Pinocchio Nose

The nose knows you're lying.

"There are two kinds of lies, lies with short legs and lies with long noses."

— The Adventures of Pinocchio

A character has some specific tell, often a particular tic which gives them away when they lie. Of course, another character is bound to pick up on this.

The Trope Namer, of course, is Pinocchio, whose nose grew whenever he lied.

The first step to becoming a Consummate Liar is to make sure you don't have any of these. These are impossible to hide from a Living Lie Detector. This is how You Can Always Tell a Liar. If the signal is really obvious, the character effectively (though not technically) Cannot Tell a Lie.

See also The Tell for characters with a tell that points to their emotional state rather than their honesty.

Not to be confused with a Gag Nose (except of course that Pinocchio's own nose is an example of both tropes). Nor with "turning into a tengu" (a Visual Gag of a character's nose growing when they act arrogant).

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Examples:

Advertising

• Pinocchio is one of the characters that GEICO uses and, of course, whenever he tells a lie, his nose grows. This causes trouble when he has to speak at a seminar, and his nose grows whenever he points to an audience member and tells them that they have any potential.
• Skittles: In "Tease the Rainbow", a boy has skittles raining out of his ear every time he tells a lie. His friends and mother go out of their way to ask him the king of embarrassing questions no one would be truthful about.

Anime and Manga

• In AR∀GO: City of London Police's Special Crimes Investigator, the titular character has a habit of tugging at his ear whenever he's lying.
• In Chrono Crusade, Chrono realizes something's wrong when Rosette is blackmailed by the villain to go off by herself and follows her. When she asks how he knew something was wrong, he responds "When you lie, you start babbling. I've seen you do it for four years. I know at least that much about you."
  • Interestingly enough, this trope comes into play subtly again towards the end of the manga. When Chrono is trying to hide an ally's death that he can sense in another room, he closes his eyes and forces himself to smile, while babbling to Rosette about how they can celebrate their victory every year together (while she questions him about what's wrong). Eight chapters later, he once again closes his eyes and has a strained smile on his face when he tricks Rosette into taking his hand so he can temporarily "stop" her time and rush off to fight Aion alone.
• In Code Geass, Lelouch Lamperouge and Suzaku Kururugi can tell when the other is lying if they are looking away. Suzaku figures out that Lelouch is lying in his confession of deliberately geassing Euphie to kill the Japanese at the SAZ.
• The Crayon Shin-chan spoof where Shin-Chan plays Pinocchio naturally includes this, as Shin-Chan!Pinocchio finds out after lying to the Gepetto expy about snacking without permission. Being Shin-Chan, however...
  Not-Gepetto: It's no use lying, Pinocchio. Your nose grows whenever you tell a lie.
  Shin-Chan!Pinocchio: Really?
  [looks inside his pants]
  Not-Gepetto: I said your nose! YOUR NOSE!
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Tanjiro can't tell a lie without being so pained that his face contorts.
• In an episode of Digimon Adventure 02, TK's brother Matt is making excuses for the current Digidestined to one of their sisters, and she promptly calls bullshit, claiming people blink a lot when they lie. "Uhhhhh....*blinkblinkblinkblink*" She promises to take his excuse...for a date, much to his defeat.
  • Pinochimon (Puppetmon) in Digimon Fusion has the same quirk as the character he's named for.
• One episode of Hello Kitty Fairy Tale Fantasy^note Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater in the U.S. retells the Pinocchio story, with the same results when Pinocchio lies. There's an additional twist, however—when the fairy says she's helped Pinocchio too many times, and she's not going to bail him out anymore, her nose grows.
  • A similar thing happens to Catnip's character in the same episode, except it's her tail instead of her nose.
• In Kotaro Lives Alone, Kotaro's old friend Tasuku shows up and keeps hitting him up for money, supposedly so help pay for them to move in together. Kotaro goes along with this for a while before informing Tasuku that his finger twitches when he lies.
• In Laid-Back Camp, Aoi's irises will shrink and lose gloss when she tells a lie. Chiaki picks it up, and eventually Nadeshiko picks it up too.
• Mary and The Witch's Flower: As Madam Mumblechook and Doctor Dee's praises of her magic go to her head, Mary starts believing the lie that she does have talent. The tell is Tib, who rolls his eyes.
• Mokku of the Oak Tree: As is common to all versions of the story, Pinocchio's nose grows when he tells a lie. It wasn't used very often, though.
• One Piece:
  • Usopp lies many times throughout the series. Also, throughout the series, his nose gradually grows longer, but it's normally ignored in the show.
  • Luffy is a terrible liar. If he tries to lie, he looks away from who he's talking to, sweats profusely, and barely opens his mouth as if he'd let the truth out if he did.
• Piccolino no Bouken has the actual Pinocchio's nose. It grows when he tells many lies in an impudent way. It needs to be cut by woodpeckers.
• Pokémon: The Original Series
  • When Ash brags about his victories and badges he's won in "Path to the Pokémon League", his nose grows longer because he had barely won any battles and had only two badges at that point. However, it's not a reference to Pinocchio, but rather a yōkai called Tengu, whose long nose signifies arrogance rather than a lie (as what Ash says is technically true).
  • James gets a Tengu nose in "A Way Off Day Off" when he starts boasting about his "foolproof" plan to steal the protagonists' Pokémon.
• Every time Monmon from Zatch Bell! lies, his face will grow longer.

