "Riddled", after the Riddler has been taken into custody, he tells Chief Rojas that Detective Yin is working with Batman. Rojas calls him a lunatic and tells the other officers to get him out of his sight. (Rojas had a good reason not to believe him; he had not seen Batman at all during the whole crisis, and had no idea that the hero was involved, so by his reasoning, the idea that the criminal could know something like that was absurd.) Riddler had, of course, given a riddle. Rojas ordered Yin to solve it, prompting her to flat out state "Riddler says it's me," instead of trying to mislead him.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • In "I've Got Batman in My Basement", two kids save Batman from the Penguin. They take Batman to their basement to recuperate. When the kids are asked what they are doing, one of them matter of factly replies: "We just saved Batman's life Ms. Grant. Now we're hiding him from some bad criminals." Ms. Grant, thinking they're playing around, says "That's good. Just don't make a mess."
  • In "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne", Hugo Strange discovered Batman's identity. When he tried to reveal it to the Joker, the Penguin, and Two-Face, all three thought the idea of Batman being Bruce Wayne was absurd. (The Joker's reply was, "And people say I'm crazy!") Two-Face said he didn't believe it because he knew Wayne and figured he would have known if Wayne were Batman. Indeed, as Harvey Dent he was a close friend of Bruce (and apparently took his Secret Identity at face value).
  • "The Man Who Killed Batman": Charmingly inept crook Sidney Debris becomes famous throughout the underworld for killing Batman (not) — but his fame attracts thugs who want to claim his title and a murderously angry Joker. Unfortunately, when he goes to Rupert Thorne for help, his story only convinces the latter that he's playing dumb to get him.
    Thorne: You think I didn't hear rumors of the third-rate stumblebum that wiped out the Batman? And now you expect me to believe that you accidentally made a fool of the Joker? No one's that lucky OR stupid!
    Sidney: Yes, I am! Honest!
• Batman Beyond
  • "The Winning Edge" had Terry investigating the use of slappers by several athletes in his high school. He steals several slappers from the locker of an athlete named Mason, intending to have Bruce Wayne analyze them, only to have the slappers fall out of his backpack. Terry truthfully insists that he found them in someone else's locker, but between that being a farfetched excuse and Terry being tired and irritable lately (due to his work as Batman), his mother doesn't believe him and grounds him. Thankfully, Bruce runs a blood test that clears him.
  • "Sneak Peek" has a Jerkass reporter who can pass through walls managing to get video of Bruce Wayne working with his protege, Neo Gotham's new Batman, Terry McGinnis. When Terry sees their pixelated faces on the news and his family excitedly gathering around the TV to find out just who Batman is, he feels that it would be better if they hear it from him rather than some gossip news reporter who got lucky. They laugh in his face.
• Uncle Ted starts dating a woman in an episode of Bobby's World resulting in Bobby getting jealous because Uncle Ted now doesn’t have time for him. Then while the family is out at the store, Bobby catches Uncle Ted’s new girlfriend stealing. When he tries to tell everyone, they don’t believe him, chalking it up to his jealousy... that is until she turns up on the news that evening, wanted for being a habitual shoplifter.
• The Boondocks: Huey frequently warns those around him when danger is afoot, but no one ever listens to him, though he is aware of this and has a folder made specially for the instances where they do decide to listen to him titled "I told you so". Huey is very much a Conspiracy Theorist and is often inadvertently Crying Wolf. You can't blame people most of the time.
• Cathedral (Documentary): Master Guillaume warns Bishop Gervais that the stones from his family's quarry are of low quality and unsuitable for use in the construction of such a great cathedral as Notre Dame de Beaulieu. These same stones kill him later on, just as he had warned.
• In Central Park, Season 1 "Squirrel, Interrupted", when Bitsy reveals to Ambrose's family her plan to buy Central Park, they just humor her and thinks she's crazy. Brendan is the only one who takes her plan seriously.
