Blatant Lies/Western Animation
No Content. Empty Folder. Nothing at all, especially not Western Animation. We never touch the filthy stuff. Yuck.
- In earlier episodes of The Fairly OddParents, whenever Timmy would wish for something he would be completely unable to obtain under non-magical circumstances, he claims he purchased it off the Internet. In one episode, while trying to explain to his two friends why he was suddenly rich, he tried both an inheritance claim, and the usual claim, before settling on "I inherited the Internet!"[1]
- Another version, with singer Chip Skylark: "What? Dude, how'd we get here so fast?" "Um... the power of music?" "Rock on!"
- Perhaps the most Egregious example was when Timmy used this excuse to explain his heat-vision, while visiting a time before the Internet existed. They buy it.
- Weirdness is turned Up to Eleven when Vicky wants to get married to Chip Skylark. Where does she find a justice of the peace willing to marry a pop idol to his crazed teenage fan against his will? "On the Internet!"... Which implies that you really can get anything and everything on the Internet.
- Also:
Timmy: If you don't believe me, we can use my new lie detector!
Dad: Say! Where'd you get the nifty lie detector, son?
Timmy: Uhh... Internet?
Detector: *BUZZ!!*
- In Invader Zim, Zim claims his green skin and lack of ears is due to a skin condition. This is to assist in his Clark Kenting more than anything else.
- "LIES!" is actually one of Zim's favorite words. See here.
- In Lilo & Stitch: The Series, both big-boned aliens Gantu and Jumba (the latter of which has four eyes, and the former has the head of a shark and is also, oh, two stories tall) claim to be from Samoa, thus explaining their size. People believed it.
- In Johnny Test, Dukey the talking dog is explained as being "a kid with a weird hair disorder".
- In The Simpsons, Principal Skinner constantly uses these against Superintendent Chalmers, which Chalmers somehow always buys. Perhaps the greatest example, in which Skinner claims light from his burning kitchen is the "Aurora Borealis":
Chalmers: Aurora Borealis? At this time of year, at this time of the day, in this part of the country, LOCALIZED ENTIRELY WITHIN YOUR KITCHEN?
Skinner: Yes.
Chalmers: May I see it?
Skinner: No.
Chalmers: Oh well.
- And later, as Chalmers is leaving...
Skinner's mother: Seymour! The house is on fire!
Skinner: No mother, it's just the Northern Lights.
- On the DVD commentary for 22 Short Films About Springfield, the writers acknowledged that this was pretty much Superintendent Chalmers' only joke, and they just repeated it over and over again for comedic effect.
- Lisa tries to make friends by not acting like her normal self in "Summer of 4 Ft 2", and accidentally uses the word crustacean in conversation. When asked if she heard it from a teacher, she says she got it from Baywatch.
- Sideshow Bob captures and hypnotizes Bart in one episode; when questioned where he's been his programmed response is "at the Flower Shop." Homer then responds that he was also at the Flower Shop, "getting drunk at the old flower shop."
- Then there's Homer frantically instructing his family after stuffing his last-minute tax return with bogus deductions:
Homer: OK...if anyone asks, [Marge requires] twenty four hour nursing care, Lisa's a clergyman, Maggie is seven people, and Bart was wounded in Vietnam!
- After Comic Book Guy notes that each customer will receive only one autographed photo of Poochie:
CBG: Kindly make one out to me, and three out to my friend of the same name.
- In Four Great Women and a Manicure's Snow White parody, the dwarves - represented by Moe ("Crabby"), Barney ("Drunky"), Homer ("Hungry"), Burns ("Greedy"), Lenny, Kearney and Doc("...tor Hibbert") sing a song entitled "Ho Hi," an obvious parody of "Heigh Ho" which includes the lyrics "this song's not like any one you know."
- After crashing his car in "Mr. Plow":
Insurance Agent: Now, before I give you the check, one more question. This place Moe's you left just before the accident. This is a business of some kind?
Homer's brain: Don't tell him you were at a bar! But what else is open at night?
Homer: It's a pornography store. I was buying pornography.
Homer's brain: Heh heh heh. I would'a never thought of that.
- Word Girl, being a superhero Affectionate Parody, uses this in practically every episode through the title character's alibis alluding to her heroic identity.
