History Main / FauxtasticVoyage

* One episode of ''TheRealGhostbusters'' had the Ghostbusters capturing, then having to take the place of, the ghosts from Dickens' ''A Christmas Carol''. The one replacing the Ghost of Christmas Past took Ebenezer Scrooge on a FauxtasticVoyage using a wheelchair and a Viewmaster.

* An example of the dramatic sort: An episode of ''Series/DoctorWho'' features a WellIntentionedExtremist who plans to wipe out industrial civilisation with AppliedPhlebotinum and start afresh; in a corner of his ElaborateUndergroundBase is a mock spaceship in which a group of volunteers are on a [[FauxtasticVoyage Fauxtastic Space Voyage]] to "colonise a new planet".

* ''ThePrisoner'' episode "The Chimes of Big Ben" follows the title character as he escapes from The Village and makes his way back to report his experiences to his former employers. [[spoiler:The fact that the "escape" is a sham is revealed when the chimes of Big Ben sound the same hour shown on Number Six's watch... a watch he obtained when he was supposedly in Poland, which is in a different time zone from his agency office in London.]]
* One ''{{MST3K}}'' host segment features Pearl pulling a travel agency scam, but when one of the couples she's conned inconveniently arrives at Castle Forrester, she, Bobo and Observer have to pull an elaborate ruse to convince the couple that they're on an ocean cruise. They even go so far as to get Mike and the bots to make ice sculptures for them. (Crow somehow manages to recreate a full-scale version of Michaelangelo's ''David'' using only ''two'' ice cubes.)

* Defied in a recurring sketch on ''LateNight with Conan O'Brien'' has Conan interview a cast member (Brian [=McCann=]) who claims to be reporting from a distant location while actually standing in front of a projected background. When Conan expresses skepticism that the correspondent is actually at the distant location, the correspondent insists he really is there and purports to prove it by walking to another location (represented by another projected background). The sketch typically ends with Conan walking to where the correspondent is standing (a few feet away on the stage) to hit him with a chair.

You've promised the people a trip around the world. You've taken their money. There's just one problem: there's no way you can deliver. Unless, of course, you cheat like mad. Herd them onto a bus (or train, or airplane), slide scenery past the windows, get a few friends to dress up in foreign costumes and wave as they "go past" -- sure, it's [[ZanyScheme a bit zany]], but it should work. Shouldn't it?

* The ''InvaderZim'' episode "A Room With a Moose" features a reversal, where the kids are shipped via bus into a tunnel leading to another dimension (the titular "room with a moose"), but the windows depict [[WrapAroundBackground a loop of mundane Earth scenery]] to keep them from realizing such.

* Done to a captured German general in ''[[HogansHeroes Hogan's Heroes]]''. They drug him and put him inside a piece of crashed plane that they've rigged up on pulleys, giving him the impression that he's being flown to England. It works.

* A [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] {{Superman}} story: A con man sells "suspended animation" to people, claiming they'll wake up in the glorious future of 1972. Superman turns this back on him by constructing a fake ruined future world for the con man and his clients to wake up in.
* A [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] Franchise/{{Batman}} story had the Joker pretending he had time machine and pretending to send fugitives into either the past or the future (in reality just movie lots) to escape the law, bilking them out of their loot in the process.

* In MicMacs, the heroes use this trope to make some executives at an arms company [[EngineeredPublicConfession confess war crimes, which they quickly post to Youtube]]

* In one of the ''{{Leprechaun}}'' films (when he searches for a wife), the male hero runs some kind of historical tour or something. He just drives them around in circles telling scary stories.
* The main portion of the film ''TheMagicChristian'' starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. Much of the it was filmed on the Queen Elizabeth II. Quite surreal.
* Played for laughs in ''SpyHard'' in which the train pulls out of the station, then we see the train isn't moving; the stationery is.

* In ''TheSmurfs'' story "Astro Smurf", the Smurfs pull this to "fulfill" one of their fellows' dream to travel to other worlds, including [[WeWillNotUseStageMakeupInTheFuture magically disguising themselves]] as [=ETs=] named the Schlips. This story also made it into the AnimatedAdaptation, with the Schlips renamed the Swoofs.

* The RayBradbury short story ''The Rocket'' uses this idea.

* A chapter of ''{{Kochikame}}'' manga has the main characters providing a trip for a group of senior citizens to Hawaii. They couldn't get a flight, Ryotsu being a tour guide tricked them by putting them on a plane which is just the chassis carried by a bus to a beach in another part of Japan. The windows were shut and opened when a slide scenery is placed. The elderly exit on a beach and unaware of the "shuttle" bus behind. Afterwards, they all went home by train drunk.

* In the companion movie to the 60's ''Film/{{Batman}}'' show, Commodore Schmidlapp, an aged sailor with poor eyesight and partial dementia, is held prisoner by the villains completely unbeknown to him. They rig up his cell to make him think he's still on his yacht, and convince him that the Joker is just a pallid steward.

* In an episode of ''ChuckleVision'' the two characters Paul and Barry sink a man's boat so the two make him and his wife think they are on a cruise in the boat when really they are on a double-decker bus, done really poorly too as the passengers are not allowed to open the curtains.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' episode "Ready, Set, Ed!", the Eds use this trick to convince the other kids they're being taken on a trip around the world in Eddy's new "rocket car". In "Wish You Were Ed", the Eds convince Rolf that a "magic shoe" has transported him to a village in "{{the Old Country}}". It's really a convincing mock-up, with the villagers played by the three Eds in garish, vaguely Eastern-European costumes, but their cover is blown by Johnny and Plank blundering onto the scene.

* A twist on this plot was featured in a 1955 TexAvery cartoon short ''WesternAnimation/{{Cellbound}}''. A convict trying to escape from prison is hiding from the prison warden by pulling the innards out of the warden's office TV and climbing inside. The warden then decides to turn on the TV, forcing the con to quickly act out almost a dozen different TV shows to keep the ruse going.

* Done in the ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' episode "The (Very) Big Bird Job", the crew do this to convince the mark that he has stolen, and then crashed, the Spruce Goose.

* ''LupinIII'' and his gang made a daring airborne heist of classic artwork from a plane guarded by Zenigata himself. The plane never left the hangar, and the background outside was airborne footage from an old movie. Zenigata got wise when they were strafed by a WWII airplane, but weren't hit.

* The fourth movie of ''{{Kamen Rider Den-O}}'': the BigBad demands the [=DenLiner=] from the heroes in exchange for his captive, New Den-O, so he can travel to the time period his brother is currently in. While he did get his hands on the time train, the heroes set up a ZanyScheme to trick him into believing that he traveled through time, but the train actually never moved an inch.

** This troper remembers reading somewhere that excavations of one of these villages demonstrated that it was a genuine, prosperous, working village, not a fake.

* This was a common plot of the day in ''FXTheSeries'' where a special effects artist had to trick someone into believing something, like being on a trip to another country. In one episode, the FX crew, like the IMF, had used this as an element of a FakedRipVanWinkle ploy to take a villain TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture so that the villain would reveal the location of a bomb he's planted.

* A [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] {{Batman}} story had the Joker pretending he had time machine and pretending to send fugitives into either the past or the future (in reality just movie lots) to escape the law, bilking them out of their loot in the process.