• The plot of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers episode "Seer No Evil" is built upon this trope, right down to the bug who offers predictions to the Rangers being named Cassandra.
• Code Lyoko: On the occasions where the Warriors have to tell others about what's going on, it usually takes a lot of effort to get them to do anything to help them, and usually even that doesn't happen. Pity that it's too risky to not erase their memories afterward. The most notable example is the second episode, "Seeing is Believing", where Yumi tries to convince the principal and some firefighters that XANA is launching an attack on a nuclear power plant. Nobody believes her.
• Danger Mouse on the Orient Express has DM and Penfold swiping an important manuscript from Baron Greenback in Venice. Penfold loses the manuscript to a fish in the Grand Canal, but when he tries to tell DM, Colonel K and even Greenback's agents this, nobody believes him. It's only when that fish is served to Greenback for lunch on the Orient Express that Penfold's alibi is verified.
• The Deputy Dawg Show: a contest to see who can tell the tallest tale (or in their vernacular a "Whopper") is underway. Deputy Dawg is late because of a flood caused by a giant catfish. When he explains this to others as his reason for being late, they think it's the biggest whopper of all, thus winning the contest.
• In the DuckTales (1987) episode "Where No Duck Has Gone Before", no one believes Launchpad when he says that they're in space.
• In the DuckTales (2017) episode "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!", Scrooge protests that he spared no expense to try and save Della, but Dewey and the others don't believe him because he's so cheap. Turns out he nearly bankrupted himself to find her, draining his money bin for ten years until the Board forced him to stop.

F-P

• The Fairly OddParents!
  • This is the premise behind Crocker. He knows that fairies are real and that Timmy has them but has been driven insane by his inability to get anyone in his town of idiots to believe him.
  • This was preceded in the Oh Yeah! Cartoons era, with a short where Vicky desperately tries to bust Timmy for the things he does alone, but Cosmo and Wanda foil her at every turn.
• On Family Guy, no one believes Peter when he says he heard the world was going to end at midnight from a chicken-man. Since the episode was All Just a Dream, it wasn't real anyway.
• The Felix the Cat (Joe Oriolo) episode "Felix and Vavoom Go Fishing"(1960) is built around a combination of this and the Aesop Fable "The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf".
• Hilariously done in The Flintstones episode "Ten Little Flintstones". When Fred tries to explain that his odd behavior is the result of aliens using ten clones of him to invade him and he stopped them, everyone laughs, Wilma thinking it's stress from his diet and saying he can forget it. Fred is upset for a few seconds, but then realizes Wilma said he could go off his diet.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "Infernal Slumber", Bloo has a Slumber Party at Mac's apartment against the latter's wishes (on a school night, no less), and the noise from the party wakes up Terrence. Mac and the Imaginary Friends manage to convince Terrence that he's dreaming, but the next morning, Eduardo accidentally leaves the photos he took behind and breaks a hole in the ceiling of Mac's apartment to get them. In The Stinger, Terrence tells his and Mac's mom that the damage to their apartment's ceiling was caused by Mac and the Imaginary Friends, who had a sleepover there last night. Given Terrence's reputation as a troublemaker, his mother doesn't believe him and tells him that he is grounded.
• Futurama:
  • Played with in "Fry and the Slurm Factory". Professor Farnsworth reveals the dark secret of Slurm to the government and at first he is believed, but Fry covers it up saying "Grandpa's making up crazy stories again." Farnsworth replies he's not his grandpa and Fry is his uncle from the twentieth century, which only made the authorities believe him less.
  • In "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", Fry was the only person who could maintain conscious thought during the brain invasion. After the brains leave, nobody else can remember the invasion, and nobody believes Fry when he tries to tell them what happened.
• In Gravity Falls, Dipper Pines (and to a lesser extent, Mabel Pines) often try to inform their Grunkle Stan about the weird goings on in the town, but Stan always brushes the claims off as them being imaginative kids – even when he's literally confronted with a bottomless pit or pterodactyls.^note In the latter case, his retort is that dinosaurs aren't supernatural, they're just big lizards. Ultimately subverted, as he's perfectly aware of the odd stuff, and his feigning ignorance was him hoping that they would get the hint and stop chasing the supernatural.
