History Main / FauxtasticVoyage

The machinery of the FauxtasticVoyage will sometimes appear in dramatic contexts, usually without painted scrolling scenery of any kind, with the villain using it to pull something on the hero. In these cases, the scenery is carefully prepared and much more convincing, and the audience usually starts out believing that it is real, although they may be tipped off before the hero discovers the truth (perhaps just as he realises something is not quite right), in order to fully appreciate the hero's danger. The dramatic FauxtasticVoyage may contain elements of, or appear as an element of, the FakedRipVanWinkle and/or the LotusEaterMachine.

* ''Series/TheAvengers'' episode "Escape In Time" involved a criminal mastermind who had created a fake time machine. He offered to send other criminals into the past, the ultimate untraceable hideout, and gave them a brief trip into various periods of the past (actually well-dressed sets) to "prove" the time machine was genuine. Once they were convinced, they paid him a fortune for their permanent escape -- and were promptly killed as soon as they handed over the money.

* A French movie uses this as its premise: A newsman is supposed to report live from Baghdad, but his cameraman lost the tickets. So they fakeorting from Baghdad in his apartment.

* At the end of the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse [[Literature/XWingSeries X-Wing book]] ''Wedge's Gamble'', Corran Horn gets the dramatic version of this treatment from Ysanne Isard when she takes him to her secret prison, Lusankya, which is believed to be on a distant planet. The truth of the situation isn't revealed until near the end of the next book, ''The Krytos Trap.'' [[spoiler: The Lusankya and its prison deck are a huge ship buried on the same planet where Corran was abducted.]] He clues in [[ObjectCeilingCling because of gravity]].

* At the end of the StarWars [[Literature/XWingSeries X-Wing book]] ''Wedge's Gamble'', Corran Horn gets the dramatic version of this treatment from Ysanne Isard when she takes him to her secret prison, Lusankya, which is believed to be on a distant planet. The truth of the situation isn't revealed until near the end of the next book, ''The Krytos Trap.'' [[spoiler: The Lusankya and its prison deck are a huge ship buried on the same planet where Corran was abducted.]] He clues in [[ObjectCeilingCling because of gravity]].

* In the companion movie to the 60's ''Series/{{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 the 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". For the most part, the scam works because the "rocket car" is so cramped (or, as Double D thought, "compact") and there's only one tiny window outside. The best the kids could get are small glimpses... until Kevin sees Ed standing while the background still moves.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/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.
* The ''WesternAnimation/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.
* A twist on this plot was featured in a 1955 Creator/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.

* ''Series/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.]]

* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Stratagem", the NX-01 crew use a rigged shuttlepod to pull the wool over Degra's eyes: [[spoiler:not only do they make him think he's in space, they convince him that he's lost his memory, that Archer is a FireForgedFriend, and [[FakedRipVanWinkle that it's the future]].]]

* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Stratagem", the NX-01 crew use a rigged shuttlepod to pull the wool over Degra's eyes: [[spoiler:not only do they make him think he's in space, they convince him that he's lost his memory, that Archer is his best friend, and that it's the future (FakedRipVanWinkle]].

* ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheUnwoundFuture'' features [[spoiler:a variant of this in the form of faux time travelling (FakedRipVanWinkle?) as part of a BatmanGambit that's masterminded by the antagonist of the game.]]

** In the 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".

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

* The "Movie" of Series/EvenStevens has a variation as the Stevens think they're on a big island vacation, unaware they're actually on a reality prank show. It turns out they're less than a hundred miles from their home as the plane just flew around in wide circles for a day.

* An example of the dramatic sort: The ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" 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".

* "Bitterblooms", by GeorgeRRMartin, features [[PlayedForDrama something of this sort]]. A woman uses a computer to facsimile a number of space voyages in order to seduce a native of the planet she has crash-landed on.

* In the "I Was Born to Love You" level of ''EliteBeatAgents'', a young Leonardo Da Vinci, in the process of wooing the model for the Mona Lisa, takes her down "the special passage" - an alleyway that he rapidly paints to look like a "tunnel of love". If the player does very well, the illusion is perfect; if the player is only doing moderately well, he's painting the tunnel inches ahead of them; if the player is failing, he collapses in exhaustion. Whether the model is really being fooled or just impressed by Leo's artisitic skill is left unsaid.
* ''ProfessorLaytonAndTheUnwoundFuture'' features [[spoiler:a variant of this in the form of faux time travelling (FakedRipVanWinkle?) as part of a BatmanGambit that's masterminded by the antagonist of the game.]]

* This was also done on the last series of ''BigBrother Australia''. Housemates were led to believe they were being flown to Bali. After a fake plane ride they were led into the 'Bali Big Brother House', which was in fact right next door to the 'normal' BB house. Housemates did not realize the deception even though they could hear other [=HMs=] next door and could see Kookaburras perched on the walls of the supposed Balinese house.

* In ''NewsRadio'', Jimmy James faked his own around-the-world hot air balloon trip on a sound stage in the WNYX building with the help of office handyman Joe, who eventually ended up playing the role of an Arab peasant who rescued Jimmy after the balloon "crashed."

* Used in an episode of ''{{Hannay}}'' to persuade RichardHannay that he has been kidnapped and is being held in the hold of a ship.

* At the end of the StarWars [[XWingSeries X-Wing book]] ''Wedge's Gamble'', Corran Horn gets the dramatic version of this treatment from Ysanne Isard when she takes him to her secret prison, Lusankya, which is believed to be on a distant planet. The truth of the situation isn't revealed until near the end of the next book, ''The Krytos Trap.'' [[spoiler: The Lusankya and its prison deck are a huge ship buried on the same planet where Corran was abducted.]] He clues in [[ObjectCeilingCling because of gravity]].

* In one episode of ''{{Blackadder}}'' season 2, the titular character does this while attempting to upstage Sir Walter Raleigh.

** Also subverted in ''[[{{Blackadder}} Blackadder Back and Forth]]'', in which a present-day Blackadder tries to con his friends into believing that he created a time machine, only to find that it works after all.