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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"October 30, 1938, New York City: [[Orson Welles]] broadcasts ''[[The War of the Worlds (
|'''''[[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]].
{{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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* 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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* The three main series ''[[Dinotopia]]'' books were mostly written in the format of the journals of Arthur Denison as found by James Gurney.
== [[Live
* Entire show examples:
** ''[[Reno 911!]]'', a specific parody of the ''[[COPS (series)|COPS]]'' style reality-documentary.
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* Harry Enfield starred in ''Norbert Smith: A Life'', about a fictional actor (with plenty of clips from horribly plausible bad British films) and ''Norman Ormal: A Very Political Turtle'', about a fictional Conservative cabinet minister.
* 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.
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* ''[[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 century—the ''first'' comedic film duo, as it happens. The doc is presented without irony, but the content of it is [[Rule of Funny|so absurd]] and it turns [[Inherently Funny Words]] [[Up to Eleven|up so high]] that you can't help but laugh.
* 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]]''—a rare animated example. Your basic sports story done in documentary fashion... [[Everything's Better with Penguins|with penguins!]]
** 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.
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