History Main / RelativelyFlimsyExcuse

* Franchise/{{Superman}}:
** In Pre-Flashpoint Creator/DCComics "[[ComicBook/{{Superboy}} Conner Kent]]" is Clark's cousin who is being raised by Martha and Jonathan following his own parents' deaths, and "[[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Linda Lang]]" is Comicbook/LanaLang's niece.
** Likewise when Clark and ComicBook/LoisLane adopt Chris in ''ComicBook/LastSon'', they claim that he's the son of Clark's cousin. Or... Lois' cousin? Dang it, where are those forged papers again?

** In Silver Age story ''Adventure Comics'' #278, ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} goes back in time and she meets Pa and Ma Kent. As she remains in Smallville, she pretends to be Linda Kent, niece of Jonathan and Martha.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}''

* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIBetterThanLife Better Than Life]]", when Arnold Rimmer meets Napoleon: "Could you just sign this for me. Make it out to my good pal Arnie from your dear chum Napoleon Bonaparte. It's not for me, it's for my sister Alison. ...we call her Arnie."

* ''Series/TheSentinel'', Jim pretends that Blair is 'his cousin's kid' to get him an Observer's pass.

* In the short-lived 1988 sci-fi ''Something Is Out There'', Jack Breslin explains the sudden appearance of HumanAlien Ta'Ra in his life as his "cousin from Milwaukee". Given that she's rather attractive and he's never mentioned this cousin before, [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend his friends are understandably skeptical]].
* ''Series/PaperGirls'': After a DNA test proving who Mac is, her brother knows telling the hospital counselor that she's his dead sister who somehow traveled through time won't work. So he spins that the DNA test indicated Mac is his illegitimate daughter to get the counselor to hush this up while he gets Mac out of there. He then sells to his wife Mac is a distant cousin so she can stay with them. He even considers selling the idea of Mac's "mom" dying so she can be adopted by them, with Mac jokingly saying if that happens, she won't be calling him "dad".

* On an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' the eponymous character is hoping his crush Patty will ask him to the [[HighSchoolDance Bumpkin Day Hoedown.]] However, Connie asks him out instead, and it doesn't help that [[spoiler: at this point, anyway]], Connie is [[HollywoodHomely plain]] and [[HollywoodPudgy pudgy]]. So Doug tells her he can't go to the dance because he has to take care of his sick cousin Melvin. These being his friends, of course, they believe him and decide to go bring flowers and comics to "Melvin," so he has his sister Judy climb into bed and fake the part. (And of course, Judy spontaneously decides that "Melvin" has a miraculously recovery and wants to go to the dance too.)

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePony'' episode "Father Knows Beast" a dragon named Sludge claims to be Spike's father, telling him in song to bring all the comforts of pony life from Spike's room to him because "You Can't Be a Dragon Here." It's later revealed that he's just a couch hopper who saw an opportunity in a younger dragon's presence.
''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'':
** Green Arrow claims that Artemis is his niece to justify her being his new protege. [[spoiler: She actually just wanted to hide the fact that her real family are all villains]]. Red Arrow figures it out right away (he was, after all, Green Arrow's foster son), and a few other Team members figure it out before she reveals the truth.

Later on, she moves into Matsuri's house and tells Lu they're siblings. Lu notices they're clearly different ethnicities, which Rochka takes as an excuse to reveal her real identity. Lu pretends to agree, [[CassandraTruth but actually just assumes they're half-siblings]]... until she decides Matsuri and Rochka are both ''aliens''.

** Regular humans' WeirdnessCensor let jinyo, one type of humanoid ayakashi, suddenly show up and [[FakeMemories be treated as if they were already living there]]. In [[spoiler:Shadow Mei]]'s case, she starts attending school with Suzu ([[spoiler:the reincarnation of part of her soul]]) and people believe she's her cousin.

* [[AlienAmongUs Ax]] is introduced as Jake's "cousin Phillip" when he tries to visit their school in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', though to be fair, [[VoluntaryShapeshifting his disguise]] does include DNA from Jake and his actual cousin. They don't seem to think about the fact that Jake's brother and their school's vice principal are both enslaved by the mind-controlling aliens the Animorphs are fighting and could tear this story apart if they were to encounter "Phillip" ... Though this could be justified in that Jake's brother doesn't seem to go to their school and the vice principal presumably doesn't have every student's family tree memorized.
** In another book somebody walks into a restaurant bathroom when Marco is halfway between human and bird form. Jake quickly throws a sweatshirt over him and claims to be helping his baby brother use the bathroom. When one of the onlookers comments on Marco's obviously bizarre appearance Jake just acts offended.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheKingOfOmashu The King of Omashu]]", Katara and Sokka put Aang in a disguise and pretend that he's their grandfather in order to get past the guards at the city gates.
** In a season 3 episode, they go the other way around - it's ''Sokka'' who dons the fake beard, and claims he and Katara are Aang's parents when he needs some for a parent-teacher conference (he'd unwittingly enrolled in a Fire Nation school when a truant officer spotted him in a stolen school uniform and mistook him for a student who was trying to skip class).

