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"Anyone see what happened?" "Of course not. They were all in the bathroom at the time." — CSI
So one of the characters has a secret, one that they do not want leaking out. Unfortunately, Clark Kenting doesn't always cut it, and some aspect of the secret is going to be glaringly obvious no matter what. So they come up with a unique (and often humorous) excuse.
Similar to A Wizard Did It, but instead of hand-waving some implausible aspect of the series, the character is the one doing the hand-waving to another character.
In the ideal version of the trope, most people accept this because of their built-in Weirdness Censor. When it fails, you get That Liar Lies followed by Implausible Deniability. May or may not involve hesitation. Will almost inevitably accompany any Paper Thin Disguise. Often delivered by a Bad Liar. Suspiciously Specific Denial is a subtrope.
In Real Life, this is the most offensive form of turd polish.
There are no examples in this list.
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Not Advertising
- Advertising, full stop. Most countries have some sort of governmental organisation which is nominally on the consumer's side and normally take gleeful pleasure in getting stuck into various organisations that stray too far into this trope. The campaign and magazine Ad Busters was created specifically to deal with things like this.
- Ads for Internet providers. "Speed" is dubious at best.
- Particularly those offering dial-up enhancements.
- Nowadays, most service providers (especially mobile telecomms companies...) offer "unlimited" downloading. For quite small values of "unlimited".
Not Anime & Manga
- In Inu Yasha, Kagome's long absences are explained by her Grandfather as being the result of various illnesses that are increasingly more and more serious, and which Kagome would not likely recover from so easily had she actually contracted them (such as diabetes, scoliosis and rheumatoid arthritis).
- Worse, the parents of the boy who has a crush on her own an alternative medicines clinic, and he frequently brings her increasingly ridiculous herbal remedies and such. This is often how she learns of her grandfather's latest excuse for her absence.
- In Ranma ˝, all of the Miniature Senior Citizens claim to have been both normal-sized and very attractive (particularly the ultra-lecherous Happôsai and Lukkôsai, who claim to have been dignified, respected Bishonens). This is proven to be false in Happōsai's case (who was, basically, a homely little dwarf with the exact same standards as the present Happōsai) and is likely the same in Lukkōsai's case, but it's implied that Cologne might not be lying. It's true in the anime!
- She's seen in the manga in one flashback at the same time as Happōsai (she forgot that the technique she'd been teaching Ranma to use against Happōsai was one she'd used herself on him). She's certainly normal-sized, and reasonably attractive.
- Problem is, that's her flashback, which makes it somewhat suspicious. Happosai has been repeatedly recalled by others as being short and ugly in both continuities, while the anime has a time travel episode (is that a trope?) that shows young-Happosai as an ugly dwarf and young-Cologne as, basically, Shampoo with dark blue hair.
- Mahou Sensei Negima: The Mages Hand Wave things like people flying, shooting fireballs, or giant demon mecha with "It's CGI." And it works.
- Do note, while this is indeed an example, it only happened in one instance where a few thousand Muggles were already using magic guns and wands to help fight off said giant demon mecha under the guise of being a giant game for the end of the festival. Usually the mages are subtle enough not to need to resort to this or other tricks, while this instance is even more of an example tha the above explains.
- Mai-HiME: After the results of the Power Trio's first encounter with an Orphan, Reito comes to Mai the next day and tells her that they're reporting the collateral damage to the landscape as the result of "a (freak) lightning strike." Suuuure, Reito. Single lightning strikes that set the landscape ablaze in perfectly straight lines happen all the time.
- The characters in Bleach use the injury and illness excuse for their long absences far too often. The fact that up to five of them are missing, all from the same high school class, at the same time makes the lies all the more blatant.
- One of them is Orihime who doesn't even need to lie, since even when she tells the truth everybody assumes it's just her overactive imagination.
- All of the main cast (Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Ishida, Chad) go into school. They explain their injuries with "I fell down some stairs." No one believes them, which is kind of understandable considering that Ichigo in particular tends to acquire lots of really impressive sword wounds.
- We also have Shinji Hirako referring to each cute girl he meets as "his first love ever". Suuuuure.