- Code Lyoko. During any XANA attack while the gang is in class, they would ask to go to the infirmary. EVERY. FREAKING. TIME. You'd think that after, let's say, the millionth XANA attack and infirmary excuse the teachers would get a little suspicious that they aren't sick.
- Somewhat averted in the first season, when they would use a Return to the Past to erase the events of that day; so, the teachers wouldn't remember most incidents (though obviously Jim noticed).
- There was at least one later subversion, where the teacher didn't buy it and forced the gang to stay put. Oddly enough, it was one of the less-seen teachers, too.
- Good news, everyone!
- No-one believes it, though, not even himself.
Farnsworth: Good news everyone, I'm being brought up on disciplinary charges! Wait, that isn't good news at all!
- And:
Farnsworth: Now, I've often said "good news" when sending you on a mission of extreme danger. So when I say this anomaly is dangerous, you can imagine how dangerous I really think it is.
Hermes: Not dangerous at all?
Farnsworth: Actually, quite dangerous indeed.
Hermes: That is quite dangerous!
Farnsworth: Indeed.
- And:
Farnsworth: Good news, everyone! I'm afraid I have bad news.
- Lampshaded by Bender in one episode
Farnsworth: Good news, everyone!
Bender: Uh oh, I don't like the sound of this.
Farnsworth: Today, you'll be delivering a package to Trisol...
Bender: Here it comes.
Farnsworth: A mysterious planet in the darkest depths of the Forbidden Zone.
Bender: Thank you, and good night.
- Especially amusing as this was the first episode he said it.
- On Jimmy Two-Shoes, whenever Heloise does something that Jimmy disapproves of, she puts on Puppy Dog Eyes and says something along the lines of "I feel bad about it now." Even Jimmy doesn't fall for it.
- In another episode, after Lucius claims that he never breaks his word, Samy shows up with a group of orphans, saying they want to know when he was going to give him the food he promised. Lucius quickly says "Tell them you can't find me." Samy then turns to the kids right next to him and repeats the message. They believe him.
- Yet another example: after Jimmy finds all of his money gone, Beezy walks in covered in fur robes and jewelry. "Heloise took it."
- And yet again, when Jimmy and Beezy are profiting off the pandas love of Heloise. Beezy reads poorly off a cue card, while Jimmy acts hurt that she'd think that, while his suit is filled to the brim with money.
- Happy Tree Friends: The episode blurb for one of the episodes is "Is this really the end of the invulnerable Happy Tree Friends?"
- ...Though "invulnerable" may simply be referring to how, regardless of how horribly they died in previous episodes, the Tree Friends reappear at the beginning of the next one as if nothing happened.
- Happens in South Park a lot. It is played straight and even subverted, as in there have been times when even if someone is telling the truth someone will treat it like a lie. They mostly happens with Cartman when he lies- exhibit A:
Cartman: [Runs in crying] Maaaam! Maaaam!
Liane (Cartman's mom): Eric, what's the matter?
Cartman: I du-don't wu-wanna go to school tomorrow.
Liane: Sweetey? Shh, tell mommy what happened.
Cartman: Ku-kyle has a picture of meee! And he's gonna show everyone during show-and-tell and everyone's going to laugh at meeee!
Liane: What is the picture of, Eric?
Cartman: The last time when Butters spent the night, I was being really nice to hiiim, and I was gonna take a picture of him for his mom to have!
Liane: Oh, that's nice.
Cartman: When I took the picture, Butters got really hot so he pulled his pyjama bottoms down, and then I tripped and fell down and my mouth landed right on his penis, and then I thought of something funny so I smiled up at the camera and gave like a thumbsup, and then Kyle took the picture from me and he's going to show everybody and make them think I'm gaaaay! (continues sobbing)
Liane: Oh there, there Sweetey, it'll be okay! These things happen.
- Season 13 episode Pinewood Derby. Turns out humans don't deserve to be in the interstellar community because of their tendency to this trope.
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Azula demonstrates that she's too sociopathic to be read by Living Lie Detector Toph by announcing "I am a 400-foot tall purple platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings."
- Long Feng is reduced to this when desperate. It's a bit too blatant to pull off.
This is nothing more than... a construction project.
- And this line...
Katara: "I'M COMPLETELY CALM!!!"
