Mockumentary: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"October 30, 1938, New York City: [[Orson Welles]] broadcasts ''[[The War of the Worlds (radio)|The War of the Worlds]]'', sending the nation into panic over a supposed alien invasion. Amazed by its success, Welles planned an ambitious follow-up: an innovative radio adaptation of [[Walt Whitman]]'s ''Leaves of Grass'', in which the famed poem is expressed in a series of fake news bulletins and incredible sound effects (the majestic "yawp" is accomplished using a glass bottle and a balloon). Listeners fall for it again: Across America, hysterical citizens run through the streets singing the body electric, and falling in love with teenage boys."''
|'''''[[More Information Than You Require]]'''''}}
A fictional drama that poses as a documentary. When not an outright comedy (such as ''[[This Is Spinal Tap]]''), the [[Mockumentary]] almost always involves some kind of disaster (even the BBC's recent one about a space voyage involved a crew member dying). Fake news reports done by real life newsreaders are common, along with interviews with 'experts', real or fictional. A Mockumentary will often provoke controversy.
The BBC did a lot of Mockumentaries in the late 2000s (to the point of two or three a month). One BBC newsreader commented he did news reports for these programmes about twice a month.
Due to the miracle of computer-generated animation, the [[Discovery Channel]] has also taken to making mockumentaries about wildlife that no longer exists, such as dinosaurs, or has never existed, such as dragons, in the "filmed in their natural habitat" format.
See also: the [[Documentary Episode]], a [[Framing Device]] or [[Plots|plot]] used for certain episodes on a drama or comedy series. Meanwhile, the [[Faux Documentary]] is what a Mockumentary becomes when it often discards the constraints of a supposed documentary crew. Also see [[Left It In]], when people in the documentary directly request (to the camera) that something be cut or edited out, a request that is denied, since you, the viewer, still get to see it. [[Fictional Document]] is a more generic case that isn't used to tell the whole story.
Compare [["Faux To" Guide]], [[Speculative Documentary]], [[Log Fic]], and [[Wildlife Commentary Spoof]]. Contrast: [[Documentary]], [[Documentary of Lies]].▼
▲Compare [["Faux To" Guide]], [[Speculative Documentary]]. Contrast: [[Documentary]], [[Documentary of Lies]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[The Idolmaster (anime)|THE iDOLM@STER]]'' - The first episode.
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* [[Big Bang Comics]] published a two issue ''History of Big Bang Comics'', which detailed the fictional history of the comic book publisher whose [[Golden Age]] and [[Silver Age]] stories they were supposedly reprinting.
== [[Fan
* Played with in ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'', where Misato watches a [[Show Within a Show]] ''Instructional Lessons For the Youth of Today and Stuff'', which hilariously depicts the Hedgehog's Dilemma.
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* ''[[Cloverfield]]'' (2008) -- [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever]], documented on a handheld camcorder by an ordinary schlub.
* ''[[District 9]]'' (2009) is filmed partially in this style, with documentary segments and interviews about the history of the alien presence on Earth interspersed with conventionally shot scenes.
* [[Woody Allen]]'s ''[[Zelig]]''
** Also ''[[Sweet And Lowdown]]'', about a (non-existent) jazz guitarist Emmett Ray.
** As well as his first directorial effort, ''[[Take the Money And Run]]'', about a famously incompetent criminal.
** One could also make a case for ''[[Husbands and Wives]]''.
* The first ''[[Saw]]'' movie had one of these on the Special Edition DVD that attempted to portray the events of the movie as real.
* ''[[The Mating Habits Of The Earthbound Human]]''
* ''[[Being Michael Madsen]]'' is a mockumentary movie in which the Rayban-wearing, gravelly-voiced actor Michael Madsen uses the fact that he's best known for playing ear-severing psychos to great effect. He is making a movie when a young female star disappears, and he is somehow involved...
* Much of ''[[The Beatles|A Hard Day's Night]]'' was filmed in
* Peter Jackson's ''Forgotten Silver'', the story of a fictional New Zealand film pioneer Colin McKenzie. According to the material Jackson "discovered" in this movie, McKenzie was the first man to make audio film and color film, and one piece of footage proves that a New Zealandic inventor created the world's first working flying machine.
* ''[[Borat]][[Overly Long Name|: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.]]''
** And ''[[Bruno]]''.
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* The Belgian [[Black Comedy|pitch-black comedy]] ''[[Man Bites Dog]]'' is about [[Affably Evil]] [[Serial Killer]] being followed around by a film crew. The documentary style made the [[Gorn|violence]] even more disturbing by giving viewers the uneasy feeling that they're watching a [[Snuff Film]].
