History Main / NotTheNessie

* ''Series/TheXFiles'': The episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS03E22Quagmire Quagmire]]" has Mulder and Scully investigating reports of a lake monster. In one scene the owner of the local tourist trap is shown faking some monster footprints, whereupon he gets eaten by the ''real'' monster, a large alligator. Of course, this being the X-Files, we see at the end there really is a giant serpent in the lake.

In these instances, the writers and producers were sheepish about introducing a ''real'' Loch Ness Monster into the world of the film. A a sub with a monster head riveted onto it is the default answer to the enigma of Loch Ness might seem cheesy. It is a handy way to write off a SpecialEffectsFailure, when it turns out it was SUPPOSED to be fake all along.

This is a sub-trope of the ScoobyDooHoax; the specific solution of a strangely-decorated submarine sets it off as a variant peculiar to that highland lake monster.

** This one is '''[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E4 "50 Ways to Leave Your 50-Foot Lover"]]''', a Anime/LupinIIIPartII episode. Fujiko's singing attracts the Loch Ness monster. Later on, when Lupin goes out onto the Loch, a Nessie-shaped submarine draws him in. The reason the sub was built? To catch the ''real'' Nessie - the scientist who built it has an Ahab complex towards the Loch Ness monster, and wants to use Fujiko to attract it so he can capture it.
** In ''Anime/LupinIIIAlcatrazConnection'', the movie opens with a luxury gambling ship under attack by a sea monster that looks like Nessie! (It's an inflatable head Lupin is using to distract everyone while he steals all the money from the vault.)

* Comedian Bill Hicks once mused that the Loch Ness Monster was a submarine, driven by Bigfoot.

* ''The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove'' from The MagicalWorldOfDisney TV show involves an {{Expy}} of Loch Ness and Nessie; when a teacher thinks he saw the local monster and is ridiculed as a result, three of his kid students try to help his case by building a fake monster. Ultimately, it turns out that what the teacher had seen was actually smuggler's boat.
* And an inversion of this trope is found in the film ''Film/TheWaterHorse''. Nessie -- or Crusoe, as she's called here -- gets shelled by the British Army. Well, they thought she ''was'' a submarine! Also played straight, to a degree. Two old men keep trying to get a picture of Crusoe, but fail every time. So they fake it by putting a boat upside down in the water to produce the famous picture of the neck sticking out of the water. Interestingly, as they're faking it, the real one was right on the other side of a tree, [[MissedHimByThatMuch in good view if they could've seen it]].
* In a maritime variant, two prank-playing boys in ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' use a cardboard fin to scare everyone out of the water [[spoiler:just before the real shark shows up]].

* One short story featuring ''Literature/TheSaint'' had the detective investigating a murder supposedly caused by the monster. Turns out it was just a hoax to cover up the real murderer... who ends up killed by the real Nessie in the end!
* In Creator/JulesVerne's ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', many early accounts of the ''Nautilus'''s attacks speculated that it was a supersized narwhal or some other sea monster due to its habit of ramming into ships. (The first chapter of the book includes [[ShoutOut Shout-Outs]] to several celebrated sea-serpent sightings.) Certainly the UrExample of this trope in fiction, as nobody was writing about submarines before Verne.

* The ''Series/VoyageToTheBottomOfTheSea'' episode "Secret of the Loch". The Seaview not only finds a navigable underwater passage into the Loch, but a Soviet -- ah, I mean, [[HammerAndSickleRemovedForYourProtection Enemy]]-- submarine there, pretending to be the monster. And based on what the model work was like, doing a rather bad job of it. Some may feel quite cheated to find out Nessie was a submarine in this one and, on considering how often "Voyage" had REAL sea monsters on the show, then feel REALLY cheated.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Quagmire" has Mulder and Scully investigating reports of a lake monster. In one scene the owner of the local tourist trap is shown faking some monster footprints, whereupon he gets eaten by the ''real'' monster, a large alligator. Of course, this being the X-Files, we see at the end there really is a giant serpent in the lake.