- As seen in the picture, Onsokumaru of Ninin Ga Shinobuden is a floating yellow ball with arms, yet for some reason Shinobu believes him when he claims to be a hawk.
Not Comics
- From Dilbert:
Dilbert: Why have you ignored my request, Ted?
Co-worker: I was killed by a squadron of giant military squirrels.
Wally: He doesn't respect you enough to tell a plausible lie.
Dilbert: I demand a plausible lie!
Co-worker: Okay, maybe I wasn't killed by giant military squirrels. But I was imprisoned in their secret lair at the center of the earth.
Wally: You can't prove that one either way.
Dilbert: He did say it was a "secret" lair.
Not Films — Live Action
- First Charlies Angels movie: Alyx and her actor boyfriend are rehearsing a "bomb defusing" scene, and Alyx lets slip some technobabble. To cover it up she says, "Isn't it amazing what you can learn on the internet?"
- In the second X-Men movie, Bobby Drake presents Wolverine to his parents (who think he's been attending a normal prep school) as "Professor Logan." This in itself is borderline, but when the Drakes ask Wolverine what he teaches, he replies tersely, "Art." The trailers for the film played this to maximum effect by intercutting the question and the response with a shot of Logan, claws extended, screaming and leaping towards the camera.
- Whole point of the Neuralizer in Men In Black.
Agent J: Thank you for participating in our drill. Had this been an actual emergency, y'all woulda been eaten. 'Cause you don't listen. How's a man gonna come bustin' through the back of a subway — it's the same with all y'all New Yorkers! You think you've seen it all, "ooh, another six-hundred-foot worm, save us mister black man!" I ask y'all nicely to move forward to the next car, but you just sit there like... *flash* Thank you for participating in our drill. We hope you have enjoyed our shorter, more energy-efficient subway cars. Watch your step; you will have a nice evening.
- In Star Trek IV The Voyage Home, Kirk claims that Spock's odd behavior is due to him doing a lot of "LDS" during the sixties.
- Wait... Spock was a Mormon???
- Iron Man: "Nothing to worry about, just a training exercise."
- The Dark Knight has a dramatic version of this. Batman takes the blame for crimes that he couldn't have committed to save the city. Of course there's Batman's usual fear thing.
- There is also a stream of far less dramatic blatant lies from Gordon earlier in the movie:
Harvey Dent: Lightly irradiated bills. Fancy stuff for a city cop. Have help?
Lieutenant Gordon: We liaise with various agencies.
Harvey Dent: Save it, Gordon. I wanna meet him.
Lieutenant Gordon: Official policy is to arrest the vigilante known as "Batman" on sight.
Harvey Dent: Mm-hm. And what about that floodlight on top of MCU?
Lieutenant Gordon: If you've got problems with malfunctioning equipment, I suggest you take them up with maintenance, counselor.
- The many explanations to which the local police in Hot Fuzz chalk up the horrific murders in the town of Sandford are blatant lies. This is underlined when Nicholas Angel has go along with the stock explanation for a local woman's brutal murder (which took place in front of him): "She tripped and fell on her own shears."
- In Mystery Men, The Bowler's father supposedly died when he "fell down an elevator shaft onto some bullets".
Not Literature
- In the Harry Potter series, the Dursleys claim Harry has gone to "St Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys" to their fellow Muggle neighbors to explain his long absences at Hogwarts. Marge approves, and asks whether they still use the cane.
- When asked directly by Harry what he saw when he looked into the Mirror of Erised, a mirror that shows one's greatest desire; Dumbledore claims to see "a pair of thick, woollen socks". We find out later that this is patently false, though at the time Harry doesn't know whether to believe it.
- In the classic novel Gladiator, when his Army superiors ask for an explanation of his superhuman powers, Hugo Danner does NOT speak of his father's medical experiments. Instead, he simply says, "I'm from Montana."