• In Guess How Much I Love You: An Enchanting Easter, none of Little Nutbrown Hare's friends believe that he saw Little White Fawn, not even Little Field Mouse. It's not until the end of the special when they see him for themselves that they finally admit that they were wrong.
• Hazbin Hotel: Charlie's idealistic dream that her hotel can redeem demons is met with universal mockery in Hell. Heaven rejects it as a possibility and insists on continuing the Exterminations of sinners. Beyond her girlfriend Vaggie, not even the staff of the eponymous Hazbin Hotel or it's first guest think it's possible. Her father Lucifer, King of Hell, thinks it's hopeless as he's tried before it and none have ever managed to ever ascend to heaven. The average demon is simply an unrepentant asshole. Yet her exhausting idealism actually works on Sir Pentious whose genuinely changed by all this forgiveness and friendship talk to willingly go out in a Heroic Sacrifice for the Hotel, with him popping into Heaven as a newly minted angel right in front of it's leadership.
• Hey Arnold!
  • A hilarious example involves Curly and a football game. Every time the team leader attempts to make a play during huddle, Curly tells him to "Just give him the ball". After being ignored multiple times, Curly irritates the leader so much that he lets him have the ball. During said play Curly then uses his subsequent ballet lessons to his advantage, plié-ing away from others to avoid being tackled, making a touchdown. This makes his team very happy, until Curly runs off into the distance, still holding the football and laughing maniacally.
  • A more serious example involves Arnold, Gerald, and Sid discovering a bag full of cash, and the next day on the bus Arnold gets it mixed up with a group of birdseed bags carried by an old lady with pink hair, a peg leg, and one eyebrow. Sid immediately accuses Arnold of stealing the money for himself and refuses to believe a word from Arnold's mouth. Doesn't help Arnold's case that evidence keeps stacking up against him. After Sid turns the entire school against Arnold, the old lady comes back to confirm Arnold's story and clear everything up.
• Invader Zim: Dib is the only human who instantly recognizes Zim as an alien dangerous to humanity. A Running Gag throughout the series involves him trying to reveal Zim's true species to the world, only to have no one believe him, either due to Dib acting too crazy to be believed, through Zim's counter actions to protect himself, or the people in the Invader Zim world being drooling morons. Interestingly, Dib's sister (Gaz) also knows full well Zim is an alien, but says almost nothing about it. Mostly because she believes (with quite a bit of justification) that Zim is too incompetent to be a threat.
  • One noticeable example where just after Zim claimed himself to be a human at school, his giant alien boss comes through the ceiling and jetpacks with him away. Dib tries to finally get the students to open their eyes but all they noticed is the bird poop that just landed on Dib's jacket.
  • While Zim would normally be somewhat justified in ignoring GIR, in "Walk for Your Lives" the robot makes a valid point that returning a city-wide explosion to the normal flow of time isn't a good idea. In this case, the ignored truth is common sense.
    GIR: But won't it just explode? Just like this KA-BLAM!
    Zim: Do not interrupt me when I am being INGENIOUS!
• Jackie Chan Adventures: Jade often tries to tell her class about her and Jackie's adventures, but they never believe her and accuse her of having an overactive imagination. She sometimes tries to get Jackie to vouch for her, but he refuses since he is trying to maintain a normal life and Masquerade. In one episode, her classmate Drew witnesses one of her adventures and tries to tell others, but they won't believe him either.
• In Jamie's Got Tentacles!, Mr and Mrs Walsh never believe their daughter Praline's claims that Jamie is an alien.
• Episode 88 of Kaeloo had Stumpy claims that Smileyland's sheep are all aliens, and they once abducted him in a spaceship. Naturally, the others laugh at him, at least until the aliens try to attack them. The end of the episode, however, is pure Mind Screw: It is revealed that Stumpy imagined the whole thing, but the next day he is seen as an actual victim of the alien's Mind Control.