- The Family Guy theme song is this. They sing about how TV and movies no longer have values and it makes you think this is going to have those. Instead the theme song opens up to a Dead Baby Comedy filled with Toilet Humor.
- When mindcontrolled by Stewie, Chris says he wants a buzz saw capable of cutting through the human sternum for Latin class.
- After farting in an elevator Peter says to the guy next to him, "Uh... it was you."
- In Transformers Animated, Starscream's clone squadron is based on parts of his own personality. The liar clone is apparently incapable of saying a word of truth, to the point that it's basically opposite day for him 365 days a year.
- In Teen Titans, Starfire is trying to hide Silkie in her room in "Can I Keep Him?"
- In the very first episode of ReBoot, Megabyte employs several methods of persuasion to convince Bob to open him a portal to the Supercomputer for what is totally an entirely benign visit.
Bob: (raises an eyebrow and jerks his thumb to the side) And these?
(Cut to large army of infected sprites snapping to attention)
Megabyte: Oh, just some, ah, colleagues, to make my visit, shall we say, comfortable.
- The title character of Rango wows the crowd in the saloon by claiming to have killed the Jenkins Brothers with one bullet. All seven of them.
- Octus has to "go to the bathroom" a lot. With his brother and sister. His girlfriend eventually gives up trying to get him to say exactly what they're doing, but she's not too happy about the situation.
- In Ugly Americans clone Mark briefly tries to come up with the explanation that the real Mark is actually his twin brother...who lives in a bag in the closet, before giving up, shooting Grimes, and leaving.
- Space Jam: after Michael Jordan is sucked down the magical portal in a golf hole, his assistant tries to dig him out. Naturally, someone finds him standing waist-deep in a huge hole in the middle of the course and asks what he's doing. "Um ... I'm fixing a divot." The guy buys it.
- The trailer for the upcoming movie Arthur Christmas has an elf blatantly denying everything the viewer sees on screen:
Go away! There's nothing to see. That's not Santa's son. And I am not an elf. There's nothing up here. Or down there. There's no army of 1.6 million elves planning the delivery of 2 billion gifts in one night. That's just a story for kids!
- In The Venture Brothers, this is pretty much all that comes out of Dermott's mouth. One clear example is him spending the day stating his hands are registered as lethal weapons, only to get beat up by Dean in a Wimp Fight. Later claims he was simply sick at the time.
- Kuzco gets a lot of these in The Emperors New School. No-one believes the majority of the lies he tries to pull off, but he's usually much too self-centered and over-confident to realize this. However, there are times when he even he realizes that he told a bad lie and proceeds by breaking the fourth wall to inform the audience of this.
- Played with hilariously when he tries to get rid of the handsome rock star Dirk Brock in the Musical episode, only to find he can't come up with anything... at first.
Kuzco: "Woo-hoo! I did it! I sand-bagged Dirk Brock!"
Malina "Kuzco, what are you doing!?"
Kuzco: "...Uhhhhhhhh-" (breaks the fourth wall to try and think of something) "Think, Kuzco! Think! Thinkety-think-think-think-think... GOT IT!" (starts playing the episode again) "...Uhhh. I meant to say I saved Dirk Brock! From a ravenous, rabid sand-bag!"
Malina: "Done?"
Kuzco: "Yep."
Malina: "HOW COULD YOU!?"
- Suburban daredevil Kick Buttowski tries to pull this off twice, despite his reputation of loving the extreme, awesome and death-defying everyday life that he lives... by telling Kendall he loves sappy, romantic movies and then in a later episode tells Gordie that lipstick is his favorite make-up.
- Camp Lazlo: Raj resorts to an increasingly improbable series of lies to explain Clam's absence in "Where's Clam?", culminating in him attempting to claim that a traffic cone and a bag of chips is Clam, and then that Clam is invisible and flying.
- In Aqua Teen Hunger Force, pretty much everything that comes out of Master Shake's mouth fits this trope.
- At the conclusion of "Practical Pig," the fourth of the Disney "Three Little Pigs" cartoons, the two little brothers get caught by Practical Pig's lie-detector machine, and are spanked by it. Practical Pig tells them, "This hurts me more than it does you." The lie-detector reacts accordingly.
- ↑ A later episode showing the same events from the friends' perspective shows that they didn't buy it.