* ''Fear Of A Black Hat'' (1994) -- [[X Meets Y|Spinal Tap meets Hip-Hop]]
* ''[[Brothers Of The Head]]'' about conjoined twins in the 1970s '''sold''' by their father to be stars in a freakish rock band.
* The segment of the character Jack Rollins/Pastor John in ''[[I'm Not There]]'' is presented as a mockumentary.
* ''My Winnipeg'' is a "docufantasia" with a collection of stories about Winnipeg (most of which are wildly distorted exaggerations of actual events and persons) and angry rants about how the status quo isn't being preserved and how women are pathetic.
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* ''...And God Spoke'' (1994) -- Chronicles two ambitious filmmakers as they attempt to create a big-budget Biblical epic.
* ''[[The Poughkeepsie Tapes]]'' is a horror movie in this style. In a rare example for the horror genre, this was made to look like an actual documentary, rather than just shaky cam.
* The premise of independent UK thriller ''Exhibit A'' is that the footage we're
* ''[[Cannibal Holocaust]]'' (1980)
* The short film ''[[Badly Drawn Roy]]'' is about Ireland's first cartoon baby being interviewed for the first time for a documentary. Incidentally, [[Roger Rabbit Effect|his family is live-action]]. It's got more genuine drama in it than the premise would suggest.
* ''[[Behind the Mask]]: The Rise of Leslie Vernon'' is about a group of documentary filmmakers following a wannabe [[Slasher Movie|slasher killer]] who wishes to be the next [[Friday the 13th|Jason]] or [[A Nightmare on Elm Street|Freddy]]. Most of the movie is done in this style, showing his preparations for his coming killing spree, before turning into a conventional slasher flick in the last fifteen minutes.
* ''Las Hurdes'' by [[Luis Bunuel]] falls halfway between this trope and [[Documentary of Lies]]. He did actually go to poor areas of Spain to shoot and was addressing real social issues, but some events appear to have been staged or restaged and at least a few of the statements made by the [[Unreliable Narrator]] are [[Blatant Lies]]. How much is true and how much isn't is just part of a surrealist package.
* ''[[Kenny]]'' is 2006 Australian mockumenray following the life of a plumber who works for a corporate bathroom rental company.
* ''[[Louisiana Story]]'' (1948): Made by the man who made ''[[Nanook of the North]]'', but scripted and made to promote the agenda of Standard Oil.
== [[Literature]] ==
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Entire show examples:
** ''[[Reno 911!]]'', a specific parody of the ''[[
** Canadian comedy series ''[[Trailer Park Boys]]'' has the premise of being a documentary that follows the day-to-day lives of several guys who live in a trailer park. Occasionally, even the "film crew" gets involved, such as when the mike boom guy takes a stray bullet in the leg.
** ''[[The Office]]'' and all its imitators, including the German counterpart ''[[Stromberg]]''.
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** ''[[Modern Family]]''
** ''[[People Like Us]]'', a 1999-2001 British production that skewers the traditional BBC documentary style.
* The ''[[Time Trumpet]]'' was a British program that aired
* Coming in a few months before ''[[This Is Spinal Tap]]'', ''[[The Comic Strip Presents]] ...'' episode "Bad News Tour" (and the sequel several years later, "More Bad News") follows a group of heavy metal wannabes and willneverbees. There are a couple of scenes where the 'musicians' (actually comedians, though that didn't stop them touring) interact with the documentary makers.
* ''[[The War Game]]'' (1965) -- Britain before, during and after a nuclear attack. Not actually shown in the UK until 1985 because the Home Office claimed it would affect the 'mentally unstable'. Others claimed it was because it exposed the government's post-attack plans as ineffective. Scary as all hell.
* ''[[Alternative Three|Alternative 3]]'' (1978) -- The final episode of ITV's documentary program ''Science Report'' was a mockumentary which, in the course of investigating the problem of leading British scientists moving abroad, reported, among other things, that they were actually being shuttled to Mars to avoid imminent environmental catastrophe. A video clip of the secret first Martian landing (''in 1962'') shows the astronauts under attack by a monstrous being as the camera is destroyed. Depite all the clues about its true nature, a number of people ''still believe in the "documentary:''. On [[YouTube]], the Mars landing scene has the label "Reconstructed or real document?" Meaning either [[Based On Fact]], or real footage.
* ''[[Special Bulletin]]'' (1983) -- An NBC-produced movie about a nuclear standoff in the port of Charleston, SC, which caused mild panic despite frequent disclaimers that the work was fictional. The final scenes of the film drop the conceit in a time-skip to several months afterward.
* ''[[Countdown to Looking Glass]]'' (1984) - A fairly unexceptional made-for-TV movie about news broadcasts on the verge of guess-what.
