Scooby-Doo Hoax: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

''He's fake!''|'''Skycycle''', "The Ghost Is Here", feat. in ''[[Scooby Doo on Zombie Island]]''.}}

* Despite stereotypes to the contrary, a large number of the aliens that [[Batman]] fought during the [[Silver Age]] (especially in his own books) were actually ordinary crooks dressed up like aliens. In one case, a gang of crooks actually made up an entire planet, built fake alien technology, and pretended to be invading Earth simply to cover up their scheme.

* Variation: [[Superman]] and the Iranian superhero Sirocco once took down an apparent terrorist squad, only for Sirocco to reveal that they are just people who pretend to be terrorists. By scaring people into evacuating places with phony bomb-threats and such, they can rob places at their leisure.

== [[Film]] ==

** ''[[Scooby Doo Mystery Inc]]'': [[Playing with a Trope|Plays with it.]] Has a similar idea to ''Witch's Ghost'' of using the fake monster attacks as part of the tourism by ''pretending'' they're real. They even arrest Mystery Inc for trying to ''stop'' the criminal. One episode averted the trope by having the villain as an insane [[Trap Master]], who never tried to hide the fact that he just an ordinary man. However, in a subversion, his insanity is strongly implied to have been caused by an [[Artifact of Doom]].

* ''[[Max Steel]]'', "Sphinxes": The heroes investigate a pyramid and after discovering the hoax, [[Genre Savvy]] [[Ascended Fanboy]] Max reports that it's a "[[Scooby Doo]]" and explains what he means to his [[British Stuffiness|Stuffy British]] partner.

'''Rachel''' (puzzled): Scooby-what?<br />

'''Max''': (groan) [[Genre Blind|Your ignorance is frightening]]. When the bad guys are up to no good, they use local lore to scare away the curious. That's the Scooby Way.<br />