* Done on ''Series/SeaHunt,'' naturally enough, although it was only supposed to be a generic "sea serpent," and not Nessie herself.
* This example takes place in Minnesota rather than Scotland, but on an episode of ''Little House on the Prairie'' the children of Walnut Grove fabricate an Expy of Nessie to frighten Mrs. Oleson into leaving an old woman's lakeside house alone after the former tried to take it from the latter.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial 'Terror of the Zygons', the Fourth Doctor and his current companions arrive in Scotland and trace an alien signal to Loch Ness, where strange things have been happening recently. Don't worry, it's not Nessie... it's just a giant plesiosaur-shaped cyborg that provides food for the Zygons. Much more sensible.
* On ''Series/MurdochMysteries'', an apparent monster in Lake Ontario turns out to be a rope-and-winch-controlled apparatus rigged up by a solitary beach-dweller, who'd wanted to scare bathers away from "his" beach because he hates how crowded it's become.

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* ''Series/{{Stingray|1964}}'', a TV series that had actual sea monsters in it, sends Troy Tempest and his crew to Loch Ness, where they find Nessie is a robot, built in the 1940s and put through its paces to again encourage tourist travel to the loch.
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* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' uses this one in the fourth case of the first game, with a creature named "Gourdy" being spotted in Gourd Lake. The monster's "head" that was captured on a photo was actually an inflatable Steel Samurai being blown along by the air tank that some idiot (Read: Larry Butz) was using to inflate it.

* ''VideoGame/MonsterQuest'', being a HiddenObjectGame about cryptids, naturally features this trope in the fourth mission, where you investigate a lake monster in Mexico known as El Monstro, where a shopkeeper claims to own both a skeleton of its baby and sells actual scales of it as charms. Turns out the former is a forgery and the latter are garfish scales, both created to heklp attract customers and tourists to the shop.
* In ''[[VideoGame/TombRaiderIIITheLostArtifact Tomb Raider III: The Lost Artifact]]'', Lara can get up close and personal with a robotic Nessie which [[RuleOfCool breathes fire]]. While Nessie can also be seen elsewhere - on the surface of the loch, in the distance - it's not clear whether they're one and the same.

* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheLochNessMonster'' gives us ''three'' Nessies: a robotic submarine version, a less sophisticated (but still somehow totally convincing in appearance) "parade float" version, and the real monster. The real one looks very different than the impostors, namely having flippers and a tail fluke.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' had an identical plot to the ''Lupin III'' episode listed above.
* The Monster Lake episode of ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'' had a [[HumongousMecha robotic]] Loch Ness monster.
* Done on ''WesternAnimation/DenverTheLastDinosaur'', though in that case it was a guy trying to make money rather than keep people away.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'' had an inflatable lake monster, planted by an unscrupulous journalist who wanted to become famous by getting the "scoop" on the monster.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheRaccoons'' episode "Monster Mania!" Melissa Raccoon takes a blurry photo of a creature in Evergreen Lake. Soon, the place is teeming with sightseers wanting to catc a glimpse of the elusive, [[BreathWeapon fire-breathing]] "Evie." [[spoiler:It turns out Evie is a [[MechanicalMonster robot]], part of a plan by Cyril Sneer to driv eup tourism.)
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Mr. Burns drains Loch Ness to find the monster, but it turns out it's just the Loch Ness High School float - which is then stomped on by the real Loch Ness monster.
* The Gobblewonker from ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' turns out to be a robot controlled by local kook Old Man [=McGucket=]. Once again, there turns out to be a ''real'' Gobblewonker.
* The ''WesternAnimation/LoliRock'' episode "Legend of Lake Agnes" is an interesting case where the heroines themselves have to perform a ScoobyDooHoax on the civilians they're boating with to cover up the actual monster the villains have sent to attack them, ultimately convincing them that the lake monster "Aggie" is benevolent when "she" helps them out. Despite having to do this, [[TheHero Iris]] says in her narration that she still believes that not everything on Earth has been discovered. [[spoiler:Naturally, [[RealAfterAll we cut back to Lake Agnes...]]]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' episode, "[[Recap/ThomasAndFriendsS7E11BadDayAtCastleLoch Bad Day at Castle Loch]]", Donald and Douglas are sent to Lord Callan's castle to deliver party supplies for its reopening. On their way, the twins get trapped by a fallen tree and a landslide, having no choice but to spend the night where they are until help arrives to save them. During that night, the twins see a Loch Ness Monster-like shape in the mist, and worry it's the Monster out to get them. Fortunately for them, it was just Harvey the crane engine pushing the breakdown crane, and their arms gave them the appearance of the Monster's head and tail.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeroElementary'': Viral videos of lake monster "Soupie" chasing boaters prompt an investigation by the Sparks Crew, who discover it's actually [[spoiler: a sunken and algae-coated swan boat from a defunct water park, which passing lake vessels keep snagging and pulling to the surface]].