- Because most of the people in The Dresden Files are deeply in denial, large amounts of crap can be made up without anyone noticing. For example, a magical diagram to redirect a curse onto its originator is "Feng Shui", and Murphy once suggested calling in Homeland Security on the Denarians' demon-possessed asses by saying they're "terrorists with advanced biotechnology suits." However, this also gets Double Subverted in "Turn Coat" when a security guard insists on taking Harry's staff, which he says is "traditional Ozark folk art": not because he knows that the staff covered in mystic runes has, in the past, been used to blast a rampaging hell-werewolf all the way through two buildings, but because he thinks Harry could smack someone with it. Of course, Harry has been known to do just that at times.
- In Making Money, Moist asks why Mrs. Lavish keeps two loaded crossbows on her desk. The answer is "family heirlooms". He notes that a lie so blatant is clearly meant to make a statement rather than be believed.
- In Thud!, a fight nearly breaks out between a troll and a dwarf officer. Commander Vimes enters the room to find a table overturned, and the potential combatants being restrained by their fellow officers. He asks who's going to be the first to "tell me a huge whopper". Nobby Nobbs obliges by offering up an utterly preposterous explanation about how the dwarf almost drank some (dangerously chemical) troll coffee, and the others rushed to stop him. Vimes pretends to buy it, and the others pretend to believe that he buys it.
- Much of what Nobby Nobbs does involves this trope. He has been seen using the excuse that his "granny died" in order to get out of work. When directly asked by Colon, he says that this is about the twentieth one it happened to.
- In addition, Watchmen seem to be expected to have that particular excuse, having been given three afternoons off for grandmothers funeral's a year.
- Johnny and the Bomb shows that it's possible to appear out of thin air, claim you're looking for the pottery club, and let everyone's Weirdness Censor do the rest.
- Earlier, Johnny notes that the phrase "We're doing a school paper" seems to grant you all sorts of access, and that Hitler could probably have conquered all of Europe by claiming it was school research.
- Twice in the X Wing Series novel Wraith Squadron:
- The Wraiths, pretending to be the crew of a warship, are on that warship's mission, touring planets aligned with Warlord Zsinj. The captain dies while they are capturing his ship, and at some point a planetary governor hails them and wants to talk to that captain. Improvising, the squadron's actor pretends to be a lieutenant and says that the captain is in the bath, dictating his memoirs. When the governor states his confusion, the actor roars that Captain Darillian has to budget his time; he's not some planetary governor who can skim taxes with one hand and pick his nose with the other!
- Later, the Wraiths' actor, "Face" Loran impersonates that captain with the help of his full-holo Captains Log. Most of the people who they met either hadn't known the man or had barely met him and knew little of him other than his melodrama and ego. But then the actor talks in depth to Darillian's immediate superior, making him suspicious when they turn out not to know something the captain should. He gets out of this by furiously improvising, again, and telling the admiral, as the captain, that it's been a very long time since he was home. The admiral knows that, and that the captain's family died thanks to Isard. The actor, as the captain, continues to improvise and tells the admiral that he was in love with Isard, and was wildly conflicted and distracted by this. Going off on a tangent about her, the actor fascinated the admiral long enough that he forgot about his suspicions and almost fell into the Wraiths' trap.
Face: Thank you, thank you. Performances every hour, on the hour. Imperial madmen a speciality.
- In Solo Command, during Wedge and Han's "mutiny of anonymity", the various crew off-duty refused to refer to one another by their proper name and rank, or allow people who did into their section. The preferred address was "person who looks like [so and so]". Wedge explains:
"not-Wedge": Who do you think I am?
Face: Um... Commander Wedge Antilles, New Republic Starfighter Command?
"not-Wedge": No no no no... if I were Antilles, I'd be wearing proper rank insignia, wouldn't I?
- Another from Wraith Squadron, when Wedge breaks up a fight:
Phanan: We were discussing the finer points of a specific hand-to-hand combat maneuver... Wedge: Flight Officer Phanan, how many times do you think I've heard that "we were talking about a boxing move" excuse?
- And of course, there's Starfighters of Adumar.
- In one Heinlein novel (Starman Jones?), the main character questions one of his friends about the contents of some boxes the friend has smuggled aboard. The friend claims they're tea cosies, which he's importing as "skullcaps for pinheads". Not so much.