Comic Books

• Flywheels reflexively transformed when he lied in Transformers: More than Meets the Eye.
• Pinocchio uses this method to defeat vampires in Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer.
• Invoked in Action Comics #257: "The Three Wishes". As posing as a fairy to teach a school bully a lesson, Supergirl uses a piece of yeast dough and her heat vision to make everyone believe the kid's nose grows whenever he lies.

Comic Strips

• Senator Bedfellow's nose actually grows while he's being interviewed on television in one Bloom County strip. "Hold it."
• Hägar the Horrible; The horns on Hagar's helmet fall off if he tells a lie to his wife.

Fan Works

• The Best Revenge:
  Snape did not inform Dumbledore that he had long ago twigged to the fact that "dear boy," was Dumbledore's "tell:" the proof positive that he was evading or obfuscating or outright lying. It was too useful to give away.
• In The Betrothal Ginny claims she wants to buy her father a Christmas gift at the office-supply store.
  Sarai: What's your real reason?
  Ginny: What do you mean?
  Sarai: Your nose twitches when you lie, and your nose definitely just twitched when you said you were going to the supply store.
• In Blood Ties Sirius comments to Snape that Remus tends to turn his body away from someone when he's deliberately lying to them.
• Complications:
  Marvolo knew he was lying due to Dumbledore immediately going for a lemon drop. It was one of the old man's tells.
• In Harry, Hermione and Lily the sign that Ron's lying is the tops of his ears turning red.
• Harry Potter and the Gift of Memories:
  Whenever Seamus lied, he tended to make grand gestures with his hands as if he were conducting an orchestra.
• In Betweens: Book 5 What-Ifs, during a conversation between Ron and Hermione:
  Ron: Oh, come on. You've been my best friend for almost five years. I know when you're lying. When you were talking with Sirius you looked down at your hands during the last part and then when you finally looked up, you had that same look on your face that you had in first year, when you told McGonagall that you had gone looking for that mountain troll.
• In The Reality of Love Harry tells Snape that his wand arm always becomes stiffer when he tells a direct lie.
• In Red as Fire Luna notices that when Harry lies the left side of his mouth twitches and his voice gets a little louder.
• Sacrificial Snake:
  Sirius: But you wouldn't even tell us where you were!
  Harry: Because Dumbledore would have made me go back to the Dursleys. And you would have told him where I was.
  Sirius: I wanted to just come and visit.
  Blaise: Are you aware that your eyes dart off to the side when you lie, Black?
• The Stark Truth:
  The one thing [Tony] did learn about Harry in the past week, was that he could not tell a lie. When Harry lied, he didn't make eye contact and he started to nervously fiddle with something.
• In That's How Much I Think Our Friendship Is Worth, the twang of Ninten's accent becomes more apparent when he lies.