• Similarly, the Canadian cartoon Kid vs. Kat falls under this when an alien-looking cat ends up being taken in (and accidentally stranded on Earth) by an unsuspecting family. Save for the son, Coop, who's rightly convinced the cat has evil intentions leading into conflicts between the two. However, most of their scuffles end up with Coop holding the bag and no one believes him when he tells what really happened.
• King of the Hill
  • When Bobby Hill tries to tell his father about something he's proud of himself for doing, Hank dismisses him because he is so used to Bobby's disappointments as a son.
  • When a snipe hunt gone wrong results in an endangered crane being killed, Boomhauer tries to confess to a park ranger and the gang thinks their cover's blown. The ranger can't understand him and just tells them to carry on.
  • Another episode has a variation, where Peggy correctly guesses events but gets the motives behind them wrong. Bobby damages Peggy's lawn gnome, and Hank uses this as a pretext to get rid of it; when he confesses, Peggy thinks Bobby is to blame for the whole thing. Later Hank buys a replacement gnome and lets Bobby give it to Peggy to smooth things over; again, Peggy assumes that Hank took pity on Bobby and got the replacement as an apology.
• Littlest Pet Shop (2012):
  • Usually played straight, to the point that it's one of the main premises of the show, with Blythe, who can talk to animals. Either she doesn't directly tell other people that she can talk to pets since she knows they won't believe her, or she does try to tell them, but it is so incredible that no one believes her (as seen in "Sweet (Truck) Ride"). Usually, the former happens, and if she even hints to other humans that she can talk to pets, she'll try to work her way around not sounding like a Cloud Cuckoolander.
    Blythe: [to her friends] I, well, when I say "talk" I mean... in their little animal language. You know, hehe... [animal noises] Oh, those pets. They're just so cute and... "non-verbal", hehe.
  • Subverted by the end of Season 3's "The Secret Recipe" when Blythe feels that she needs to reveal her ability to someone, and they do believe her.
• My Adventures with Superman: In "episode two" Superman finally agrees to take an interview with Lois. It's very short because he admits to her that he barely knows anything about his origins, how his powers work or what he is and he's still figuring all that out. When Clark talks to her right after she confidently calls Superman a liar.
• In My Goldfish is Evil, Beanie is the only one who knows that his pet goldfish Admiral Bubbles is in fact an evil genius bent on taking over the world. Unfortunately, because everybody else dismisses him as paranoid, he's the only one able to stop Admiral Bubbles' schemes.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
    • Subverted when Princess Celestia responds to Twilight Sparkle's discovery that Sealed Evil in a Can Nightmare Moon is about to escape her confinement by telling her to get her head out of her books long enough to make some friends. Ultimately, though, the case proves to be that Celestia knew that Twilight was the one in the best position to defeat Nightmare Moon, and sent her to a place she would potentially make the friends she needed to fully use the Elements of Harmony.
    • Later played straight in "Swarm of the Century". While everyone else is trying to drive the Parasprites out of town, Pinkie Pie is running around looking for instruments, without telling anypony why. At first she's just passed off as being 'typical Pinkie Pie', and eventually yelled at for getting in the way… until it turns out the only way to get rid of the Parasprites is to lure them away with music. Of course, it didn't help that Pinkie never actually told anyone what she was doing...
    • Zig-Zagged in the season 2 finale. Twilight feels that Princess Cadance isn't acting like the Cadance she's known since she was a filly. Her friends don't believe anything is wrong. After Twilight witnessing Cadance perform a spell on her brother, she is convinced that Cadence is evil. Turns out the Princess Cadance that had been preparing for the wedding was the Changeling Queen in disguise.
  • My Little Pony: Make Your Mark: In "Bridlewoodstock", Pipp organizes the first music festival in Bridlewood during Lumi-Bloom season. However, she ignores Izzy and the unicorns' warnings about the Troggles, which only come out during Lumi-Bloom and curse anypony who makes noise near them, and dismisses them as a superstitious belief. It turns out they were right all along when the music festival, indeed, attracts the Troggles, which steal everypony's voices.