- The standard disclaimer included on the copyright page in pretty much every work of fiction, such as: "All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental."
Not Live Action TV
- In Human Target, Winston is faced with disarming a remote timer, which will trigger enough C4 to level the building around him. Faced with two wires and no clue, his only hope is Geurerro, a seedy freelance agent he calls over the phone... who doesn't have a clue either.
Winston: *hearing something 'plink' in the background* Did you just flip a coin?!
Guererro: ...No.
- In Sliders, whenever the team lands on a new world and has to explain why they don't know what's going on, they use the excuse "We're from Canada." We've hardly ever seen it fail.
- You'd think, given the horrible dystopian places they frequent, there'd be at least one where Canada was destroyed and the blatant lie didn't work. NOPE!
- Who'd mess with Canada? It's like picking on the kid who is completely average in every way. "Oh yeah! Well you're middle class!"
- Plus, the last nation to attack Canada ended up with its capital burned to the ground (though the war itself was a draw).
- Although one time they had to pretend to be illegal immigrants from Canada the entire episode, who had snuck south into Mexico for work. (Thanks to the non-existence of America in the middle, and Mexico ending up with California.)
- In the famed Harlan Ellison penned Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" where Kirk and Spock travel back to the Great Depression, Kirk tries to explain Spock's vaguely alien appearance by saying he's from China; then he has to justify his pointed ears by claiming he fell into a "rice picker" as a child.
- In an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, Data, having been transported back through time to 1893 San Francisco, explain his uniform and skin color with the excuse that he's French. The fact that he can speak French fluently helps.
- Another TNG ep has Data in the holodeck in a pastiche of the 1920s or thereabouts; he explained his skin tone with "I'm from South America."
- When stranded on another planet, he said he was from the mountains. This is justified in that the villagers have never met anyone from the mountains but assume they are very different from themselves.
- To be fair, Data had his version of amnesia, and was told by the villagers that he was from the mountains and was an "Iceman".
- The classic Coneheads (a Saturday Night Live sketch) one: "We are from France." This was initially an explanation for why they hadn't paid taxes in years, but was later turned into a Beam Me Up Scotty for the sketches.
- Amusingly, though there's no actual city or village by this name, "Remulak" sounds plausible as a town name from southwestern France (but it would be likely spelled "Rémulac").
- In Pushing Daisies, when Olive questions Chuck about why she and Ned don't touch each other (because Ned brought her Back From The Dead, and she would die again if he did):
- In Stargate SG-1, the Stargate Program and the SGC is officially "Analysis of Deep Space Radar Telemetry." Carter's father, Major General Jacob Carter, obviously didn't believe her in "Secrets".
- Which leads to the hilarious event where Sam was receiving a medal for saving the world —with deep space radar telemetry.
- Carter, being a physicist, is at least plausible. O'Neill, who's explanation for everything is "magnets" makes this even more of a blatant lie when he talks of the cover. Consider that he's a retired Air Force Colonel who took part on several special forces mission and came back from retirement to work with... Deep Space Radar Telemetry.
- In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cameron can't get through the metal detectors in the school she attends. John explains this away off-handed by saying she's got a metal plate in her head, believed because of Cameron's odd behavior (which is technically true, though John neglects to mention that her entire head is metal plates). Later on, when a guidance counselor calls Sarah to comment on Cameron's... odd behavior around the campus, she explains that a tornado did it.
- Probably a rather subtle Wizard of Oz reference on Sarah's behalf. The series is peppered with them.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer was full of this: "gangs on PCP" (group of vampires); "slipped and fell on a barbeque fork" (vampire bite resulting in loss of blood, consciousness, and memory); "office broken into by a pack of wild dogs" (students possessed by hyenas eating the principal); "neck rupture" (vampire bite); "gym full of asbestos" (full of vampires)... By the sixth season, it's gotten to the point where the official line is "Mayhem caused; monsters definitely not involved."
- It was on fullest display during Anya and Xander's wedding, where the various demons sitting on the bride's side were explained as being "circus people".
- To be fair, Sunnydale was founded by an immortal who created the town specifically for demons to feed on its inhabitants, so there's probably some mystical explanation. See Weirdness Censor and Sunnydale Syndrome
 .