“I AIN’T LYIN’!”

• This Bites!: During the story's iteration of the G8 arc, Usopp has to pretend to be a new recruit when interrogated by a suspicious senior officer (and he's helped by Cross and Soundbite feeding him the necessary answers to not give himself away). The officer looks convinced, and Usopp starts to relax and look more confident...only for Cross to warn him that what'll tip the Marines off is his habit of getting arrogant if he thinks anyone's fallen for his lies, and that being scared of the officer is the appropriate response to have at that moment. Hearing that, Usopp doesn't need to fake the nervousness when the officer turns to talk to him again.
• An Unhealthy Escape:
  It was very obvious that Harry was lying. He always looked down and fidgeted with his shirt when he lied, just like James always did.
• In The Wedding Date Draco notices that when Harry lies he gives an innocent smile.
• In What a Summer This Will Be Snape ponders his knowledge of Harry's habits, such as the fact that he always looks to the right when he's lying and to the left when he's lost for words.

Film — Animated

• The creators of Aladdin have confirmed that whenever Aladdin tells a lie, the feather on his Prince Ali hat falls in his face.
  • Not to mention Genie's literal Pinocchio Nose - and head - when Aladdin first tells him he'll wish for Genie's freedom.
• In The Bad Guys (2022), Ms. Tarantula points out that Mr. Piranha farts when he lies. He insists he only farts when he's nervous, but she simply points out that he's nervous about lying.
• Fflewddur Fflam's harp from The Black Cauldron, which always breaks a string whenever he tells a lie.
• Oh and the other Boov from Home (2015) change colors when they feel different emotions, including turning green when they try to lie, something Tip is quick to catch onto.
• In Pinocchio (1992), there is a Played for Laughs evocation. When Geppetto asks his puppet if he would be a good boy, it seems to move his head to say yes, and then his nose grows. A played straight example happens later when Pinocchio lies to the Fairy about the coins. Time later, when Pinocchio is asked to help, his nose grows proving that he didn't have the intention to do so, but later he genuinely changes his mind.
• In the Shrek franchise:
  • Played for laughs in Shrek 2 where Pinocchio actually appears. Shrek tells him to lie on purpose so they can use his nose like a hook to reach a key, but he can't think of one at the moment. Donkey tells him to say he's wearing women's underwear, but that doesn't work (because he is) Fortunately when he denies that he is, that's a lie, so he's able to hook the key.
  • This bites Pinocchio in the ass in Shrek the Third when he comes under interrogation from a villain and obviously can't successfully lie to him because his nose will give him away. Pinocchio gets around this by making a statement so completely confusing that even he doesn't know what he's saying.

Film — Live-Action

• The Negotiator has a character use the same logic as the CSI example below.
• In V for Vendetta, Evey can tell that a newsreader is giving a false report if she blinks a lot.
• Airplane! has the doctor telling the passengers that nothing is wrong, everything is fine, and they will be landing shortly. His nose gets longer with every lie he tells.
• Jack Byrnes, the father in Meet the Parents can tell Greg Focker is lying by feeling Greg's pulse.
• James Bond thinks he's figured out Le Chiffre's tell (playing with his poker chips) in Casino Royale (2006), but turns out that the one round where he acted on it was a Batman Gambit, and Bond proceeds to lose everything until Felix Leiter bails him out.
• Parodied in the sixth Police Academy movie, where a Spot the Imposter situation is solved by "the Pinocchio test": Pulling on the noses of both characters, which ends up pulling a Latex Perfection mask off.
• In Ballerina, Victor knows when Félicie is lying because when she does, her nose quivers.
• In What's the Worst That Could Happen?, Kevin Caffery cannot lie without blinking uncontrollably.
• In Knives Out, Marta compulsively vomits whenever she lies. Even by omission. Given that she's a character in a murder mystery, she is not having a good time for most of the movie.

