"Superintendent! I was just... just stretching my calves on the windowsill. Isometric exercise. Care to join me?"
— Principal Seymour Skinner, The Simpsons, "22 Short Films About Springfield"
A character is moving or positioned in an unusual way, and somebody else is wondering what they're up to. However, the character does not want to reveal what they're really doing, because it's secret and/or embarrassing. Thankfully, there's one solution: pretend they were dancing or exercising! After all, when people dance or exercise, they take up all kinds of positions.
There are many situations where a character might tell this lie. They may be on a secret mission or doing something that has to be kept secret from this particular character. They may be afraid or itchy (perhaps with an Inconvenient Itch) or have squirrels in their pants but are too embarrassed to say so (in the case of squirrels in their pants, they may also be trying to keep the "squirrels" secret). If it's two people, they might be having sex or fighting and don't want to admit it (the former especially if a child walks in on them). They might also be trying to reach something prohibited and claim they're doing Yoga.
Sometimes, this lie is believable to the characters observing them. Other times, it may count as Blatant Lies. Compare Covering for the Noise. Compare and contrast Accidental Dance Craze for when they never pretended they were dancing but everyone believes they were anyway. If it leads to other lies (e.g. "What are you doing?" "Yoga." "In a three-piece suit?!" "Everyone does that where I come from." etc.), that can lead to a "Fawlty Towers" Plot or Snowball Lie.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Comic Books
- Titeuf has a strip where the title character sees his parents lying on each other in their underwear. When asked what they're doing, they claim to be exercising and start doing pushups. The last panel has Titeuf telling his friends that grownups don't actually have sex, it's just gymnastics.
Fan Works
- Creamed Cherries is a Bambi fanfic, parodying the "Skinner and the Superintendent" skit from The Simpsons episode "22 Short Films About Springfield". Like the actual skit, a character (in this case, Bambi) lies that he is stretching his legs because he doesn't want another character (in this case Faline) to realise the lunch is spoiled. However, unlike the actual skit, Bambi is climbing a log to reach a tree, whereas in the skit, Skinner was climbing out of his window.
Films — Animation
- Antz: When someone steps on Z's foot at a dance, he leaps in the air, exclaiming, "Yowch!". Then, to cover it up, he tries to make it seem like a dance move by saying, "Yowch!" again while doing finger guns.
Films — Live-Action
- In 21, Ben's friends see him standing on his bed: in fact, he has been hiding his huge Las Vegas winnings. Ben hastily explains he is just jumping up and down on the bed and asks if they never did the same when they were kids.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: In Iron Man, Rhodey calls Tony shortly after Tony takes out the Ten Rings in Gulmira, and he notices Tony is out of breath, Tony replies that he was jogging out in a canyon. As he scrambles to cover it up as Rhodey digs more and more, he explains the wind in the background as him driving in the canyon instead, and Rhodey quickly keys into the fact that Tony's up to something, and Tony's forced to come clean.
Literature
- Gangsta Granny has an Exercise Excuse by proxy: when the Nosy Neighbour wonders why Granny is not letting him come into her living room (actually because she and Ben were looking at allegedly-stolen treasure), Ben claims that Granny is doing her "naked yoga".
- Winnie the Pooh: In "Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle", Piglet jumps because he is nervous, then tries to cover it up by jumping more times to make it seem like he is exercising.
Live-Action TV
- The Brady Bunch: Season 4's "Amateur Nite" has a scene where the kids are busy rehearsing their choreography in the garage for an upcoming appearance on a televised talent show. Alice sees them and asks for an explanation, to which Greg and the others hastily explain they're doing calisthenics.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Xander walks in on Spike having sex with a temporarily-invisible Buffy, Spike gives the excuse that he's exercising — doing naked push-ups. He then demonstrates by doing a few more "push-ups", drawing a quiet gasp from Buffy. Xander seems to suspect something but doesn't fully figure it out.
- Variation in The Good Place. In early Season 2, Eleanor's new soulmate (actually a demon helping to torture her) keeps saying "I gotta go work out!" whenever she tries to bring up the subject of her identity. Michael told him this as an example of the type of thing he could say, and assumed he'd know not to use it nine times in one day.
- House of Anubis: One episode saw Sibuna having to practice a specific series of movements in order to cross through one tunnel safely. However, the routine was one that looked very odd out of context. When caught by their teacher, Alfie quickly told her they were just doing an interpretive dance, and then performed a dance for her. This got her to awkwardly move on and leave them be.
- Mimpi Metropolitan: In episode 63, Alan cries against Mami Bibir's fence over the thought that Pipin might love Bambang more than she loves him. When Mami Bibir and Melani come out of the house, Alan pretends he was doing pushups against the fence. Good thing they don't really care and just leave.
- A dance variation shows up in Mr. Bean; while at church, Mr. Bean is trying to get a piece of candy that fell through a hole in his trouser pocket during the singing of a hymn. When the man sitting next to him stares at his movements, Mr. Bean pretends to be dancing to the hymn.
Myths & Religion
- Older Than Dirt: In one of the Anansi the Spider God stories, he is carrying some hot food in his clothes and trying to hide it from some nearby acquaintances. When the hot food falls onto his body and starts to burn him, he leaps around and claims it's a new dance he made up, leading to an Accidental Dance Craze.
Theatre
- The Vagina Monologues: One of the characters gets a call from her mother in the middle of losing her virginity. Her mother asks why she sounds so out of breath, and she responds that she has been "exercising."
Websites
- In this
How To Be A Dad article, the little kid is doing a Potty Dance but claims that they're just exercising because they "like to wiggle sometimes" and "need to keep moving".
- On this list of lies parents tell, one of them was "Mom and Dad were just wrestling."Explanation .
Western Animation
- In an episode of The Magic Roundabout, Ermyntrude is leaping about because she is afraid of mice. However, she is too embarrassed to say so and claims she's doing a traditional dance.
- Inverted in the Martha Speaks episode "Alice Twinkle Toes", where Alice is dancing, but is embarrassed to admit it, so she claims she's trying to reach her swimming goggles.
- In the Peg + Cat episode "The Big Dog Problem", Peg says her catchphrase "This is a really big problem!". However, her mother overhears. Not wanting her to try to help them, Cat lies that she actually said he had a "jig problem" and covers it up by dancing badly.
- Phineas and Ferb: In "Just Passing Through," a mishap with Phineas and Ferb's molecular scrambler leaves Candace with her head and arm stuck through a porta-potty door. She sees Jeremy coming her way and freaks out, but a beam from Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Be-Gone-inator hits the door, leaving her just stuck with her arm in the air. When Jeremy finds her like that, she acts like she was just stretching her arm.
Candace: [reaching to the side] ...And four, and breathe. Whew, just doing some stretching. Oh, hey Jeremy!
- In The Simpsons episode "22 Short Films About Springfield", Skinner is about to go out his window to buy burgers and pretend he cooked them (because he burnt his roast) when Chalmers enters. Skinner claims he was stretching his leg on the windowsill.
- In the What's with Andy? episode "The Very Bad Idea", Andy has secretly tied himself to Danny to fly with a weather balloon, but the wind picks up and blows Danny backwards. When Danny's father asks him why he is going backwards with a rope tied around his waist, he claims he's doing the moonwalk.