- On the new Doctor Who series, it's stated at the end of "World War Three" that Blatant Lies are used at first, along with people's natural Weirdness Censor, by the British government and UNIT to paper over the Doctor's various adventures. In a later subversion of the trope, it's ultimately shown that no one in London is buying what Downing Street is selling anymore, to the point where the city is nearly deserted on Christmas Eve in Voyage of the Damned due to a sudden pandemic of Genre Savviness.
- Used for dramatic effect in the series finale of The Wire. Dukie hits up Prez for some money, saying he's going to take a GED. Prez points out that he's too young to take that test but acquiesces anyway, and they part on the unspoken agreement that Dukie is about to spend his life as a homeless drug addict and they will never see each other again.
- Used often in Smallville during the earlier seasons, when any questions Clark Kent was asked about his interest in the caves or any Native American symbols that were related to his Kryptonian heritage were met with "It's for a term paper" — to the point where Lex Luthor himself actually lampshades it later.
- In fact, at one point Clark uses it as an offensive tool, saying he wanted to write a term paper on a project Lex was funding, which Lex had lied about earlier prior to Clark's finding and dismantling it.
- In The Middleman, used to explain away both their identity and any of the situations they get into.
- In Being Human, Mitchell and George's landlord wonders why their flat is almost entirely empty, the real reason being that George is a werewolf and accidentally destroyed most of the furniture when he transformed the night before. Eager to make up an excuse, George gives a long rambling explanation about minimalist living. The landlord says he would have just figured they were redecorating.
George: ... That would have made more sense.
- This is supposed to be what sets Whacked Out Videos apart from other, similar shows. It doesn't work.
- Commandant Klink gets so many Blatant Lies fed to him by Hogan that he should just put on a bib every time the colonel comes into his office.
- Forever Knight's
Nick At Night Nick Knight tells his coworkers he has an unfortunate combination of light sensitivity and food allergies to explain away why he's never seen during the day and doesn't eat... food.
- To be fair both these statements are 100% accurate, they just don't mention the underlying cause.
- One episode features the other characters finding wine bottles full of blood in Nick's refrigerator. He claims he uses the blood to thin paint.
- Dead Like Me has George using every excuse she can to get out of work for her reaps. Plausible the first few times I am sure but it is a very consistent thing for years.
- When asked what service Jayne, the ship's resident amoral mercenary, provided, Capt. Reynolds responds: "Public Relations."
- It gets worse. He was asked what Jayne did on the ship because Jayne had just told Mal, "You don't pay me to talk pretty."
- In one Primeval episode Jenny "explains" a prehistoric crocodile on a rampage in central London as a charity fun-run gone wrong. This is one of her more plausible explanations.
- Lost's Benjamin Linus does this almost constantly. Perhaps most notably when he is asked how he was able to bring Locke's father to the Island, he responds that he summoned him using a magic box.
- If you listen to Ben a lot you realize that he lies just for the hell of it, such as when he tells Jack his mother taught him to read or said he was a Pisces. Even when the truth would be fine, he lies anyway.
- In the Top Gear truck driving challenge, Richard Hammond's cargo (a small car) had fallen out of the trailer during the alpine course. Afterwards, when Jeremy Clarkson showed up:
Jeremy Clarkson: This is totally... so anyway, how was your car?
(beat as May and Hammond exchange glances)
James May: Car's...
Richard Hammond: (interrupting May) Stolen! That's what it is, I've just thought of it now: stolen. The damnedest thing.
- Top Gear throws out lies like this on a regular basis, especially if a host thinks it'll make their car (or cars in general) sound better. After one challenge where a train, bike and motorboat beat a car across London during rush hour, all three hosts banded together to claim that the footage had been edited, going so far as to claim that the Thames didn't exist and Jeremy Clarkson had died violently during the race (stated by Clarkson himself).
- Happens somewhat in Knight Rider. Michael Knight made up various stories about who/what both KITT and himself are during the run of the show. On the other hand, a surprisingly large number of guest stars, after displaying initial shock and surprise, accepted the idea of a talking, sentient supercar surprisingly quickly. Far better than Michael himself did despite being hand-picked for the job.
