History Main / MoonLandingHoax

** During the Apollo era, NASA contractors had of [[https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4205/ch6-4.html mockups of space hardware at their factories]] for purposes of testing of equipment and procedures and for training astronauts. U.S. TV networks regularly featured these activities in their coverage of the program.

* The music video for [[https://youtu.be/8XK7nzAW_b0 "Rocket Fuel"]] by Music/DJShadow and Music/DeLaSoul depicts a faked moon landing with Creator/StanleyKubrick directing it, only for the astronauts to physically fight eachother on-camera, with Richard Nixon and UsefulNotes/LeonidBrezhnev also fighting during the live broadcast.

* ''Series/AdamRuinsEverything'' covers this topic in "Adam Ruins Conspiracy Theories", complete with a "re-creation" of the "set" (where the director, though he is not mentioned by name, is of course Creator/StanleyKubrick). As is standard for his series, actual experts are brought in to explain the subject at hand. The expert explains that it was ''technologically impossible'' to stage the moon landing, using the fact that all the shadows in official pictures are completely parallel to each other, as there was only one single light source located 93 million miles away. Shadows produced by lighting in a sound stage would be conical from one point of origin, and the only way to replicate the same effect as the sun would be to use millions of lasers that could only be produced individually through huge bulky machines, and they could only be red lasers back in the 1960s. They also point out the fact that they would've had to prevent 400,000 NASA employees from talking about it, and that the broadcast was picked up in numerous countries across the planet, including the Soviet Union, who would've done anything in their power to prove it was faked just to stop from being one-upped by their Cold War enemies.

* Referenced in the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' manga story ''[[Manga/TouhouBougetsushou Silent Sinner in Blue]]'': Reference materials about the Apollo program are surprisingly easy to find in Gensokyo. According to shopkeeper Rinnosuke, this is because of all the conspiracy theorists who think the lunar landing was faked, which caused the idea to pass into the realm of fantasy -- which is what Gensokyo literally is. In ''Legacy Of Lunatic Kingdom'', it's inverted: the reason Clownpiece wears American flag clothes is that it reminds the Lunarians of the time humans landed on the Moon, which acts as a living BrownNote to them (humans being mortal and therefore impure).

* [[DefiedTrope Defied]] in Daryl Cunningham's ''How to Fake a Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial''.
* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'': In a comic book story, Boris and Natasha fake a moon landing to claim ownership on Pottsylvania's name. [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with the moon landing previously done by the Americans. Because the Americans never claimed ownership of the moon, it doesn't matter if Americans really landed on the moon or not.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WebComic/{{XKCD}}'' has done a [[http://xkcd.com/258/ few comics]] about [[http://xkcd.com/1074/ the topic.]]

* [[AllThereInTheManual According to some of the side materials]], in the ''WebComic/DrugsAndWires'' universe, the belief that the moon landing was faked has become so widely accepted that the most prevalent nutjob conspiracy theory is now "the US really ''did'' land the moon".
* Gus from ''WebComic/RoosterTeethComics'' is a ConspiracyTheorist who actually ''does'' believe the US landed on the moon. [[spoiler:He believes the Vikings got there first, though]].

* As part of the ''Website/CollegeHumor'' ConspiracyKitchenSink video, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbl-vMN2gzo "Deceptive Deceptions,"]] the moon landing was faked by Usefulnotes/{{NASA}} to hide that the moon is really [[spoiler: a prehistoric hologram that hides an enormous starcraft behind it.]]

* ''WebSite/SFDebris'' made a crack about this when one of his put-upon characters claims that the moon landing was faked -- ''on the moon.'' "That's why it looks so real!"

* In ''WesternAnimation/CaptureTheFlag'', a billionaire wants to use his rocket to claim the Moon and its resources, so he states the Moon landing was a hoax while secretly planning to destroy all proof of the Apollo landings.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', during a fight scene between Rick and the President in "[[Recap/RickAndMortyS3E10TheRickchurianMortydate The Rickchurian Mortydate]]", the two of them end up fighting their way through numerous historical events that were staged underneath the White House. Among them include the Lunar Lander and planting the flag on the moon. The government also apparently actually carried out the murder of Music/TupacShakur, and staged [[WhoShotJFK the JFK assassination]], the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext George Washington crossing the Delaware]].

* The [[WebVideo/CorridorDigital Corridor Crew]] Youtube channel, as part of a series in which professional VFX artists analyze and comment on effects work in famous movies, released an AprilFoolsDay video called "VFX Artists React to the Moon Landing". It's actually a serious exploration of how the images in the moon landing footage ''can't'' have been faked with the technology available in the 1960s, drawing on technical details like depth of field and what shadows can tell the experienced eye about the light source that created them, and comparing real footage with the best contemporary VFX from movies like ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''.

** "[[Recap/FuturamaM4IntoTheWildGreenYonder Into the Wild Green Yonder]]": While using his telepathy to search for the person who is the Dark One, Fry picks up some thoughts from UsefulNotes/RichardNixon's [[BrainInAJar Head in a Jar]]. (It should be noted this line verges on VoodooShark territory, but then again it was also noted by Nixon's head [[SanitySlippage his sanity decreased as a result of being stuck a a head in a jar]]...)

** "[[Recap/FuturamaM4IntoTheWildGreenYonder Into the Wild Green Yonder]]": While using his telepathy to search for the person who is the Dark One, Fry picks up some thoughts from UsefulNotes/RichardNixon's [[BrainInAJar Head in a Jar]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "Phantom of the Telethon", After the UsefulNotes/{{CIA}} loses funding for torture equipment, Stan hosts a {{telethon}} to raise money needed to continue. He opens up to the audience with a joke.

[[folder:Film]]

* During the TravelMontage in ''WesternAnimation/{{Minions}}'', the Minion tribe casually wanders through the sound stage and interrupts the filming of the moon landing. It was also directed by a Creator/StanleyKubrick lookalike.

* ''WesternAnimation/InsideJob2021'' zig-zags this. America really ''did'' land on the moon in 1969, but had to fake the return because the astronauts didn't want to come back to Earth, instead founding a free-love commune on the satellite. Revealing this to the world would have been far too embarrassing, so Cognito Inc. was tasked with building a Hollywood set, getting Stanley Kubrick to film a fake landing, and having crisis response actors replace the real ones in their day-to-day lives.