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* ''[[Without Warning]]'' (1994) -- Telefilm involving a bunch of asteroids headed for Earth, made as a long special news report. Features a cameo from [[Arthur C. Clarke]].
** Despite the commercial wipes clearly depicting it as a work of fiction, television networks received a high number of calls from viewers duped into thinking it was real.
* ''[[Curse Of The Blair Witch]]'' (1999) -- A Sci-Fi channel broadcast produced as a tie-in with ''[[The Blair Witch Project]]'', itself a mockumentary of sorts. The program investigated the film as though it were an actual document of real events, investigates the history of the Blair Witch and other disappearances, and features faux "experts" and townspeople reporting their experiences. Caused much public confusion over whether the story was true or not, and to this day visitors to Burkittsville, MD ask to see fictional landmarks such as the "Witch's Rock".
** A similar faux-historical retrospective was released directly to DVD, to accompany Stephen King's two-part TV movie ''Rose Red''.
* ''[[Smallpox Britain]]'' (2002) -- A terrorist unleashes smallpox in Britain.
* ''[[The Day Britain Stopped]]'' (2003) -- lots of traffic problems cause gridlock.
* ''[[Supervolcano]]'' (2005) -- What is likely to happen ''when'' Yellowstone erupts.
* ''Tout ça (ne nous rendra pas la Belgique)'' (2006) -- A hoax news broadcast aired on December
* ''[[Series/If|If]]?''
* ''[[Trailer Park Boys]]''
* ''[[The Lost World (novel)|The Lost World]]''
* ''[[When Cars Attack]]''
* ''[[Jimmy Macdonalds Canada|Jimmy Macdonald's Canada]]''
* In the British series ''[[Prehistoric Park]]'', the main character uses a [[Time Travel|time portal]] to bring dinosaurs to a modern nature preserve. In spite of the ''[[Jurassic Park]]''
** This series follows from ''Walking With Dinosaurs'' and its sequels ''Walking with Beasts'' and ''Walking with Cavemen'', as well as its prequel, ''Walking with Monsters''. All of these were filmed like National Geographic-esque nature documentaries, complete with [[Camera Abuse]], except that they rotated around prehistoric life portrayed using a variety of special effects. Also in the series - and far more mockumentary in tone - was ''Chased by Dinosaurs'', starring Nigel Marven again, which was basically ''Walking with Dinosaurs'' [[X Meets Y|meets]] ''The Crocodile Hunter''; and ''Sea Monsters / Chased By Sea Monsters'', which also starred Nigel and was a countdown of the seven deadliest prehistoric oceans and their top predators (orthicones (shelled squids); ''Cymbospondylus'' (a type of icthyosaur); ''Dunkleosteus''; ''Basilosaurus'' (an ancient whale); ''Carcharadon megaladon''; ''Liopleurodon''; a menagerie of beasties (mosasaurs, sharks, monstrous fish, six-foot toothed seabirds). Nigel went shark-cage diving with a megalodon, and [[Shark Attack 3: Megalodon|John Barrowman]] wasn't invited.
* A local example: the comedy-sketch show ''[[Almost Live]]!'' used to be produced by and air on the NBC affiliate in Seattle, Washington. One week (on April Fools Day) they "interrupted" the show with a serious-seeming "newscast" which announced that the landmark Space Needle had fallen over in a windstorm. Enough people believed the report that the station later issued a formal apology.
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' did this for one episode: And Now For A Word. They used it to subtly establish the nature and biases of the in-universe mainstream media, before they became plot-important.
* The ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]'' episode "The Interview" was presented as a TV documentary in black & white.
* Also from ''[[The Comic Strip Presents]]'', the episode "Eddie Monsoon, A Life" is a mockumentary about an insane, failed TV host.
* ''[[Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real]]'', follows the discovery of the body of a real dragon, and shows the science that would justify the evolution of such a creature.
* ''T-Rex: A Dinosaur in Hollywood'' follows the artistic career of Mr. T-rex from his discovery to becoming one of the greatest stars in the world. Follows the [[Real Life]] story of how he became a cultural icon.
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* ''Life Beyond The Box'' was a series of two [[The BBC|BBC]] mockumentaries looking at the lives of 1970s sitcom characters [[Porridge|Norman Stanley Fletcher]] and [[The Good Life|Margot Leadbetter]]. The former reunited the cast of the original; the latter didn't, with even Margot herself being [[The Other Darrin|Other Darrined]].
* A British news show in the '50s played an April Fool on its audience, doing a segment about how spaghetti grows on trees. Pasta not being a common foodstuff there at the time, a lot of British viewers had no clue it was fake, and phoned the BBC to ask how they could grow their own spaghetti trees.