• Occurs in an episode of The Penguins of Madagascar. While on night watch duty, Private consumes too many sugary snacks and ends up on a serious sugar buzz, when he sees a "sky orca" (shortened to "skorca"). He tries in vain to convince the other three penguins, both of whom only look for it when it's not in the air. They even fake being attacked and carried off. Later on, they (along with the lemurs and Joey the Kangaroo) find it and defeat it for real, unaware that it was actually a parade float.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Candace Flynn suffers from a severe psychosis because she can't convince her mother that her little brothers make a habit of violating the laws of common sense, physics, or current technological progress. Every time she tries to expose them, some remarkably convenient plot device, typically related to whatever scheme Doofenshmirtz is conducting concurrently that day, eliminates the evidence just as their mother arrives on the scene. Her mother has commented on this being a delusion, making it reasonably close to an accurate adaptation of the original portrayal.
    • For that matter, she doesn't believe Phineas and Ferb when they actually supported Candace's claims with mere evidence, merely assuming they're "imaginative". Actually a subversion, as it seems Linda's the only person in Danville that doesn't know about at least one of Phineas and Ferb's projects. (With the exception of the animal translator in "Interview with a Platypus", where she thought that it was cute but didn't get suspicious at all.)
  • Mirroring Candace's problem (but not getting so worked up about it), Heinz Doofenshmirtz's daughter Vanessa can't convince her mother Charlene that he's an evil Mad Scientist, though Charlene is quite aware that Heinz has built up a few inators that can function well, even complimenting his own robot assistant Norm for his tuxedo look.
• On Pinky and the Brain, one of Brain's standard replies to suspicious people is to state exactly what he and Pinky are and what they are trying to do. Nobody believes it or seems to find it odd that they're talking with mice.
  Security Guard at the White House: Aren't you a little small to be wallpaper hangers?
  Brain: Actually, we are two lab mice trying to take over the world.
  Security Guard at the White House: Oh, you silly wallpaper hangers. Go on in.
• In The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode "Keen on Keane", Ms. Keane, a cat owner, gets angry at the Professor when he admits he hates cats. When he explains to her that he hates them because one made him jump off a building (a reference to an earlier episode, "Cat Man Do"), she doesn't believe him. Which is pretty ironic in that, with all that happens in Townsville, an evil cat seems pretty plausible.
• In The Proud Family episode "Thelma and Luis", when Papi is sent to a nursing home called Happy Endings, he learns it's not a real nursing home after his family leaves, but a front for an illegal okra plantation where the residents are enslaved. The kids learn the truth the next day, but when they return with their parents to investigate, they don't believe them (bonus points for Papi's daughter-in-law, Sunset, a police officer), because the staff had already hidden any and all evidence supporting their claims. However, of the adults, only Suga Mama believes the kids; what tipped her off about Happy Endings being a scam was the Boulevardez family's trait of having abnormally big feet (as noted in an earlier episode, "Love Thy Neighbor"), and the feet of the Papi they saw being pampered, who was, in fact, a staff member disguised as him to cover up the operation, were way too small.