Jokes

• Exploited in a NSFW joke, it probably suffices to tell the punchline: "LIE TO ME! LIE TO ME!"
• A common question asked: If Pinocchio said, "My nose will grow", what would happen?

Literature

• Pinocchio's nose was both a tell that he was lying (an incredibly obvious tell, in fact), but it was also a way of punishing him for it.
• Mentioned and described in David Mamet's House of Games.
• Harry Potter: Ron Weasley's ears go red when he's angry or lying.
• Cathy's mother in V. C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic plays with her pearl necklace — or mimics playing with one if she doesn't have one on — whenever she's nervous or lying.
• In one of the The Princess Diaries books, Mia's grandmother points out that Mia's nostrils flare when she lies.
• In Robert Sawyer's Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy, the titular tyrannosaurian race literally turned blue in the face if they tried to tell a lie. Most of them, anyway.
• Discworld:
  • In Sourcery:
    Carding: My dear Spelter, you blush when you inadvertently tell the truth.
    Spelter: I didn't blush!
    Carding: Precisely my point.
  • Sam Vimes actually has one in the form of another character. Captain Carrot flinches whenever he hears a direct lie, so when Vimes tries to lie to Vetinari with Carrot in the room, Vetinari just watches Carrot's face. In Jingo', Lord V actually asks Carrot to leave the room, because he already knows'' Vimes is lying and can't bear to watch it any longer.
• In Howl's Moving Castle, Martha Hatter has a habit of holding her hands together and spinning her thumbs when speaking. Except, that is, when she lies.