* ''Film/Logan2017'': While having dinner with the Munson family, Logan, Laura, and Charles Xavier pretend to be father, daughter, and grandfather. In a deleted scene, Xavier claims Jean Grey was Laura's mother.

** Lucoa masquerades as Shouta's older older sister. Despite them looking nothing alike and Lucoa's constant attempts to [[BrotherSisterIncest flirt with Shouta]], nobody thinks twice about it.

* In the ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' / ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' crossover ''Fanfic/FateStarryNight'', Ritsuka Fujimira, in order to get Rin Tohsaka's attention, claims to her classmates that he is her brother returning from abroad. It fairly works since Ritsuka looks like a GenderFlip version of Rin. This ends up backfiring, as Sakura, Rin's actual sibling, comes to the false conclusion that he's yet another replacement for her as a Tohsaka, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero further undermining her mental stability and bringing her closer to unleashing the Shadow]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'', Gru tells his newly adopted daughters that his 1000+ yellow, gibberish-talking minions are his cousins.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty [=McFly=] introduces Doc Brown to his teenage mother as his "uncle."

'''Sullivan:''' *{{Beat}}* Which makes her my ''daughter.''

* In ''[[Literature/{{Twilight}} Breaking Dawn]]'', Edward tells Bella's father that Renesme is his niece that they're adopting. The kid is obviously their own, as she looks like Edward with Bella's eyes, but Charlie goes along with it because he doesn't want to know how they conceived and had a toddler [[ExpressDelivery within one month]].

* When the ComicBook/{{Runaways}} moved to Malibu and had to deal with neighbors, Xavin posed as their father. Even for a Super-Skrull, [[{{Pun}} it was a stretch.]]

* In ''Film/MyFavoriteMartian'', Tim tries to tell his neighbour that his "guest" is in fact a Martian but she mishears it as "Martin" which the alien capitalizes on, interrupting a string of "Uhs" for uncle, thus getting the alias Uncle Martin.

* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'':

* In ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'', Mahiro's entire UnwantedHarem pretend to be related to him, despite not looking like him ''at all''. They did this one by one, making it seem even less likely.

* ''Manga/ToLoveRu'': Rito tells people Lala is a distant relative to excuse her InnocentCohabitation. No one really pays any attention to this fact, seeing as she loudly declared that she was his bride, and it's not like she's subtle in her affections either, subverting the whole point of the lie.

* On an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' the eponymous character is hoping his crush Patty will ask him to the [[SadieHawkinsDance Bumpkin Day Hoedown.]] However, Connie asks him out instead, and it doesn't help that [[spoiler: at this point, anyway]], Connie is [[HollywoodHomely plain]] and [[HollywoodPudgy pudgy]]. So Doug tells her he can't go to the dance because he has to take care of his sick cousin Melvin. These being his friends, of course, they believe him and decide to go bring flowers and comics to "Melvin," so he has his sister Judy climb into bed and fake the part. (And of course, Judy spontaneously decides that "Melvin" has a miraculously recovery and wants to go to the dance too.)

* When ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' is disturbed in bed with a prostitute by a bishop, he haltingly introduces her as his mother. Given that she looks younger than him that's implausible enough, but it turns out that the bishop is also a regular client ''of the same prostitute'' and knows exactly who she is.

* When '''Series/{{Blackadder}}''' is disturbed in bed with a prostitute by a bishop, he haltingly introduces her as his mother. Given that she looks younger than him that's implausible enough, but it turns out that the bishop is also a regular client ''of the same prostitute'' and knows exactly who she is.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SymBionicTitan'', Lance and Alana pretend to be brother and sister and that Octus is their father. Octus' ''other'' persona, a teenage student named Newton, is apparently presented as some other relative, as no one questions him only ever being at the same house outside school.

* Inverted tn the Series/FaerieTaleTheatre version of ''Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp'': the "Evil Moroccan Magician" that convinces Aladdin to delve into the cave and retrieve the lamp does so by pretending to be Aladdin's long lost Uncle. Aladdin's mother calls him on it, stating that her deceased husband never mentioned having a brother, but the magician plays it off.

Compare BlatantLies, which is more general. May often lead to UndeadTaxExemption in a situation where paperwork would be required. May be a form of SheIsNotMyGirlfriend. RelativeError is an inversion, where another character mistakes two relatives for a couple. PretendingToBeOnesOwnRelative is a related trope where the relation the character fakes is to ''themself''.

* ''Series/PaperGirls'': After a DNA test proving who Mac is, her brother knows telling the hospital counselor that she's his dead sister who somehow traveled through time won't work. So he spins that the DNA test indicated Mac is his "daughter" to get the counselor to hush this up while he gets Mac out of there. He then sells to his wife Mac is a distant "niece," so she can stay with them. He even considers selling the idea of Mac's "mom" dying so she can be adopted by them, with Mac refusing as calling her brother her "dad" is a bit much.