Q-Z

• On Ready Jet Go!, whenever Mitchell tries to expose Jet, nobody believes him:
  • This was first seen in his debut episode "Mindy's Moon Bounce House", but instead of trying to expose Jet, he tried to tell his mom that he saw Mindy floating by on a kite string, but then Mitchell's mom just says that she's glad that he has such a "wonderful imagination"
  • In "Kid-Kart Derby", Mitchell tried to expose Jet before the race even started, by claiming that he put some sort of alien technology into his kid kart (Jet borrowed some junk from the DSA for his kid kart), but Jet gets off the hook because Mr. Peterson tells Mitchell that what Jet did was "recycling"
  • Expertly played with in the TV movie "Back to Bortron 7". In order to keep the Propulsions' alien identity a secret, Jet 2 has to project a hologram of their house so that no one would notice that they were gone. However, Jet 2 later has trouble keeping the hologram stable, which leads to it glitching. Mitchell even stays up all night to prove to his parents that the Propulsions are aliens from another world. However, when he takes his father outside, the hologram is perfectly fine, which leads to Mr. Peterson scolding Mitchell for waking him up at 2:00 AM. When the Propulsions are just about to land back on Earth, the hologram disappears completely, and then Mitchell tries to expose Jet's secret to the entire population of Boxwood Terrace, however Jet 2 causes an eclipse which distracts the townspeople from seeing the Propulsion house land back on Earth. Mr. Peterson scolds Mitchell again, telling him that he has quite an imagination, but Mitchell claims that he has no imagination.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show: "I TOLD YOU I'D SHOOT! BUT YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE ME! WHYYYY DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME?!"
• In RollBots, no one believes Spin that Vertex is actually a Spider, and they have even greater difficulty believing that he is the one orchestrating all of Flip City's crimes. Only when Vett appears does anyone consider Spiderbots a viable idea, but only Penny accepts that Vertex might be a criminal mastermind. However, it turns out that Captain Pounder and Ms. Appie knew the whole time.
• In "Pay Happiness Forward" from Shelldon, Shelldon and Herman both try to warn Connie that Mr. Kraken has commandeered her "pass it along" so that it is no longer really about helping people but rather about his own profit. They're absolutely right, however, she pays them no attention because both of them were complete jerks to her before, openly dismissive of her project and even laughing at her about it.
• Sofia the First: In "The Floating Palace", when Sofia tells her family that her mermaid friend Oona was kidnapped by a sea monster (actually Cedric in disguise), they don't believe her and they brush it off as the mermaid story she read in her book. She asks Clover and Farley for help instead, who readily believe her because Clover was there when Sofia first met Oona.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: In the episode "Identity Crisis", Venom has revealed that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. The common reactions throughout the large cast of the show are laughter, disbelief, and momentary consideration ("it would explain a lot...").
  Aunt May (looking around for hidden cameras): Am I being punked?
• In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, a group of villains working for the Kingpin kidnapped Aunt May, leaving a ransom note demanding that Peter send Spider-Man to their headquarters. The plan worked, but when they overpowered Spider-Man and unmasked him, only the Rhino believed at first that they had caught the real Spider-Man. The rest all thought that Peter had been unable to find Spider-Man and had come disguised as him. (The fact that Spidey had temporarily lost his powers and had put up a pretty pathetic fight was probably the biggest reason.) In fact, Silvermane was disgusted with the Kingpin for "doing nothing but grabbing a harmless old woman and her nephew", which he didn't seem to take well...
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost", Squidward finally confesses to SpongeBob that he was never a ghost and was just pretending to mess with him. SpongeBob, being the idiot he is, misinterprets this as him simply being in denial about being a ghost and needing to be sent to the Great Beyond to rest.
  • When SpongeBob pulled out the Golden Spatula in "Neptune's Spatula", Neptune laughs every time someone says he pulled it out because he wasn't the type of fry cook he imagined would be. When Patrick showed Neptune the picture he took of SpongeBob pulling out the spatula as proof, Neptune relents, but still refuses to let SpongeBob cook for him because he thinks he lacks any quality of a royal fry cook.
  • In "I'm with Stupid", SpongeBob pretends to be stupid so Patrick can appear smart for his visiting parents; unfortunately, Patrick begins to believe SpongeBob really is stupid, and when he tries to remind him it was their plan, Patrick just assumes SpongeBob was imagining. When SpongeBob goes to confess to his parents that he's not really stupid, they just take it as Patrick teaching him to cooperate and laugh, prompting SpongeBob to scream in frustration and run out.
• On Stanley, this happens with Stanley on those occasions when he excuses his actions regarding something Great Big Book related by simply telling the truth.