* ''VideoGame/MonsterQuest'', being a HiddenObjectGame about cryptids, naturally features this trope in the fourth mossion, where you investigate a lake monster in Mexico known as El Monstro, where a shopkeeper claims to own both a skeleton of its baby and sells actual scales of it as charms. Turns out the former is a forgery and the latter are garfish scales, both created to heklp attract customers and tourists to the shop.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/DinosaurKing''. It's not a submarine, it's an [[StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Amargasaurus]]. As per the trope, the real Nessie shows up at the end.

* And an inversion of this trope is found in the film ''The Water Horse''. Nessie -- or Crusoe, as she's called here -- gets shelled by the British Army. Well, they thought she ''was'' a submarine! Also played straight, to a degree. Two old men keep trying to get a picture of Crusoe, but fail every time. So they fake it by putting a boat upside down in the water to produce the famous picture of the neck sticking out of the water. Interestingly, as they're faking it, the real one was right on the other side of a tree, [[MissedHimByThatMuch in good view if they could've seen it]].

* Played with in ''VideoGame/DinosaurKing''. It's not a submarine, it's an Amargasaur. As per the trope, the real Nessie shows up at the end.

* In Creator/JulesVerne's ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', many early accounts of the ''Nautilus'''s attacks speculated that it was a supersized narwhal or some other sea monster. (The first chapter of the book includes [[ShoutOut Shout-Outs]] to several celebrated sea-serpent sightings.) Certainly the UrExample of this trope in fiction, as nobody was writing about submarines before Verne.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' episode, "[[Recap/ThomasTheTankEngineS7E11BadDayAtCastleLoch Bad Day at Castle Loch]]", Donald and Douglas are sent to Lord Callan's castle to deliver party supplies for its reopening. On their way, the twins get trapped by a fallen tree and a landslide, having no choice but to spend the night where they are until help arrives to save them. During that night, the twins see a Loch Ness Monster-like shape in the mist, and worry it's the Monster out to get them. Fortunately for them, it was just Harvey the crane engine pushing the breakdown crane, and their arms gave them the appearance of the Monster's head and tail.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine'' episode, "[[Recap/ThomasTheTankEngineS7E11BadDayAtCastleLoch Bad Day at Castle Loch]]", Donald and Douglas are sent to Lord Callan's castle to deliver party supplies for its reopening. On their way, the twins get trapped by a fallen tree and a landslide, having no choice but to spend the night where they are until help arrives to save them. During that night, the twins see a Loch Ness Monster-like shape in the mist, and worry it's the Monster out to get them. Fortunately for them, it was just Harvey the crane engine pushing the breakdown crane, and their arms gave them the appearance of the Monster's head and tail.

** This one is '''[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E4 "50 Ways to Leave Your 50-Foot Lover"]]''', a Anime/LupinIIIRedJacket episode. Fujiko's singing attracts the Loch Ness monster. Later on, when Lupin goes out onto the Loch, a Nessie-shaped submarine draws him in. The reason the sub was built? To catch the ''real'' Nessie - the scientist who built it has an Ahab complex towards the Loch Ness monster, and wants to use Fujiko to attract it so he can capture it.

* The ''WesternAnimation/LOLIrock'' episode "Legend of Lake Agnes" is an interesting case where the heroines themselves have to perform a ScoobyDooHoax on the civilians they're boating with to cover up the actual monster the villains have sent to attack them, ultimately convincing them that the lake monster "Aggie" is benevolent when "she" helps them out. Despite having to do this, [[TheHero Iris]] says in her narration that she still believes that not everything on Earth has been discovered. [[spoiler:Naturally, [[RealAfterAll we cut back to Lake Agnes...]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/ThePrivateLifeOfSherlockHolmes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nessie_sub.PNG]]]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0930.jpg]]

* ''The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes'' is probably the defining version of this trope. In this film, the Great Detective's brother, Mycroft, is directing top-secret development of Britain's first submarine in Loch Ness; an attached prop monster head keeps the local gentry fooled into thinking it's the beastie.