Live-Action TV

• Bewitched episode "My What Big Ears You Have'' has Endora hex Darren so that his ears grow every time he lies. Hilarity Ensues
• Ned from Pushing Daisies is a terrible liar in any case (Ned: "The plane was hijacked!" Coroner: "How'd you know that?" Ned: "DNA... ish."), but also gives himself away with his Twitchy Eye and unrelated babbling. Olive's tell is that she answers questions with questions when she's hiding something or trying to lie.
• Lost, "There's No Place Like Home, Part 1": Jack explains that the fact that his stitches are bleeding means his appendectomy is healing. Kate says, "You know how when most people are lying, they can't look you in the eye? You do the exact opposite."
• There was an episode of Hannah Montana all about this; whenever anyone would mention their own lying tics then she would end up doing it. Giggling and sweating were two of them, but there were more.
• CSI example: Catherine was able to penetrate one witness' story by recalling her eye movement: "People tend to look left when remembering, right when creating." It's handy to know, but not infallibly reliable.
• There was a whole Coupling ramble on this — The Prickles, where you freeze and can feel said prickles all over your face ready to burst into rampant blushing; the Blurts, where you try to cover your prickles by blurting out denials; and the Head laugh, where you realize you were speaking too quickly and need to make everything seem alright and overcompensate with the Head Laugh.
• In MacGyver (1985), Jack Dalton's left eye twitches whenever he lies. It's mentioned in his first scene with Mac.
  • Including in his faked funeral.
• In the Red Dwarf episode "The Inquisitor", Lister points out that Kryten's leg jiggles when he lies.
  • A couple of episodes actually have him say "Lie Mode" before saying something untrue. It's not clear whether or not he realizes he's doing it.
• The whole point to the show Lie to Me is that the main cast has been trained to search for these when suspects in crimes are being interrogated. More specifically, Lightman actually claims in one episode that his tell is that he rubs his forehead while lying. (This was a setup for him to point out another character's, which was twisting her hands.) It's unclear whether he was actually telling the truth about that.
• Used in an episode of The Lone Ranger, where the ranger used a villain's pulse as a lie detector.
• Brick in The Middle has a very obvious tell: he simply whispers to himself "I'm lying."
• In Titus, Christopher can tell when his fiance Erin is lying to him, because words not flow from her mouth good.
• Once Upon a Time August isn't quite the convincing liar he would like to be. Then again, he is Pinocchio after all.
• In Game of Thrones, Catelyn makes Bran promise he won't go climbing again, and he agrees. After a moment, she says, "You know something? You always look at your feet before you lie."
• Star Trek: Voyager:
  • In the series finale "Endgame", Reginald Barclay has managed to overcome his stuttering by the early 25th century, but when he gets pressed for information of Admiral Janeway's whereabouts by the Doctor, Barclay begins to stammer, which is an indicator that he is hiding something.
  • In another episode, Chakotay tells Janeway that he can always tell when she's lying because she touches her commbadge when she does. Of course, she's touching it at that moment. (However, if it's a habit of hers, it's one we never see on the TV screen either before or after this incident.)
• An episode of F/X: The Series has a cold opening in a courtroom, with a character having issues with his nose, which soon starts growing as he speaks. After the shot is over, it's revealed to be an inflatable prop nose.
• In Full House, after D.J. is punished when she appears to be drinking at the school dance, Stephanie ends up being the only one who believes her when she says she's innocent. She says it's because D.J. looked her in the eyes when she said she wasn't drinking, where as when she lies, she looks at the top of her head.
• In Frasier, Frasier and Niles each have some negative physical consequences when they lie or otherwise violate their code of ethics: Frasier suffers stomach pains and Niles gets nose bleeds.
• On The Jeffersons, Louise notes to a friend that she can tell when George is lying because he always scratches his ear when he does. Later in the episode, she catches him in a hotel room with another woman. Despite how bad it looks, she instantly believes him when he tells her that there's nothing going on between them because he doesn't display the tic in question.
• Death in Paradise: If forced to keep a secret, JP becomes uncomfortably hot and itchy, which absolutely everyone comments on.
• Seriously Weird: In "When Harris Broke Out", Harris starts sprouting horns from his head whenever he lies.
• Janda Kembang: Salmah's cousin Herman always ends up mumbling whenever he lies, which becomes noticeable as the episode goes on and he lies a lot.
• In the Mini Series "The Murder Of Mary Phagan", Governor John Slaton questions Jim Conley (a janitor at the factory where the young girl worked and who was the key witness against her accused killer, Leo Frank) about what he does when he lies. The man admits that he'll fiddle with his hands and fingers. Sometime later, after Frank's conviction, having developed doubts about his guilt, Slaton brings Conley back to the crime scene, having discovered several inconsistencies in the man's story. ^note  Conley claimed that he had assisted Frank in disposing of Phagan's body after Frank had supposedly killed her upstairs in his office. To that end, he claimed to have thrown her parasol down the elevator shaft, then he and Frank carried the body down in the elevator to the basement. If this were true, the parasol would have been crushed. However, when the police found it, it was intact. Either no one noticed this glaring inconsistency, or worse yet, chose to ignore it so as to convict Frank. When he confronted him about them, the man feebly claimed not to remember what he had previously said, only for Slaton to ask "What about what you told me you do when you're lying? You remember that?!", looking down to see that Conley is of course, nervously playing with his hands and fingers as he described earlier. ^note  Yes, he was the real killer.

Puppet Shows

• Pinocchio himself appears in a Sesame Street skit where Kermit—in his reporter outfit—asks him to demonstrate his "talent". Unfortunately for Kermit, Pinocchio gets carried away, and tells lots and lots of absurd lies, snagging Kermit with his nose, pushing him through the wall and about a mile over the forest outside.

Radio

• Martin/Molloy had a spoof advertisement for "Liar Liar Pants On Fire jeans" that would burst into flames whenever the wearer told a lie.
• Trevors World Of Sport: Hydrun tells Trevor that he is a very bad liar, in that he blinks too much, and overuses the word "basically".