- Several villains even point out "Up until X years ago, Michael Knight didn't exist". They don't really find this too terribly odd beyond the mention, but given the frequency this happens you'd think The Foundation would have found a way to fix that in the background check systems.
- The Janitor loves this trope. One of the most memorable, when he was explaining how he knew sign language:
Janitor: I used to hang out at the zoo a lot, and there was this one gorilla who knew sign language. I learned it so I could talk to him. Well it turned out he only knew a few words. Big. And boobs. He liked'em big and hairy. But I always remembered him, because he inspired me.
J.D.: Was any of that true?
Janitor: Someone would have to read it back to me.
- Red Dwarf's Kryten Subverts this trope somewhat by audibly engaging his "Lie Mode" software:
Rimmer: Kryten — will this work?
Kryten: Lie Mode. (pause) Of course it will work, sir. No worries.
(winks to Lister) Hook, line, sinker, rod and copy of Angling Times, sir.
- Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch.
- Happens too many times to count throughout Blackadder, but some of the more memorable are when Blackadder single-handedly rigs an election in the third-season opener.
Announcer: The Acting Returning Officer, Mr. E. Blackadder, of course. And we're all very grateful, indeed, that he stepped in at the last minute, when the previous Returning Officer accidently brutally stabbed himself in the stomach while shaving.
(and again, moments later...)
Blackadder: I took over from the previous electorate when he, very sadly, accidently brutally cut his head off while combing his hair.
- Like they live and breathe, they use Blatant Lies on Hannah Montana. Even lampshaded on occasion (usually by Lilly).
Not Music
- The Rasputina song "Our Lies" exemplifies this trope, with the singer variously claiming that she was never conceived, the bones in her face weren't there all along and that she loves your coffee cake.
- Shaggy's song "It Wasn't Me", about a man caught in flagrante delicto by his girlfriend, has a Blatant Lie as its title.
- The song Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens has a bunch of people trespassing on a farmer's land, and when the farmer hears them and shouts "Who's there?" they reply with the title of the song.
Not Tabletop Games
- The notion within Warhammer 40000 that there is a time and place when there will be enuff dakka.
- The Imperial Truth "there are no supernatural things or gods", yeah sure...
- In the RPG Spycraft, a 10th level Faceman has the ability to tell one bald-faced lie that can't immediately be proven false and must be believed. "The sky is purple" is legitimate as long as they aren't outside or near a window.
- In In Nomine, Balseraphs (fallen Seraphim) have the power to make people believe any lie they speak. They suffer for it if they themselves actively disprove the lie (such as saying "I won't shave your head" and then doing just that) but other than that, they're consummate liesmiths. Their angelic counterparts, on the other hand, can recognize any lie spoken, so they don't get along too well...
- The other catch to the Balseraph's power of lying is that they have to believe their own lies.
- In Nobilis, the same concept goes even further. An Excrucian Deceiver (a type of Cosmic Horror Mole) can tell one person a Blind Lie. While they don't have to believe it, they become totally incapable of perceiving any contradictory evidence. No. Matter. What. If the lie is "I won't hurt you." and then he starts smashing the victim in the face with a war mace? The victim will neither see nor feel it.
- In Unknown Armies many different magic styles have ways of getting people to believe anything. An avatar of the Demagogue can convince anyone by talking to them for a while, a cliomancer (history mage) can make a person think they "heard it somewhere before", etc.
- Epic level characters in Dungeons And Dragons can gain enough ranks in certain skills that it's possible to mimic the effects of magical compulsion just by talking to someone. A rogue can theoretically make up anything and be believed.
- Even without epic levels, in D&D 3.5 a specialist can do things which seem impossible. A nineteenth-level Half-Elven diplomat using skill synergy, feats, and equipment can talk a person from fighting mad to best friend in the middle of a fight. And that's without using some of the prestige classes which are available. (The actual level required to pull this off is somewhat lower, but I don't have the math handy.)