  Stanley: I have to go chase after a snake.
  Mrs. Griff: (Beat) Oh, Stanley, don't joke with me like that. You know I hate snakes.
• In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Jannanigans", Star, Marco, and Tom need to learn how Janna managed to get to Mewni earlier that season, something that they dismissed at the time, thanks to the usual methods of inter-dimensional travel and communication no longer working. Janna claims repeatedly that she can't remember, which no one believes since she's The Gadfly. They angrily insist for her to take a universe spanning crisis seriously after following her for an entire day, before she snaps back at them and they realize she's telling the truth and is actually doing her best to recall. By continuing, they finally learn that she got there via the memory-wiping Magic Realm.
• In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Darth Maul attempts to warn Ahsoka of Anakin's fate but she assumes that he's either lying or mistaken due to her unwavering faith in him, even after Maul has a Villainous Breakdown over knowing exactly what's going to happen but being powerless to stop it.
  Maul: You're all going to burn! We're all going to die! You don't know what you're doing!
• Star Wars Resistance: In the second half of the first season, when the First Order begins to increase their presence on the Colossus, Kaz's warnings about the danger to his friends Tam and Neeku initially fall on deaf ears, especially Tam, to Kaz's considerable frustration. Tam's belief that the Order isn't evil ultimately leads to her siding with them after Kaz and Yeager's Resistance ties are exposed, as master manipulator Agent Tierny gets her to doubt them for deceiving her.
• An episode of Superman: The Animated Series had Clark Kent reveals his identity to Lois Lane to explain how he gets every hot story in town. Naturally, she doesn't believe him, and he has an understandable moment of smugness.
  Lois: I'm confused, Kent. See, I've lived in Metropolis most of my life and I can't figure out how some yokel from Smallville is suddenly getting every hot story in town.
  Clark: [looks side to side, then beckons her closer] Well Lois, [lowers his glasses] the truth is I'm actually Superman in disguise and I only pretend to be a journalist to hear about disasters as they happen and then squeeze you out of the byline.
  Lois: You're a sick man, Kent. [leaves]
  Clark: [with a sly smile] You asked.
• Lance warns the King of Galaluna about the invasion in the Whole Episode Flashback of Sym-Bionic Titan and is dismissed as a lunatic. Said invasion shows up not long after. Earlier, in another Whole Episode Flashback, Lance as a child was grabbed from his bed and dumped in the hall in his underwear. The headmaster of the academy treats it as if Lance did this deliberately, despite the student body being well-aware of Baron's Jerkass behavior.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987):
  • In "The Old Switcheroo": Splinter and Shredder accidentally swapped bodies when they were hit by a mind transfer machine during a fight against one another. After being almost discovered by Krang when he brain scanned him, Splinter in Shredder's body decided to go to the Turtles for help in getting back to his real body. Although the Turtles realized that something was wrong because of how they know their master, they weren't convinced when Splinter in Shredder's body arrived as they believed he was really their enemy. Despite his attempts to get them to understand that he was not really Shredder but Splinter, the Turtles still didn't believe their master. However, Splinter was able to convince the Turtles that it's really him but trapped inside Shredder's body.
    Splinter*in-Shredder's body*: Wait! (the Turtles ready to fight) you must listen to me.
    Leonardo: Not a chance Shredder.
    Splinter*in-Shredder's body*: Please tried to understand. I'm not really Shredder. I'm Splinter.
    Michelangelo: Heh heh. You must think we're real airheads.
    Splinter*in-Shredder's body*: Listen to me, Turtles. I have always taught you to look beneath the surface for the inner truth. (the Turtles listen in astonishment) See with your hearts, not with your eyes. Then if you still do not believe me, do with me as you will.
    Donatello: You know, call me crazy, but somehow (putting his weapon down) I believe him.
    Raphael: If you're crazy, (both Michelangelo and Leonardo putting their weapons down) then you're not the only one. (putting his weapons down)
    Michelangelo: Count me in, too, dudes.