* ''Operation Repo'' is a series on TruTV] that is about repomen and it is filmed like [[
* One of the earlier examples: ''[[The Rutles]]: All You Need is Cash'', mocking documentaries of The Beatles, and one of Rob Reiner's inspirations for [[Spinal Tap]].
* ''[[Lost Tapes]]'' plays at being the tapes of people who encountered cryptozoological
* The [[Animal Planet]] movie ''Werewolves: Dark Survivors'' [[X Meets Y|is a mockumentary about werewolves in the format of a]] [[Crime Drama]].
* William Karel's 2002 TV "film" [[The Dark Side of the Moon]] purported to be about how NASA and Hollywood had conspired to fake the Apollo moon landings, complete with heavyweight guest stars, including Buzz Aldrin and Stanley Kubrick's widow. In spite of the blooper reel featured over the end credits (not to mention an on-screen acknowledgement that it was all made up) some people still believe that it provides evidence for the Apollo landings being a hoax!
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* Many, if not all of the ''[[Top Gear]]'' Challenges. Crossing a dessert in Africa or a reaching the North Pole in a car appear as very genuine documentaries about cars in extreme environments. But then you have others that include things like Jeremy hilariously rolling over a car in the background of a live news broadcast or the Stig falling with a car from the deck of an aircraft carrier and dying. Or the one in which they tried to test cars for their usefulnes as getaway cars and robbed a bank in Croatia and got in a chase with the police during which James died by jumping of a cliff, only to be back the next episode.
* The [[Animal Planet]] documentary ''[[Mermaids]], about the fictional discovery of a mermaid-like body and the supposed science behind it.
* ''[[X-Files]]'' had the episode ''X-Cops'', which was an episode done in the format of the ''[[COPS (series)||Cops]]'' show that purported to be footage of an X-Files case.
== [[Radio]] ==
* ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'' (1938): This [[Trope Maker]] was a [[Radio Drama]] adaptation of the HG Wells novel, written and directed by Orson Welles as part of his Mercury Theatre of the Air program on CBS radio. The first half of the program was presented as a [[Phony Newscast]], the overwhelming versimilitude of which - coupled with heightened public anxiety over the prospect of war in Europe - resulted in many listeners believing the play to be an actual news broadcast on a Martian invasion. The resulting panic, though not nearly as wide-ranging or destructive as legend would later have it, boosted Welles' career and resulted in numerous FCC regulations requiring disclaimers in future mockumentaries.
* ''[[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue]]: In Search of Mornington Crescent'', in which BBC reporter Andrew Marr talks to great players of the Game from Humphrey Lyttelton to Dame [[Judi Dench]] in order to learn why the rules are [[Calvin Ball|so hard to discover]].
== Video Games ==
* The cutscenes from ''Urban Chaos: Riot Response'' are filmed like an actual news report. My mom thought there was an actual terrorist attack for a few seconds until I told her it was my game.
* ''[[Michigan: Report From Hell]]'' is a ''playable'' Mockumentary, where you're trying to get the scoop at what's happening in Chicago. {{spoiler|[[Shaggy Dog Story|Nobody survives]].}}
== Web Original ==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9do_Hr3NaWY This Campus Movie Fest best comedy winner] uses the Mockumentary approach, detailing the careers of a fictional comedy duo from the early twentieth
* The "Trope Of The Week" series ''[[Echo Chamber]]'' is a [[Show Within a Show]] - the characters are creating a vlog for [[TV Tropes]], and ''[[Echo Chamber]]'' details the process the characters go through in order to make that vlog happen. {{spoiler|It doesn't.}}
* The amazing ''[[Harry Potter]]''
* ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj8UOdFs5Go&context=C3de6871ADOEgsToPDskKNlqODDsL4mW0GosRCicuu Hearts of Dorkness]'', which has a [[Web Original]] page in progress, is a mockumentary akin to ''[[Tropic Thunder]]''{{'}}s ''Rain of Madness'', a satire of ''Hearts of Darkness'', in this case being a teenager-produced shoestring-budget short that chronicles four geeks and their catastrophic efforts to create a 200 million dollar Skyrim film. .on a budget of their pocket change.
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Surf's Up]]''
** Which obviously owes something to the Eighties-era animated sports mockumentary ''[[Animalympics]]''. With the major difference being that ''Animalympics'' had no central character, no unifying narrative, and was loaded to the brim with celebrity and pop culture references of the day. In contrast, ''Surfs Up'' follows a limited cast of characters on a definite story arc, with cultural references being narrowed to the archetypes often seen in sportsdocs.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'': The "documentary" episode ''Behind the Laughter'' from the 11th season.
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