- Old Half-elf Binder 1/Marshal 1. Bind Naberius, take the Motivate Charisma aura, have a Charisma of 20 thanks to age effects, full ranks in Diplomacy, a Synergy skill, take Negotiator at 1st level and find a magic item that boosts your Diplomacy check by 1 or more. You can talk someone from "actively trying to kill you" to "would put in a good word for you" as a standard action with no chance of failure. You need to be a bit higher to persuade someone to switch sides mid-battle, but you can end fights automatically from a very early point.
- Incarnate (for the Silvertongue Mask soulmeld) and Warlock (for the Beguiling Influence invocation) are also good one-level dips for a diplomat. And as long as the character is a half-elf, the first Bard substitution level is useful as well.
- In Scion, characters with divine Manipulation abilities can function as both consummate liars and lie-detectors.
- In a bit of a twist, in Exalted Sidereal have a charm that causes the target to take a possibly truthful statement as being a blatant lie.
Not Theater
- Louisiana Purchase has an entire song explaining how the show is not a thinly veiled satire of a certain politician, but a work of utter fiction, set in New Orleans, "a city we've invented so that there would be no fuss./If there is such a place/It's certainly news to us."
Not Web Original
Not Web Comics
- In El Goonish Shive, when the girls (plus Justin) have a sleepover at Susan's:
Susan: What's to explain? My hair changed color. It happens!
Nanase: Hair doesn't just spontaneously change color!
Susan: I stand by my ridiculous claim.
- It later turns out that in this world, hair spontaneously changing color is an officially recognized medical condition, albeit only as a part of The Masquerade. Lampshaded as a Brick Joke that took far too long to pay off.
- In Misfile, Rumisiel's presence is explained as being Ash's Canadian exchange student live-in boyfriend. Since the story takes place in Massachusetts, this is regarded as being a little implausible to say the least.
- In Sluggy Freelance, after a 50-foot-tall Aylee runs through the suburbs causing mass destruction, she retreats into her shell and tries to pass herself off as a volcano. When the mob chasing her wonder how a volcano wound up in New Jersey, Aylee tells them global warming did it. Everyone finds this perfectly plausible and never question the fact that a volcano just answered their question.
- Because it's a global warming volcano and therefore not subject to the normal rules of a volcano.
- Red Mage and Thief use this in 8-Bit Theater when Ranger asks why they betrayed his group:
Thief: Ghosts.
Red Mage: Aliens.
Thief: Ghosts Aliens.
Red Mage: Who possessed us.
Thief: From space!
- But if there were ghost aliens, they would definitely do their possessing from space.
- Penny Arcade:
- Buck Godot engages in a bit of this toward the end of the Psmith storyline (warning: spoilers!) toward the end, when he alternates between telling Psmith one thing and Der Rock the precise opposite, in front of them both.
- DM of the Rings: Walking sticks.
- In Questionable Content, comic #499, Jeph writes in his little blurb at the bottom of the page "Comic number 500 is Monday. I don't have anything particularly special planned, but who knows."
- In The Order of the Stick, Haley explains away the gigantic sack she brought back from scouting the dungeon as "feminine hygiene products". Her male associates don't quiiiite have the nerve to call her bluff on this one, despite gems and coins being plainly visible at the top of the sack.
Not Western Animation
- In earlier episodes of The Fairly Oddparents, whenever Timmy would wish for something he would be completely unable to obtain under non-magical circumstances, he claims he purchased it off the Internet. In one episode, while trying to explain why he was suddenly rich, he tried both an inheritance claim, and the usual claim, before settling on "I inherited the Internet!"
- That particular example eventually becomes a subversion as in later episode that follows the friends he told this to has them not buying it.
- Another version, with singer Chip Skylark: "What? Dude, how'd we get here so fast?" "Um... the power of music?" "Rock on!"
- The peak, however, has to be Superman-esque HEAT VISION being accepted as coming from the Internet...
- Weirdness is turned Up To Eleven when Vicky wants to get married to Chip Skylark. Where does she find a justice of the peace willing to marry a pop idol to his crazed teenage fan against his will? "On the Internet!"... Which implies that you really can get anything and everything on the Internet.