    Leonardo:(putting his weapons away) It's good to have you back, Master Splinter.
    Splinter*in-Shredder's body*:(sees that the Turtles believe him) It is good to be back.
  • In Zach and the Alien Invaders: Zach got carried away about alien invaders when he read comic books about them. However, seeing one for real, Zach tried to convince the citizen, the Turtles and his family about seeing real alien invaders but no one believes him. After being sent to a military school, Zach notice that the school is where the alien invaders were headquartered then called the Turtles for help. Despite not being entirely convinced, the Turtles do get suspicious that something was wrong as Michelangelo and Donatello went to the military school Zach is in order to investigate. However, while there, Michelangelo and Donatello realized that Zach was telling the truth about alien invaders being on Earth. While heading over to the military school on the Turtle blimp, Leonardo and Raphael see the spaceship, after the alien were defeated by the kids at the school, Zach, Michelangelo and Donatello, as they realized that their friend was right about the whole thing. After that, Zach was given an apology from everyone for not believing him about being alien invaders.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), none of the other Turtles believe Michelangelo when he claims that there are robots with brains in their chests.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • Toad the brake van sees a whale stranded on the beach, but Oliver doesn't believe him. It isn't until later when Oliver sees rescuers trying to return the whale to the water that he realizes his mistake.
  • Discussed in "Skiff and the Mermaid". Skiff believes a mermaid is coming to Arlesburgh Harbour after overhearing The Fat Controller. Duck doesn't believe him, but Oliver and Toad, remembering their experience with the whale, give him the benefit of the doubt.
• The first case of a Near-Villain Victory in ThunderCats (1985) came in an early episode where the whole team was ambushed and taken hostage by the mutants in a plan that Mumm-Ra had likely devised. They just overlooked one thing: Snarf, who was usually thought of as the Team Pet. While the mutants were celebrating this apparent victory, Ssslith (likely the smartest member of the group at the time, before Vulture-Man came along) started to have doubts and pointed out that they should have considered him; but the others scoffed and told him not to bother. In truth, Snarf managed to be braver and more resourceful than they thought (in fact, he was eavesdropping on them at that very moment and found out the heroes were being held at Mumm-Ra's pyramid) and the fact that he had been overlooked was likely why he was able to sneak in unnoticed, grab the Sword of Omens, and untie Lion-O. (Once he did that, he could simply take a breather and watch as the main team handled Mumm-Ra and all of them smashed their way out.)
• This video mercilessly parodies the use of the trope in an episode of the original Transformers.
  Chip: Megatron's cheating!
  Jazz: Shut the fuck up, Chip!
• When Jack's mother, June, angrily asks him why his motorcycle (actually Arcee) has been out when he's supposed to be grounded on Transformers: Prime, Jack decides to come clean and admit that he's partnered with a transforming robotic alien being who's fighting a shadowy war against the Decepticons. When June doesn't believe it (due in part to Arcee's refusal to transform and back him up), she grounds him worse. Later in the episode, June is kidnapped by the Decepticons, and while rescuing her, Jack goes, "I can explain!" before thinking a moment and adding, "Wait, I already did."
• Tuttle Twins: Karrine, who has been spying on Grandma Gabby, is also trying to expose her. She tries to convince the people around her that Gabby can travel through time and space using her wheelchair, but to no avail.
• In Xiaolin Showdown episode "The Last Temptation of Raimundo", after being told not to use Shen Gong Wu for a couple of days, Raimundo disobeyed orders but he did it because his hometown was in trouble and used them to save it. However, everyone doesn't believe his explanation, except for the last part, when Raimundo got discover. When Dojo went to his hometown, they realize that Raimundo was telling the truth and felt horrible for not believing him.
• In World of Winx, Lorelei, who had replaced Bloom as co-host of the Reality Talent Show WOW!, discovers that the other Winx are fairies, so she tries to expose them on tv, but nobody believes her, particularly show host Ace, and she winds up getting fired.

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