Theater

• Cyrano de Bergerac: Alluded by Cyrano at Act II Scene III, after he has fought one hundred men, Cyrano has a slight cut on his hand and is talking casually to his friends Ragueneau and Lise:
  Ragueneau: Have you been in some danger?
  Cyrano: None in the world.
  Lise (shaking her finger at him): Methinks you speak not the truth in saying that!
  Cyrano: Did you see my nose quiver when I spoke? 'Faith, it must have been a
  monstrous lie that should move it!

Video Games

• In Tales of Symphonia, Colette always giggles when she lies. Lloyd notices this when she lies that she still eats, sleeps, and feels a sensation when she is, in fact, turning into an angel. Lloyd even says "You always do that fake giggle when you lie!"
• In Kingdom Hearts, it's been noted that whenever Axel lies or is unsure of what he's saying he breaks eye-contact.
  • Disney's adaptation of the Trope Namer appears in the first game as well, to absolutely hilarious effect. Pinocchio, afraid he's going to die, tells Jiminy "I'm not gonna make it..." and his nose grows. "Oh! I guess I'm okay!"
• Mario once did the "nose growing upon a lie" schtick as part of a Take That! towards Sony. It's the first imitation he does in this video.

Visual Novels

• Pointing these out is a vital gameplay element in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. Particularly notable is the instance in which the killer tenses his hand in such a way that his scar looks like a skull. Yikes.

Web Animation

• In Gotham Girls, Poison Ivy invades the home of a politician who wants to pave over a park and sprays him with "Pinocchio spores" that cause him to grow vines from his body every time he lies. He immediately resigns from politics and cancels the decree to have the park paved over.
• Penny from RWBY, being inspired by the trope namer, has the tic of hiccuping loudly whenever she lies.

Web Comics

• The NSFW webcomic Black Hole (2019) had an arc that featured a puppet brought to life with a problem like this, except instead of her nose growing, her breasts grew with every lie.
• Cursed Princess Club: Princess Syrah's nose grows whenever she lies. She got this by eating cursed chocolates from a boyfriend who was mad that she lied about cheating on him. It's even called a "Pinocchio's nose" curse.
• Deconstructed (yet the deconstruction is Played for Laughs) in Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal strip 3730 with Pinocchio. (Actually, it's more of a deconstruction of Cannot Tell a Lie, but doesn't technically fit there.) Since his nose would grow if he were to tell a direct lie, he figures out every way to get around saying things that actually mean anything, and ceases to interact with the truth in any way. This leads to his becoming a celebrated politician, but it also makes him unable to tell the truth to himself. On his deathbed, he says "None of it ever meant anything to me" — and observes that his nose doesn't grow.

Web Video

• In the SuperMarioLogan episode, "Cody's Report Card!", Cody reveals to Junior that he has a medical condition, wherein he farts every time he lies. The medical condition comes into play when Cody says that he's straight, and later when he tries to lie to his parents that he didn't get a B+ in Spelling.
  • Brooklyn T. Guy also has one in "Junior's Creation!", specifically a nervous tic that makes him shout "CHEESE!" whenever he lies in court.
• In the Ryan George sketch "If Cats Were Able to Talk", the guy who uses his second genie wish to give his pet cat the ability to speak had already used his first wish to give himself "Pinocchio nipples". When the genie later surmises that he'll understandably be using his third wish to undo his first, the guy defensively refutes this, claiming that everyone loves his Pinocchio nipples and he gets a ton of compliments on them... which causes them to grow.