- In Invader Zim, Zim claims his green skin and lack of ears is due to a skin condition. This is to assist in his Clark Kenting more than anything else.
- That exchange continues:
Dib: And he's got no ears! Is that part of your 'skin condition', Zim? No ears?!?
Zim: [hesitates, looking sad] Yes.
rest of class: Awww...
- Similarly, when one of Zim's contact lenses slips, revealing his pink, alien eye: "Have you never heard of... "PINK EYE"?!?!
- Also inverted in this exchange:
Zim: Be gone with you! I've had enough of your nonsense from your smelly mouth filled with... corn!
Dib: But I'm not eating corn...
Zim: (pause) LIAR!
- In Lilo and Stitch: The Series, both big-boned aliens Gantu and Jumba (the latter of which has four eyes, and the former has the head of a shark) claim to be from Samoa, thus explaining their size. People believed it.
- Stitch knows Car Fu, is smarter than everyone on the island combined, can walk on walls AND IS BLUE!... he's totally a dog. A weird dog, granted, but a dog nonetheless.
- And Pleakley is a woman, and Jumba's wife... until it was revealed semi-publicly that he actually wasn't either. The show doesn't really go into details later on, probably due to the Unfortunate Implications it would cause in-show. So, either Keoni and his dad kept their mouths shut about the whole thing, or Jumba and Pleakley being seen as a gay couple to the public, to hide their identity as aliens, is the Elephant In The Room for the Pelekai family.
- In Johnny Test, Dukey the talking dog is explained as being "a kid with a weird hair disorder".
- In The Simpsons, Principal Skinner constantly uses these against Superintendant Chalmers, which Chalmers somehow always buys. Perhaps the greatest example, in which Skinner claims light from his burning kitchen is "Aurora Borealis":
Chalmers: Aurora Borealis? At this time of year, at this time of the day, in this part of the country, LOCALIZED ENTIRELY WITHIN YOUR KITCHEN?
Skinner: Yes.
Chalmers: May I see it?
Skinner: No.
Chalmers: Oh well.
- On the DVD commentary for 22 Short Films About Springfield, the writers acknowledged that this was pretty much Superindendant Chalmers' only joke, and they just repeated it over and over again for comedic effect.
- Lisa tries to make friends by not acting like her normal self in "Summer of 4 Ft 2", and accidentally uses the word crustacean in conversation. When asked if she heard it from a teacher, she says she got it from Baywatch.
- WordGirl, being a superhero Affectionate Parody, uses this in practically every episode through the title character's alibis alluding to her heroic identity.
- How is Code Lyoko NOT an example on this page? During any XANA attack while the gang is in class, they would ask to go to the infirmary. EVERY. FREAKING. TIME. You'd think that after, let's say, the millionth XANA attack and infirmary excuse the teachers would get a little suspicious that they weren't sick.
- Somewhat averted in the first season, when they would use a Return to the Past to erase the events of that day; so, the teachers wouldn't remember most incidents (though obviously Jim noticed).
- Three words: Good news, everyone!
- On Jimmy Two Shoes, whenever Heloise does something that Jimmy disapproves of, she puts on Puppy Dog Eyes and says something along the lines of "I feel bad about it now." Even Jimmy doesn't fall for it.
Not Real Life
- Politics. "Great masses of people fall to a great lie much easier than to a small one"... OK, the source of this quotation is not the best, but this doesn't reduce its truth.
- And in fact, he wasn't the source of that quotation: it was stolen from a manual on propaganda he read while employed as an agent for the German army. (That entire chapter was plagiarized; it's the reason why it is so much better written than the rest of his book.)
- Another political example: "I did not have sexual relations with that women." (Clinton) Although that could qualify as a Jedi Truth, because he was only counting vaginal intercourse as 'sexual relations'.
- During the 2003 US Invasion of Iraq, Iraqi information minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf became famous for statements like "The cruise missiles do not frighten anyone. We are catching them like fish in a river."
Waldorf: This is an excellent page!
Statler: I have absolutely nothing to criticize here!
Both: Do-ho-ho-ho-hoh!
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