Western Animation

• Family Guy:
  • Peter says he knows Ted Turner isn't telling the truth when he blinks twice. He first noticed it after watching a Barbara Walters interview, when Ted said he'd be with Jane Fonda forever.
  • In one episode, Brian's nose begins growing longer and longer as he talks about how Loretta, Cleveland's ex-wife, is attractive.
  • Stewie frequently squints his eyes and grins while he clinches his teeth whenever he lies.
• On Ben 10: Alien Force, Kevin claims that Ben's left eyelid twitches whenever he lies. Fortunately, this also applies to an Evil Knockoff.
• On Arthur, when the title character begins fidgeting with his glasses, it's almost certain that he's lying.
• The Phineas and Ferb episode "The Beak" shows Phineas scratches his left ear whenever he lies.
• An interesting variant in The Smurfs (1981): in "Tattle-Tail Smurfs", Brainy puts a spell on the Smurflings that causes their tails to grow whenever they tattle-tale.
• In the cartoon "Iggy Arbuckle" the title character's snout twitches when he lies.
• When the titular character of The Amazing World of Gumball is lying, he sounds like a nervous wreck, stutters and also has a Motor Mouth. He couldn't even trick his mother.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife", Homer's eye shifts back and forth whenever he lies. Later, Bart does the same thing. This actually goes back further, in "The Sweetest Apu", when he sees Apu having an affair, and tries to keep it a secret. Marge is able to tell what he saw just by reading said twitching.
  • In "Itchy & Scratchy Land", there is a clip of an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon called Pinitchio, with Itchy as the role of Pinocchio. He promises to Scratchy (who is playing Geppetto) that he will never hurt him, using his nose to stab Scratchy in the eye.
• In Here Comes Peter Cottontail, the titular rabbit's left ear droops whenever he tells a fib.
• Goldie & Bear: The episode "Pinocchio-itis" has Goldie's nose growing thanks to the titular ailment. The cure is to be truthful for 24 hours, but things get complicated when she has to tell lies to keep Jack's surprise party a surprise.
• In The Loud House episode, "Pasture Bedtime", Clyde is revealed to get stomach cramps whenever he lies.
• Miraculous Ladybug: In the episode "Oni-chan", the titular villain attaches a thorn to the forehead of resident Consummate Liar Lila which grows whenever she tells a lie. It's also used by the villain to track down where Lila is at any given time.
• Muppet Babies (2018): In "Gonzonocchio", Gonzo borrows a book of Pinocchio from the library. When Gonzo loses the book, he lies about someone stealing it, causing his nose to grow. When Gonzo tells the truth that nobody stole the book and that he lost it, his nose shrinks back to its normal size. At the end of the episode, when Animal eats Gonzo's apple slices and blames it on Buddy, his nose grows.
• Parodied in the Dexter's Laboratory episode, “Dee Dee Locks and the Ness Monster”: Dee Dee Locks makes her ears grow big when she tells a lie, but only intentionally so she can use them to fly. In the context of the Fractured Fairy Tale the real Dee Dee is telling, this comes completely out of nowhere.
• In the Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot episode, "Tell Tale Tummy", whenever Share Bear tells a lie, her stomach makes a weird jingling sound.
• Rugrats (1991): In "Angelica Nose Best", the babies, having been read the story of Pinocchio, believe that Angelica's nose will grow when she lies. The next day, Angelica blames some of her misdeeds on the babies and pets and a bump on her nose (actually a mosquito bite from the previous night) gets bigger, leading the babies and eventually Angelica hersef to believe that her nose is growing.
• Steven Universe: Future: The episode "Volleyball" features a rather twisted variant; the further the titular character denies and makes excuses for an old friend's past behavior and how she was (unintentionally) hurt by her, the worse the cracks on her face grow.
• Sister: The siblings are watching what appears to be a Chinese "Pinocchio" cartoon when the sister breaks a bowl. She blames it on her brother, who gets punished. Afterwards he scowls at her and her nose grows Pinocchio-style.

Real Life

• Researchers at the University of Granada in Spain discovered a lie tic in the nose.
• Psychoanalysts believe that people who are lying will touch their nose or some other part of their face when doing so, as it's a way of avoiding direct eye contact without blatantly looking away from whoever they're talking to.

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